Date Posted: 7/21/2012 2:55:41 AM
Posted By: Kitavi Membership Level: Gold Total Points: 1987
One of the most powerful and fundamental drives in human existence is the need for a loving, intimate relationship. This is a basic need to all regardless of age, race, sex, and religion. But for many, keeping a good relationship is elusive if not impossible. Some people suffer alienated or boring relationships. We often hear of the failures, hurts,fights, disappointments and divorces. Someone said that friends come and go, but we keep accumulating enemies. One cannot but stop to wonder, Why? Well, it is true that people yearn for special connections with others but the reality of being in a relationship is disappointing for many, and this is especially so because many of us tend to ignore the dynamics of our relationships until a crisis occurs, and at times this may just be a bit late. People choose one partner over another because of some unconscious dynamic that may involve unresolved psychological history. For example, one partner may remind the other of a parental or compensatory parental figure. In fact, a critical carrier to the achievement of mature love has to do with the often unconscious pull of old emotional scars from childhood. Children inherit many problems as well as strengths through the relationships with their parents, but the problems they inherit that most affects their lives are relationship sensitivities such as heightened needs for attention and approval, difficulty dealing with expectations, the tendency to blame oneself of others, feeling responsible for the happiness of others or that others are responsible for one''s own happiness, and acting impulsively to relieve the anxiety of the moment rather than tolerating anxiety and acting thoughtfully. If the projection process is intense, the child develops stronger relationship sensitivities than his parents. The sensitivities increase a person''s vulnerability to symptoms by fostering behaviors that escalate chronic anxiety in a relationship system. Such issues as fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, and the conflict between wanting love and wanting control may be harbored from the past and get played out in the current situation. Another contributing factor in relationships is what we call self-differentiation. Healthy self-differentiation is a term used to describe one whose emotional process is no longer ultimately dependent on anything other than themselves. They are able to live and function on their own without undue anxiety or over-dependence on others. They are self-sufficient and self-controlled. Their sense of worth is not dependent on external relationships, circumstances, or occurrences. Healthily differentiated individuals can manage their focus even under stress. They are capable of staying calm and clear headed enough in the face of conflict, criticism and rejection, to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotions. They are not easily "infected" by the pressures of other to share or absorb their anxiety. They no longer become symptom bearers for others'' issues, problems, failures, or anxieties. Instead, they have a clear understanding that those participating in the addictive emotional process are trapped and fused in a system which is intended to weaken, demoralize, devalue and destroy them and the relationships which they value so greatly. The ability to self-differentiate appears to be related to the degree of emotional separation in a child's family of origin. In families that have low expectations and pressures for togetherness and fused "love", individuals are able to develop a healthy relationship, which allows the child to think, feel, and act without unhealthy,anxious pressures.
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