Gottman Four Horsemen Worksheet for the Hour

When a couple asks for a Gottman four horsemen worksheet, hand them the Four Horsemen and Their Antidotes worksheet from the Gottman Institute. Those boxes are theirs. The four lines above are what you say in the hour. Do not retype the Institute’s grid into a handout.

You can coach one antidote without an email. The cycle map is for a different hour, when the fight is a pursue-withdraw loop and a horseman name is too coarse.

Lena says the “you always” line. Chris looks at the floor and stops answering. You do not need a new theory tonight. You need the horseman you can hear, and you coach one antidote, not all four.

Lena and Chris are a composite, so you can hear the move. Do not read these lines to every couple, and do not paste them into a chart as if they said them. If the thin floor is already the multi-week job, write that goal on the couples therapy treatment plan. The plan is the arc. These lines are the hour.

Educational material for licensed clinicians. Not Gottman Method training, not a substitute for your risk procedure, and not a worksheet to reprint.

Coach one horseman

Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling are the four horsemen the Gottman Institute teaches you to catch in a conflict. Their point is not that a fight predicts the end. It is that unmanaged conflict does. You manage it. You do not promise to settle every difference in the room.

Gottman and Levenson (1992) tied observed marital behavior and physiology to later dissolution. Gottman (1993) followed conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance across couple types. Carrère and Gottman (1999) found that the first three minutes of a newlywed conflict discussion predicted later divorce. That is why you coach the opening before you coach the clever middle. The Gottman four horsemen worksheet they take home is still the Institute PDF, not a grid you redraw between sessions.

Which horseman is actually in the room? Pick that one. A couple who hears a start-up, an appreciation, an apology, and a timeout in twelve minutes learns that you will keep adding maneuvers until something sticks.

Criticism attacks character. A complaint names one behavior. “You always” and “you never” are the usual tells. The antidote is a gentle start-up: what they feel, what they need, and a respectful ask. The Institute puts the formula as two questions you can hand them. What do I feel? What do I need? In the composite, Lena’s opener is criticism. The practice line keeps the hurt and names Saturday. It does not call Chris selfish.

Contempt is the one you do not soften with a nicer insult. Sarcasm, a sneer, a name, an eye roll. The Institute calls contempt the greatest predictor of divorce, and teaches a culture of appreciation as the antidote, including a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions as the buffer. You cannot deposit that ratio during the insult. You stop the contempt. Then you ask for one specific respect from this week before the complaint continues. “You’re great” is not the deposit. Tuesday’s school email is.

Defensiveness reverses the blame. “It’s not my fault, it’s yours” leaves the problem unsolved and the conflict hotter. The antidote is to own a part, even a small part, and still say the need. Chris can own the booking and still ask for a decision before Friday. Do not require a full confession before you let him name what he needs. That bargain is how defensiveness wins.

Stonewalling is the shutdown. When you see it, you are usually looking at flooding, not a moral refusal to care. Answers gone, face turned, body already leaving. The Institute’s antidote is physiological self-soothing: stop the fight and take at least 20 minutes. They describe a lab pause, magazines for half an hour after 15 minutes of argument, after which heart rates were lower and the talk was more useful. You are not running that lab. You are getting both of them out of the exchange long enough for the body to settle, and you are telling Lena not to follow Chris into the hall to finish it.

During those 20 minutes they do not rehearse righteous indignation or innocent victimhood. Music, a walk, a sink of dishes. The task is to calm down, not to win the speech they will give when they come back. If they cannot agree to come back, you do not have a timeout. You have a rupture, and you treat it as one.

The house under the fight

The horsemen sit on one floor. The Sound Relationship House is the Institute’s map of the rest of the relationship. Jennifer Scott’s overview, drawing on John Gottman’s Seven Principles, names seven floors and two weight-bearing walls, trust and commitment. The Gottman Method page counts those as nine components. Use the rows to name the thin floor. Do not treat the fight as the whole house.

Level	Listen for	Ask
Build love maps	A current stressor the other can name	What has been heavy this week
Fondness and admiration	One specific trait, not a global compliment	What did they do that you respect
Turn toward	A bid that got a reply, or one that did not	When did you reach and get nothing
Positive perspective	Benefit of the doubt, or a harsh read	What else could that silence mean
Manage conflict	Influence accepted, a break, solvable or perpetual	Which part of this fight can you own
Life dreams	A hope the other can say back	What are you building that needs support
Shared meaning	A ritual both of them claim	What do you do together that is yours
Trust	Whether each believes the other has their back	Where do you hesitate to count on them
Commitment	A plan that says they are staying	What have you already decided to keep

Manage conflict is where the horsemen show. The Institute splits that floor into accepting influence, talk about solvable and perpetual problems, and self-soothing when the exchange heats up. If fondness is already gone, a gentle start-up will sound like a trick. Repair the floor under the fight before you polish the fight. In the composite, neither partner can name a specific respect from this week. That is the fondness floor, and it is thinner than the Saturday calendar.

Trust and commitment are walls, not a ninth speech you add at minute 48. If one partner does not believe the other has their back, or has already decided to leave and has not said so, an antidote line will not hold the house up. Ask the wall question before you assign the practice line as homework.

When a cycle is the better name

Sometimes “contempt” is the wrong precision. Lena pursues, Chris withdraws, both get harsher, and the feeling under the attack is fear of being left. That is a cycle. Emotionally focused work maps the pursue and withdraw moves before it teaches a communication tip.

If that is the hour, use emotionally focused couples therapy techniques and the cycle map. Do not rename a cycle as a horseman so the note sounds theoretical. A cycle map is not a Gottman four horsemen worksheet. The cycle map is an EFT form: stage, trigger, pursue and withdraw, the fear under the secondary emotion, and a stop-rule when violence or a weaponized repair is in the room. It is not the Institute’s worksheet. Send the Institute PDF for the horsemen. Email for the cycle map only when the cycle is the job.

When you stop

Stop the antidote when the fight is no longer a skill problem.

Laura Silverstein, writing on the Institute site, says that in a pattern of characterological violence, couples therapy is typically not recommended as a first step. She describes that pattern as one partner exerting control, dominance, or intimidation, present at all times and not only during conflict. She says couples therapy may not be appropriate, or safe, when control, fear, or intimidation is ongoing, and that individual support is often the safest and most appropriate starting point.

Zach Brittle writes that when battery is present, couples therapy is inappropriate, and you refer to a treatment center, hotline, shelter, specialist, or the police. If you suspect it and one or both partners deny it, refer. If you are not sure, refer. He describes situational violence as occurring most often when couples lack conflict resolution skills. Generally both partners feel remorse, understand the impact, and turn the blame inward. In that case, he says, treatment prioritizes flooding and repair, and the couple learns to recognize the Four Horsemen so the conflict does not escalate.

The 20-minute break on the stonewalling card is the Institute’s antidote for flooding. Whether this couple can leave the exchange is your risk procedure.

The Gottman Method page describes that method as an assessment plus research-based interventions on the Sound Relationship House. The aims are to disarm conflicting talk, increase intimacy, respect, and affection, and build empathy.

What to write down

The chart needs who was present, the horseman you heard in their words, the one antidote, whether they could say the line, and the floor that looked thin. It does not need a lecture on the model. Do not copy the practice line in as if they said it, and do not paste a Gottman four horsemen worksheet into the note as if they filled it out in your office.

That is enough for a covering clinician. Your hunch about Chris’s family of origin stays out of the shared record unless both have put it in the work and agreed it belongs there.

Use the couples therapy progress note template for the two-client chart: who the identified client is, consent, what you observed, the one intervention, and both responses.

If you used the break, treat it as a between-session task with a review, not a mood. Other small tasks a couple can actually finish are in between-session therapy activities.

Download the cycle map

If the hour was a pursue-withdraw cycle, keep the cycle map: stage, trigger, the moves, and the stop-rule. You do not need it to coach one horseman antidote. The Gottman four horsemen worksheet stays the file you send for the four horsemen.

References

• Brittle, Z. (2014, October 28). V is for violence. The Gottman Institute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/v-is-for-violence/
• Carrère, S., & Gottman, J. M. (1999). Predicting divorce among newlyweds from the first three minutes of a marital conflict discussion. Family Process, 38(3), 293-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1999.00293.x
• Gottman, J. M. (1993). The roles of conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance in marital interaction: A longitudinal view of five types of couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61(1), 6-15. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.61.1.6
• Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(2), 221-233. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.2.221
• Scott, J. (2020, November 30). What is the Sound Relationship House? The Gottman Institute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/what-is-the-sound-relationship-house/
• Silverstein, L. (2026, June 2). What is reactive abuse and can it be prevented? The Gottman Institute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/what-is-reactive-abuse-and-can-it-be-prevented/
• The Gottman Institute. (2013, April 26). The four horsemen: The antidotes. https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-the-antidotes/
• The Gottman Institute. (2013). The four horsemen and how to stop them with their antidotes [Worksheet]. https://www.gottman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Four-Horsemen.pdf
• The Gottman Institute. (2015, September 22). The Gottman Method. https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/