Relationship: Some Mysteries Unravelled
By Rhiannon Hill-Lewes
The Psychotherapy profession does not often translate its academic body of theory for general interest. That's a pity, so here I have attempted to explain some of the common problems with relationship. This is not agony aunt or 'relationship coach' guesswork, it comes from academic source going back almost a century and my own experience over nearly twenty years of training and working as a therapist.
There are many schools of psychotherapy ranging from Freudian to a whole tranche of New Age methodologies and philosophies, some wonderful and some wacky but in mainstream therapy, as taught in accredited private and FE environments which integrates the major schools of theory and experience there are common therapeutic threads.
Since the overwhelming majority of therapists and counsellors practice a method which requires the forming of a Therapeutic Relationship I will attempt to describe how this operates.
Successfully bonded relationships are both unique, yet have common markers as pre requirements.
These are broadly: trust, commitment (this can be term-contracted as in therapy), consistency, mutual input and benefit, tolerance, non judgment, respect and a willingness to negotiate differences.
Successful relationships do not flourish where there is imbalance, attempts at inappropriate control, constant temporary ruptures in attention or commitment, and withholding of emotional intimacy, that is a willingness to reveal difficult material either through shame or in an attempt to manipulate the other person.
There are five kinds of therapeutic relationship* and four kinds of operational human exclusive partner relationships.
In order to create a container where therapy can be effective there must develop a Working Relationship, a Person to Person Relationship, A Transpersonal Relationship, a Transference/countertransference relationship and a reparative, or developmentally needed relationship.
These are all present in all friendships and lover connections but some are created and held unconsciously.
A working relationship consists of logistical and practical contracts. These are around time dedication, agreements about joint pursuits and money.
The Person to Person relationship is concerned with emotional intimacy. It is not possible to build trust without shared information which reassures and offers the opportunity of emotional support and understanding. It's also about shared interests, general liking of the other's company.
The Transpersonal relationship - the mysterious, the spiritual, the synchronicitous, the X factor that bonds people beyond spoken or even unconscious contracts.
The Transference/countertransferential relationship is trickier to understand but fundamentally this consists of a recognition of a group of traits, negative, positive or neither, which the other person understands and is either repelled by and wishes to heal, or is attracted by. These recognitions are based on the range of input from those closest to us in our early environments.
Countertransference in the therapeutic sense means those issues and hot buttons in the therapist which if not discovered and settled can pollute the healing in the relationship.
The Developmentally Needed relationship can sometimes apply in non therapeutic relationships - more of this later - but in therapy it simply means temporarily taking a therapeutic stance of a benevolent parent who can model areas of maturation and learning often 'missing' for one reason or another in the person's original development until they have developed these for themselves.
In ordinary human relationships especially committed, bonded lover relationships, there are four main types of connection.
The Spiritual Relationship - a recognition that within that relationship are the tools to completely meld on some level with the other person creating a unit, not of two incomplete halves, but a team consisting of all the elements of each person which can operate in the World for the greater good.
This relationship is very difficult to achieve. It means a great deal of emotional intimacy, skilled negotiation on both sides and usually involves people from functional backgrounds who have a wider commitment to healing outside in the general community.
The Healing Relationship. This is where two people come together and 'heal' various kinds of pain by supporting or processing it with one another. This is sometimes akin to the Developmentally Needed therapeutic relationship. We all know couples where observers say: she/he's the best thing that ever happened to him/her.
The Partnership Relationship. This is a bond created out of common interest. If elements of the other kinds of positive relationship are also involved these can be great, but if all the couple has is the common aim, and one partner withdraws or stops functioning in that sphere these relationships break down quickly. Marriages based on business, religious or political beliefs or hobby interests are partnership marriages.
The Toxic Relationship. This refers to negative transference. You know those couples who people describe as ' can't live with him/her, can't live without him her' ? They are in a very seductive battle. They have found someone who represents everything they hated or who metes out ill treatment like that which they experienced in their early environment, but they go into battle, often both of them, to try to get revenge, fix the other person, believing that by confronting and trying to excise the toxicity of the partner as a substitute for the earlier abuser they will in some way get satisfaction for past hurts. This is unrealistic because of all the types of relationships this is the one which takes place mainly in the unconscious of one or both parties and is almost impossible for either to identify without feedback from an external source.
The above describe relationships which for whatever reason do involve commitment.
There is a large group of people in our culture who are unable to form any of the above.
They create a range of proto-relationships in order to get their short term needs met, or in order to blend in with society because survival depends of being part of a tribe - even if your role is sit on the edge you are still part of the tribe because you exist just outside the tribe and actually create an inclusion boundary for others by doing so. Outsiders are necessary as they validate Insiders.
People unable to form genuine lasting bonds are usually very damaged. They have had their attachments broken too often when they were young and dependant. They have been abused. Or they have been betrayed. They are unable to trust, unable to commit to anyone and are basically afraid of a deep personal encounter because they believe that pain is inevitable. Emotional pain in children up to the age of 12 is far more devastating than for adults. Loss and separation are intolerable for the obvious reason that people under 12 are not ready or able to care for themselves. In war zones and areas of natural disaster very young children often physically survive but the emotional damage is overwhelming.
How do people rationalise their inability to truly bond when they are attempting to strategise in order to appear to fit in?
I will switch to more colloquial descriptions as we will all recognise these strategies.
The Commitment phobic strategy.
It's not a phobia, although fear is the key. From the outside, it looks as though someone is having too much fun, expending all their energy on a successful career, or wants their freedom. This looks enviable because the person substitutes relationship with an overly busy social calender, or becomes involved in obsessive or extreme pursuits, often winning the admiration of others because they succeed, as their attention is never moderated by the demand to meet the needs of a partner.
But there is no 'bonding as a hedge against the World', the comfort of real trust and emotional intimacy with a solid Other, to give them peace. These people have bulging diaries and will be very socially unreliable as they are always open to a better offer.
This is linked to the current singleton myth. Singletons have not developmentally been able to tolerate difference - of desire, belief or action in an Other. So they stay alone.
There is always a search for a 'perfect' partner somewhere in the rationale. Perfection is impossible, including within the searcher, but this never occurs to him/her. It is another reason not to get attached. Attachment is terrifying because they had vital bonds broken too early or too frequently and their unconscious expectation is that this is inevitable. The pain is too great so they skim the surface waiting for the real or imaginary blow to land. These are people who sit around the house in their jacket, or have a lot of taxi numbers programmed into their phones!
They sometimes marry, appearing to commit, but are often unreliable, uninterested in domestic minutiae, do not enjoy family gatherings, are uninterested in relatives except their own biological children who they also see as objects, and are often unfaithful in order to create a get out clause. Sometimes they are unconsciously impelled to leave relationships even while they appear to be going well in order not to have to face the pain of abandonment or rejection.
Trust deficit.
Some people are unable to bond because they expect betrayal. They have never had a felt sense of trust in another, and frequently don't trust themselves. They fail to bond appropriately because they fear their own ultimate untrustworthiness and assume there will be no reason to trust others. They will relate for a while but there will be a lot of intolerable detective behaviours and constant questioning of the other, and eventually the other person, confused and pressurised, withdraws.
Separation of Sex and Affection.
The procreative imperative and the need to release sexual energy are corralled away from the need for affectional bonds.
These are people who stay un-partnered but make a series of short lived bonds using a charm and seduction strategy. They cannot have a healing relationship because they have no real trust or respect for others. They long for respect themselves but their compulsive behaviour rules this out. So they act out their sexual needs, which are usually very genital-centred without feeling the need to regard the sexual partner as a whole person or even an independant, complex personality.
The sex partner is an object. Of course, they know intellectually that this is socially unacceptable, so early on in the fake bonding period, they will appear to be kind and attentive, appear to share, even be good lovers and be making a genuine relationship of which sex is just a part but this is inauthentic because their underlying agenda is really to get in and get out without touching the other person on a deep level.
They cannot link sex, affection and practical relationships. They are often unable to access their own deep feelings, either because they have been discouraged early by carers who could themselves not handle expression of uncomfortable emotions, or because their deep feelings are all painful and an affectional bond would require them to re-experience the intolerable feelings.
The modern exposition of this is the 'booty call' or 'fuck buddy'.
Again, this looks fun and desirable from the outside, but the fallout when the other person does not understand their agenda and feels used and abandoned actually causes them pain, but the pattern keeps repeating. The initiator of this type of sexual contact assumes that others are able to make the non-involvement contract. Emotionally healthy partners will skip over the contract assuming that a bond will later develop and inevitably, hurt and disappointment follow.
Serial marriage.
Serial marriage is based on the assumption that others can only meet a person's needs for so long.
There are elements of the sex-affection split or the other forms of narcissistic obsession which I have detailed above, especially perfectionism but there is a deeper element to the serial marriage which is now become very prevalent certainly in most Western societies.
The serial marriage is about the disintegration of communities, increased mobility and the mistaken view that children can survive in an insecure emotionally healthy family unit.
Narcissism as always has a large part to play. Serial marriage is the outcome of the current refusal to accept developmental process.
We are no longer permitted to mature, possibly since a lot of commercial activity is based on the fantasy 'youth culture'. Serial marriage is the preserve of babymen and women who believe that they have to remain desirable into their seventies.
People exchange marriages at the developmental barriers. Maturation brings with it new social enviroments. People jettison partners who do not match their changing self image, or alternatively withdraw from marriages because they have allowed personal competition to vary the intimate relationship and feel they or the other person has moved ahead in some way. Since they are overly attached to social status and appearances, they jettison the partner.
Most marriages break down in the late twenties, early forties, or in the late fifties.
One person matures - the other does not. Or one person suddenly wants a complete change of lifestyle in response to the terrifying realisation that they are heading for old age. Or one person is unable to tolerate the growing ageing and imperfections of the other and longs to start again with someone healthier, or who can understand their new interests.
Interestingly, although in personal relationships these issues are very deep and significant, there are parallels in working and business relationships.
My next series of articles will be concerned with how people relate to others in working environments.
(* Clarkson, The Therapeutic Relationship, Whurr, 1994.) Other source texts not listed for reasons of brevity.
2205 words.
Rhiannon Hill-Lewes
www.hi5.info
www.evanshillzarebas:Making Work A Great Place To Be
This article was posted by Rhiannon Hill
