Criticism (Part 1 of How Relationships Begin to End: The Four Horseman)

Feeling Things with Amy & Kat

Nashville Podcast Network

Relationships, Self-improvement, Arts, Fashion & Beauty, Education, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.7 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is the start of a 4 part series of Amy and Kat unpacking Dr. John Gottman’s famous ‘Four Horsemen of the apocalypse’ for relationships which has helped him be able to predict the failure or success of a relationship with a 90% accuracy rate. Part 1 is Criticism, the one that often shows up first and sets the tone for conflict. Amy has her own issues with getting defensive and even gets her boyfriend on the phone to confirm. Kat explains why criticism is different from a simple complaint, how it sneaks in through exaggeration, “should” statements, jokes, and tone, and why it can actually be a clumsy bid for connection. You’ll learn Gottman’s antidote, the Gentle Start-Up, with clear “I feel / I need” examples to help you express concerns without blame. Whether you’re married, dating, or navigating family and friendships, this episode will help you spot criticism early and swap it for communication that keeps relationships strong.

Feeling of the Day: Angry (and Kat has every right to be!)

Listen next week for: Defensiveness (Part 2 of How Relationships Begin to End: The Four Horseman)

Watch us on Youtube HERE!

Call and leave a voicemail: 877-207-2077

Email: [email protected]

HOSTS:

Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy

Kat Van Buren // threecordstherapy.com // @KatVanburen

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:05.5	If you ever have feelings that you just want some,
0:12.4	Amy and Kat got you covered like an umbrella.
0:16.4	Ladies and fellas, we just follow in the spirit where it tells us.
0:20.1	From the real stuff to the chill stuff and the in between.
0:25.7	Sometimes the best thing you can do is just out and feel things.
0:31.4	This is Feeling Things with Amy and Kat.
0:33.9	Happy Thursday Feeling Things.
0:35.1	I'm Amy.
0:35.7	And I'm Kat.
0:36.7	And today's the day.
0:37.8	We're finally here.
0:38.8	We're starting our four-part series on the four horsemen from John Gottman.
0:44.5	And what's crazy to me is when he was doing this research, you were telling me he could tell
0:50.2	with 90% accuracy if a couple was going to succeed or fail based on their communication
0:56.2	styles. And we're going to dive into the first horseman, which is criticism, which is a
1:03.0	communication style. And we'll, it's like, we'll call it a little deep dive into, this is a
1:09.4	four-part series. our first deep dive was dedicated
1:12.2	to Mel Robbins let them so this is not so much a person it's a thing yeah so our deep dives
1:19.6	are not always going to be people yeah and this is hopefully helpful to people that they can
1:25.0	either recognize this in somebody else and say like, oh, I don't
1:27.5	like that or they can recognize this in themselves and say, oh, I don't like that about me.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nashville Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Nashville Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.