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Relationships & Connection The craft of close relationships, which shape wellbeing and health more than income or status: attachment, listening, trust, conflict repair, friendship, and love as a practice.
42 cards · space to flip · 1–4 to grade · d to go deeper
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Reading list The works this deck draws on, in the order worth reading them. Cards point to a specific chapter or paper where one fits.
01 Book The Good Life · Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz The Harvard Study of Adult Development, written by its current directors: the evidence that relationship quality predicts health and happiness across a whole lifetime, plus practical chapters on tending ties. The best starting point for this deck. 02 Book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work · John Gottman and Nan Silver Gottman's lab findings turned into practice: bids, the four horsemen, repair attempts, and accepting influence. Written for couples, but most of it transfers to any close tie. 03 Book Hold Me Tight · Sue Johnson Adult attachment applied to couples by the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy. The clearest account of why fights are usually protests about disconnection rather than about the stated topic. 04 Book Attached · Amir Levine and Rachel Heller The popular introduction to anxious, avoidant, and secure patterns in dating and partnership. Useful for recognising yourself; the research treats these as dimensions rather than fixed types, so hold the labels loosely. 05 Book The Art of Loving · Erich Fromm A short 1956 essay arguing that love is a practised skill, not a feeling that happens to you. The source for the love-as-practice cards. 06 Book Together · Vivek Murthy A former US Surgeon General on loneliness as a public health problem, with the physiology and the social fixes. Read for the loneliness and friendship cards. 07 Book Friends · Robin Dunbar The evolutionary and psychological science of friendship: how many ties a person can hold, how fast they decay without contact, and what maintains them. 08 Paper What Do You Do When Things Go Right? The Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Benefits of Sharing Positive Events · Shelly Gable, Harry Reis, Emily Impett and Evan Asher, 2004 The study behind active-constructive responding: how you react to a partner's good news predicts relationship quality better than how you react to their bad news. 