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The task becomes one of teaching oneself to be responsible for self and only for self. That means, for the overfunctioner, thinking, planning, and being concerned more of the time with self and management of self than with management of the other.
Triangles are neither good nor bad. They just are, everywhere. As long as there is any undifferentiation left in the emotional system there will be triangles. For that reason, there is no possibility of going on to a higher level of differentiation without learning how to manage oneself emotionally in and through triangles. As one goes to a higher level of differentiation, the ability to recognize and manage oneself emotionally in triangles improves. But this ability will always remain relative.
In a well-differentiated person, fewer repetitions occur. Those that do are less intense and are better understood by the person as being rooted in the original relationship system. Better definition between thinking and emotional inner guidance systems enables one to tell the difference between reality and patterned functioning originating from within. Thus for the well-differentiated person, fewer emotional reactions from old patterns can be triggered by stimuli from other people.
Clearly, to the degree one is carrying around circuits in the brain and body physiology that are grounded in past relationships, one is not free to respond to present relationships with flexibility. Relationships are complicated by past relationship patterns. The more complicated and intense the relationships of the past, the more complicated the relationships of the present.
As the people in a relationship become more and more differentiated, they will have fewer relationship problems. Because of the greater emotional maturity of the two partners, relationship issues, as well as people peripheral to the relationship, are kept in perspective. Communication improves. The relationship is not burdened with issues and emotions that it cannot bear.
If relationships are used in an attempt to complete the self, not only will the self remain incomplete, the relationship itself will probably flounder.
People with low levels of emotional maturity or differentiation attract other people with low maturity levels, and people with higher levels attract higher level people. Theoretically, in order for people to attract each other in the first place, they must be at exactly the same level of differentiation. That being the case, it is impossible to attach blame for relationship problems to one or the other partner. It is productive to look only at one’s own contribution to the emotional challenges of the relationship.
An ideal relationship would be described much the same as an ideal self because, in reality, an ideal relationship is an equal, open relationship of two ideal selfs.
Here are a few of the characteristics of highly differentiated selfs and the relationship they would form: A “separate, equal, and open” relationship.
Awareness is like the oil that keeps the relationship running smoothly and on course. It is born only out of a high degree of understanding of each individual of the self.
For this reason, it is possible for the emotional selfs of two high-level partners to retain a separateness not seen in most relationships. That is, each has a choice about whether to respond emotionally to the other’s intensities. If two individuals are emotion ally separate, any anxiety one may experience does not escalate into painful interchanges nor settle into emotional patterns.
The relationship posture of an ideal relationship is built upon the equality of the partners. In a high-level relationship, equality does not have to be worked at, it is just there. That equality is not based on tallying up individual assets; rather, it is a relationship stance, a posture assumed by the individuals. Each accepts the other as no more and no less talented, responsible, or free than him- or herself. Respect for the other, so often pointed to as essential for relationship success, is based on the equal posture.
When people work on the postures underlying their communication problems, communication improves almost automatically. Clearly, communication is less a problem than a symptom: The problem is the relationship position itself.
Therefore, a second characteristic of optimal communication becomes clear: It is nonrcactive.
So a third essential of communication is directness. The partners must talk to and with each other about each other.
It is clear that a fourth characteristic of communicating well must be mutuality.
It is the direct, verbal, mutual, and nonreactive give and take of relevant ideas.
When one can take responsibility for one’s own anxiety and the processing of it, communication will be much better.
The interdependence is not merely a theoretical phenomenon: Working on one component of relationships elevates all the others.
Since, theoretically, two people are not attracted to each other unless they are on the same level of differentiation, each person, if the relationship is not going well, contributes his or her 50 percent to the problem. Therefore, if either person in a relationship increases his or her own level of emotional maturity, the relationship will gradually improve. The improvement will be uneven because partners improve their functioning at different times. Typically, one partner starts the process by improving functioning or taking a stand for self in the relationship. Then the initiating partner
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Another way of stating this is as follows: In a relationship that is not working well, two or more selves have been emotionally fused—an inherently painful state of affairs. For each partner, in short, there is a lack of intactness of the boundaries of the basic self. Self is too easily lost or taken on. In order to remedy this situation, a responsible stance must be taken; self boundaries must be defined. If one begins to work on differentiating a self, the other will eventually adjust by joining the first at the new, higher level of differentiation.
They say things like, ‘We are much more separate but we are closer. The old love is gone. I miss it sometimes, but the new love is calmer and better. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how it is.’”
Thus, relationship work, paradoxically, is a solitary project. It may feel like growing a self. It is not necessary, important, or even possible to work on the other person. One cannot change another person, though the temptation to try is always there. Change must come from within the self, for one’s own reasons. Differentiation in the other may be stimulated by one’s own efforts to differentiate a self, but the other cannot be encouraged, prodded, or advised in this respect. The impetus must come solely from within the self.
The best relationships are enjoyed by people with a high degree of differentiation of self. This means, as stated earlier, that they have a well-developed basic self. As we have seen, highly differentiated people show, above all else, two prominent attributes: Well-defined self boundaries and a well-developed thinking inner guidance system.
The well-developed and well-defined self boundaries of people at high levels of differentiation mean they are neither borrowers nor lenders of self. They do not lose self into a relationship, and they do not need to borrow self from someone else in order to function. To determine whether a significant amount of self has been lost into the relationship, an important question to ask is: “How much time do I spend thinking about myself and my life course, rather than about the other person, the relationship, or a triangled third?”
With an improved ability to choose between the thinking and the feeling systems, one becomes less reactive to the emotions of the other person and to stresses outside the relationship. On reaching this point, one has improved emotional maturity and thereby, relationships.
The most difficult impasses usually occur in the triangle with one’s mother and father. Teaching about differentiation of self, Bowen pointed out it is especially important to get an individual relationship with each parent. One parent may be the spokesperson, and so it may be easier to get a relationship with that one. As soon as one has resolved the intensity with one parent, it is important to do the same with the other. A goal is to be able to relate to parents, as an open and separate equal, personal things about yourself and them, without going into a lot of extraneous issues and without
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At family gatherings, a goal becomes to spend as much individual time with each person as possible.
In its simplest terms, efforts at differentiation amount to becoming a better version of oneself in one’s family-of-origin relationships.
If issues arise in relationships, they are dealt with there. Partners manage themselves in the context of the relationship situation (not in therapy), always working to bring themselves to emotional neutrality around issues.
It is impossible for there to be more than relative separation between emotional and intellectual functioning, but those whose intellectual functioning can retain relative autonomy in periods of stress are more flexible, more adaptable, and more independent of the emotionality about them. They cope better with life stresses, their life courses are more orderly and successful, and they are remarkably free of human problems.
Since muscular relaxation is incompatible with anxiety, biofeedback training becomes a way to get a little better at increasing one’s power of choice between feeling and thought.
Since so much of relationship distress comes out of inadequately processed and managed anxiety, any tool that will aid in the management of anxiety will automatically enhance a relationship.
The ability to remain relaxed at will also means one is able to remain calm and thoughtful when one’s partner is anxious. Remaining calm in the presence of another’s anxiety saves many a situation from escalating to the crisis point. Further, the ability to choose emotions and physiology, to control anxiety as one challenges one’s patterns of reactivity, defines self-boundaries. Self-control is a hallmark of all separate-but-equal, well-functioning relationships.
The steps to be taken, then, in processing feelings can be summarized as: Observe the emotional state within the self and the system, as well as the trigger. Think about what has been observed and how to make sense of it. Act. No pattern ever changed simply by understanding it.
The “emotional shock wave” phenomenon was described by Bowen as an event that can have effects on a family system for an extended time.
Relaxation and recreation, important as they are, must be balanced with finding ways of staying appropriately active in the crisis. Remaining in calm contact with all meaningful relationships in a system, as the crisis unfolds, is an active process. Quiet observation, the first step in understanding an anxious system, will have a calming effect. It makes thoughtful resolution of the crisis possible.
Nothing will ever be resolved, however, unless some action is taken. Thinking is absolutely essential, but so is action, based on the thinking. Action based only on emotion, on the other hand, usually turns out to be worse than no action at all.
Maintaining meaningful relationships with one’s own family of origin seems to spawn an emotional “groundedness,” or calm, of its own. This is true even when that family is involved in fairly turbulent emotional patterns. The degree to which one can step back from family emotions and still stay connected with individuals in the system will become an important determining factor in the individual’s success.
By the same token, if one undertakes to do a little better in workplace relationships, one soon finds that work there has also paid off in better family relationships. Life is learning, and learning done in one relationship can be applied to others.
As one becomes more emotionally mature, one becomes more attractive to others, gains more respect, and thus may have more friends. Also, as the level of differentiation is raised, the friends tend to be at a higher level also.
Another problem with using the word “love” when attempting to be as specific and thoughtful as possible about relationships is its emotional charging value. To the extent that emotionally charged language is used in thinking, the thinking will be emotionally based, rather than rational and logical, so the outcome of the thinking is less dependable. Love is used as a reason to stay together, and lack of love as a reason to terminate a relationship. This line of thinking is indulged in most often by people who are living their lives based more on emotions than on thinking or inner guidance by
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It has been said many times that the ability to love is based on one’s ability to love oneself. What is the meaning of self-love?
What then is love? When all is said and done what does it mean to love someone? The view of love derived from family systems theory is entirely different from any other view. Perhaps it is a refreshing view that stands in contrast to the view represented on television, in movies and in the culture in general. The most loving that one can be may at the same time be the most difficult way of being, requiring the best that is in one. A loving relationship requires effort to keep the big picture, the process, the system, and one’s principles constantly in mind. It requires effort to keep one’s
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If, instead of being resolved by the spouses, however, marital anxiety moves around the triangles of the family system, it may eventually center on one of the children. Being the center of an anxious focus guarantees a high degree of anxiety in that person, and eventually symptoms—physical, mental, emotional, or social—will appear. Symptoms of the focused child include underachievement at school, school phobias, depression, hyperactivity, psychosis, addictions, peer-relationship problems, rebelliousness, and many others.
Of all the legacies a parent can give children, by far the best is that of raising his or her own level of differentiation as high as possible in a generation. If that is the parental focus, the children will automatically function better.
Poorly functioning interpersonal relationships at work interfere with work output and perhaps cause more stress than any other single factor.
The better the quality of the relationships in the workplace, the better the quality and the quantity of the work itself. Work systems themselves operate at different levels of differentiation, depending on the maturity levels of their leaders and also on the level of each individual in the system. The higher the level of differentiation of the individuals of the work system, the more efficiently it will run and the more productive it will be.
Ability to stay emotionally calm in the workplace is valued because when one is calm, the cerebral or thinking brain is not overburdened by anxiety generated in the emotional brain. Thus one is free to do better thinking—thinking about self-management as well as about the work itself. In other words, the ability to keep oneself emotionally calm frees one to do better work.
Emotionalism at work, far from solving anything, disrupts and interferes with getting the work done and can block career progress. The ability to choose emotional calm is essential to functioning well in any work place.
