blackfoot, here is a description of differentiation according to Schnarch given to me and my bf by the Schnarchian therapist back when we were seeing her. I created a thread on it while you were away.
Quote: This is a list of the qualities of poorly differentiated and well differentiated people that a counselor gave me and my bf a couple of years ago. She was a therapist who was trained by Schnarch and followed his philosophy. The bibliography accompanying this list cites several of his books.
The interesting thing about the qualities of good differentiation is that you may very well react with surprise that it’s not only OKAY to be "differentiated" in these ways, but it’s actually pretty healthy, for example not solving other people’s problems, staying calm when a loved one is “losing it,” or refusing to save the relationship at the cost of your self-respect and/or integrity.
I suspect you’ll see yourself, your partner, former partners, or your parents here… maybe ALL of them.
Poorly differentiated people:
Pressure others (important others) to accommodate them regardless of that it costs. “If you love me, you will_______! I can’t survive if you don’t do what I want you to. I can’t survive if I do what YOU want.”
Give in (sell out) because of fear of rejection.
Have to leave relationships emotionally or physically in order to resist the pressure to conform (give up themselves).
Accuse others of trying to control them when others resist being controlled. <Lil: This one is fascinating. They try to control YOU and when you resist, they accuse you of trying to control THEM-- doublespeak again!>
Monitor how much they disclose about themselves so as to please others or avoid conflict.
Have families where it’s true that “When Dad/Mom is unhappy, ain’t NOBODY happy!”
Have chronic anxiety that is easily stirred up and difficult to calm down.
Take things personally, are on the defensive much of the time. Are easily “hurt” by others, feel “guilty” for having their own needs, feelings, interests, or opinions that are not shared by their important other(S).
Feel responsible for others’ lives and happiness, and for solving their problems.
Feel rejected when important others disagree with them.
Need to control someone else’s behavior or feelings in order for them to manage themselves. In other words, they need someone to do X before they can do/feel Y.
Rely on external activities or substances that are often labeled “addictive” in order to manage their feelings.
Well differentiated people:
Value their self-respect above all else. This is another way of saying they have integrity or that they live by their values.
Manage their own feelings, calm themselves, and then choose how they respond to others rather than reacting out of anxiety.
Confront themselves instead of blaming others for their own circumstances or consequences of their own choices.
Recognize that "it's not about me" when someone near and dear "loses it" or becomes anxious. They don't personalize others' behavior.
Validate themselves rather than rely on others to do it for them all the time.
Refuse to sell themselves out of betray their values in order to maintain a relationship.
Refuse to project their own conflicts onto their partners, and refuse to allow others to project theirs onto them. They fight their own battles within themselves where the fight belongs.
Know the difference between themselves and others: what is me and what is not me.
Take responsibility for themselves. They do not take responsibility for others’ choices or consequences.
Have their feelings rather than their feelings having them.
Have deeply connected relationships, since they can tolerate closeness without undue anxiety about fusing or distancing.
Support the emotional growth of others toward greater differentiation by their refusal to participate in fused behaviors.
Sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you are feeling better. Don’t let this emotional turmoil cloud your senses, especially in your line of work. I understand your anger when these things happen, but you do know that is self defeating, don’t you?. An accident is an accident and it is no one’s fault. But for you to get so angry with yourself only throws you off balance and open to more accidents. So take it as a warning, but one to be thankful for not angry for.
In reading your comments here and on Heather’s thread, I get the strong impression that you have not read Schnarch. Tsk, tsk, tsk…. You are doing yourself a disfavor. A “like new” copy of the book is only $10 on Amazon. Put in you order today.
Your statement (within the quote of my statement):
(husband and wife will be enmeshed. its unavoidable, and is not a negative aspect.)
is not Schnarchian. Enmeshment means requiring your spouse to reflect back to you the image you have of yourself. If the spouse does not do this, then an enmeshed person experiences tension, anxiety, anger, etc. Schnarch’s example of hugging till relaxed explains this very well. When two people hug while standing, but with feet distant from one another so that they must lean together in an “A frame” configuration, there is a certain sense of security because they depend on each other, they support each other, they hold one another up. This is the enmeshment you speak of.
The problem is that if one has to shift positions to scratch and itch or something, the other can be thrown off balance. That other person can get upset because s/he may lose his/her balance, or maybe even fall. This demonstrates the danger in depending on your spouse for support of your self image and how arguments arise because the spouse is not doing “his/her share” or dropping “his/her responsibilities.” If instead the two people learn to hug in an upright position, each balancing themselves, but still hugging (i.e., still maintaining the emotional contact, the caring and love), any shift by one person is of little consequence to the other. The other just stands patiently until the spouse finishes scratching the itch and settles down. Then the hug can continue and the sharing of lives can go on out of choice, not dependence. This is interdependence, not enmeshment. So enmeshment is NOT an unavoidable aspect of marriage and it can be very negative and destructive.
They are enmeshing themselves with a different person, becuase of a perceived (true or not) lack in the SO ability to sooth there need, desire, want. Even despite the pain of loss(withdrawal), guilt, etc.
The above example should also explain why I take issue with this statement. One should not depend on the spouse for soothing. The spouse can and should provide comfort and empathy from a position of love, but ultimately each person must depend on him/herself for comfort. I have seen some confusion on this board regarding this concept. This does not mean you find love and satisfaction within yourself to the point you do not need a spouse. That is impossible. What is meant is that you find it within you to control your fears and anxieties so that you do not contribute to an escalation of tension that might lead to a fight. We all still need to feel love and caring from someone else. Lil’s examples from “Come to Your Senses” is EXACTLY what this is all about. Once you can do this self soothing, you are in a position to give and receive the love and attention from the spouse without the presumption or condition that creates problems.
Schanrch calls this self soothing “holding onto yourself.” It is especially important (and maybe the most important) for troubled marriages. Holding onto yourself and not retaliating will stop the cycle of escalation. During high stress, each partner must focus on themselves and usually loses the ability to sooth the other. If both persons have come to expect soothing from one another, this sudden lack of support will quickly degenerate into accusations that the other person is being selfish, that they do not care for you, that they are forsaking the marriage, etc. If each person can turn inward for self soothing, this cycle will not start and the crisis can be handled better.
And when a typical (for the most part psych healthy) woman has an affair, its becuase you no longer have a very high biological value too her. So she really doesnt care how you respond. (thats pretty differentiated) Shes got a replacement lined up. At least thats how their feelings are driving them.
The problem I have with jumping too much into the biological needs camp is that there are studies that have shown women who are given security and comfort in a marriage may still feel the need to be promiscuous, more so than men. I believe studies have shown this behavior in primates as well. I don’t know why monkeys do this, but I suspect women do it because of FOO issues. So simply being the perfect alpha male is not sufficient in my opinion to making the W fully satisfied in a marriage. If she has FOO issues, the most alpha of males will not satisfy her.
Now, to your personal conflicts….
Ah... but to what point does the BF rule extend to. Friends with benefits? Dating for 1 year? Living together for 5 years?...... Pretty much a 21st century marriage IMO. So if thats acceptable, why not married women? Just a POP. The unhappy ones are just looking for a way out, Right? or maybe get there H's attention. or just a side fling. So why not use my skills and offer them that apparent out? I was rationalizing, and spiraling down.
I see this as a consequence of too rigid black & white thinking. Remember, such rigidity is to maintain a feeling of control over chaotic situation… a form of self soothing. I think the answer to what you’re struggling with is somewhere in the gray area. The criteria should not be simply whether a woman wants out of a relationship or not. If you find a perfectly healthy, functional, aware woman who only needs a little push, some incentive to leave the relationship, then you might have found something good.
OTOH, it is more likely they want out because they are really very dysfunctional, have a ton of baggage they do not want to acknowledge, and are best left alone. There is a reason the divorce statistics on second marriages are so high.
Your comment “So why not use my skills and offer them that apparent out?” is a little self serving. Why would you want to rescue someone in this situation? What could you possibly gain, except for adoration and worship? Those are enticing rewards but they will leave you flat on your face. Getting involved with someone who does not have the strength to make a clean break from their relationship is playing with fire.
I think this is a good example of the contradictions and weakness of a purely biological needs approach. I think your confusion is from trying to make sense of a belief that I think is only partially valid. There is value to honor, integrity and commitment. But biological needs do not recognize this. Go read Schnarch. I think it will clear up a lot of things for you.
Glad to hear that you are back on the boards and I'm sorry to hear of your accident. My brother did a Master's level project on some kind of safety mechanism on cranes that keeps them from falling over. Are you too hurt to work?
I have found some of my issues keeping me from being helpful to others on this board sometimes too. My own situation continues to be challenging and it is my own desire to be able to look at myself in the mirror that keeps me in the fight. Currently, I have stepped back from my H in order to regroup. More on that in my thread.
I'm also sorry to hear that the dating world is showing its ugly seamy side already. I have to say that I'm not terribly impressed with people's general integrity etc... The dating websites are sickening and the married folks that troll them make me worry for my children. What are they learning about relationships? I went on a website that had jokes on it and the advertisements from adult friend finder were all over it with photos of people half naked - sometimes the top and sometimes the bottom. I guess that all we need to know about people now is that they have all the right parts?
Apologies for throwing stuff into the mix without reading the whole thread but this stood out.
I'm a big fan of Schnarch but I recommend people be very, very careful in trying to implement a plan based on his stuff. I truly thought I understood him 100% when I read PM but I was too naive to know better at the time. It wasn't until we had therapy, some recovery and a bit of perspective that I really understood what he meant. It takes some really good communication skills prior to any of this and a good C can really help.
"Pushing" your spouse into the crucible shouldn't be an overt act or even something that you plan. By virtue of becoming differentiated, you will inevitably develop a sense of self that will manifest itself in day-to-day interactions with your spouse in such a way that your spouse will have to reflect on themselves and the way they choose to exist within the marital system according to their own integrity...just as you.
You also have to be careful of pseudo-differentiation which is something I went through immediately after reading PM. Pseudo-differentiation feels like this....you anxiously stand up for yourself and consider the outcomes of your confrontation. When you are truly in a higher state of differentiation, you will no longer feel anxious about defending yourself and it will flow easily with "empathetic perspective". You don't need to consider the outcomes of a confrontation because the act of standing up for yourself will be coming from your integrity rather than a desire to force your spouse to introspect...if they *do* introspect, then it will simply be a side-effect of you become more differentiated. The only thoughts you will have prior to a confrontation is *how* to confront (or even if you should) rather than *what* are the outcomes. Your only responsibility is to be true to yourself and if it's a painful thing to your spouse, then negotiate something in a way that lets them know you are making a loving compromise and be grateful of the similar offerings they make.
Outcomes are very specific to the person. My W makes it easy for me to assert my integrity - the good and bad. She doesn't react at all to some things that a more liberal, conservative, feminist, anti-feminist, religious, non-religious (etc. etc. etc.) might react to. My college GF had a tendency to curl up in the fetal position in tears if I noticed an advertisement with an attractive model on it but my W will say stuff like "hmmm...I like her hair".
Except in extreme cases, there is no right or wrong...only a "relationship system". Was I more of a "bad person" in the presence of my first GF? No, I was just being myself. I'm attracted to attractive women. I also notice everything going on around me because I have an almost pathological condition where I notice shiny, moving, or repetitive things in my peripheral vision. Do I apologize for this? No. I say "hey, sorry this bugs you but this is who I am...I can *try* to improve but I also need you to try to be more accepting so we can find some middle ground". Unfortunately, I didn't know these things in college or I wouldn't have been manipulated by her reactions or the threat of a negative outcome.
Like outcomes, you will never have a definitive idea of "progress" either. It's really a day-to-day, situation-to-situation kind of thing. My C (who was amazing) kept hammering me with the fact that I should 1) forget the past, 2) not pessimistically or optimistically predict the future based on my W's behavior and 3) simply live in the moment.
Schnarch uses his mountain hikes with his wife as a metaphor for describing "relationship systems" and ways to work together when two people aren't equally matched in skill, strength, motivation etc. Think how much it would suck to have someone walking 100 yards ahead of you, yelling back to "hurry up". By virtue of them being ahead, you *might* consider the fact that you are slower. You might consider trying to get in better shape...or maybe not - depends on a whole host of things that are personal to you. You might be content watching them have fun ahead and enjoy hearing some encouraging words like "hey...check this out...this is great up here". You also might appreciate some quiet time. You might enjoy having them come back down the "hill" to walk with you a bit.
Following the same metaphor, if you want your partner to wait or come back (or give you space) and they don't, you aren't allowed to bust them on this unless they knew this was something you wanted. This comes back to communication skills. By remaining quiet, you might get exactly what you are asking for. In this case, your only valid choice is to self-sooth and resist the urge to beat your spouse over the head.
You also aren't allowed to "train" your partner to *know* what you want (I used to do this). This goes like this - "a couple times a weeks I feel like ML"...we've all had this convo. If you say this with the expectation that your spouse will "step up", then you are having a "fusion fantasy". First of all, this might not always be your reality. You might have a week where you are particular frisky or the opposite. Live in the moment. Ask for it when you are feeling like it. Never assume they will say no. It might just be the day where the planets are aligned. Never assume they will say yes. Soothe your way through your request and their response. If you are feeling frustrated, that's ok...it's also ok to share why you are frustrated...but make it about you. Ex. say "it's ok that you aren't in the mood...it's just, I'm really feeling in the mood to toss you into bed right now". Keep it positive.
The point I'm making is that you should seek out situations as a couple that are catalysts for personal growth and then apply pressure by simply being your happy, goofy self.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
Thank you Dave. I had been meaning to address the whole issue of "pushing one's spouse into the crucible". I think it is better described as "pushing through the crucible." It isn't something that one or the other spouse engineers but rather the natural, inevitable result of one person making changes within the system. I agree that the process of differentiation isn't to be undertaken lightly as the outcome is far from assured. A system under stress can accomodate and grow or it can explode or maybe implode. The point is that in changing oneself or in becoming oneself the spouse is forced to do something.... What they will do is entirely up to them. I guess the value in the end is that regardless of what your spouse chooses at least you have your integrity and the ability to soothe your own axieties.
I thought you might all get a kick out of the fact that the new IC I have seen twice now is a Schnarch disciple. Actually, he said he did some kind of “work” directly with Schnarch in the 90s. I will have to ask for more detail the next time I see him.
So there I am, locked in a room for an hour, being basically grilled by Cobra’s clone. Ack…what a depleting experience! The guy is certainly no bunny foo foo feel good kind of therapist that just sits back and asks, “So how does that make you feel?”. He was diving right into topics like confrontations that will be necessary for my M to heal. Oh, yea, he went for the jugular of FOO too. Don’t get me wrong, I think Schnarch is one of the most brilliant minds in modern psychology. Though, working based on his crucible principals can really test mental endurance
Oh, yea, Cobra, you strike hard and fast like your name sake, but I have a great deal of admiration and respect for you if you cannot tell.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -- Socrates
I don’t mind elaborating, but I am afraid that I don’t know much more about the guy yet. I just thought you might find it interesting to know that there is a Schnarchian therapist out there practicing with methods that are nearly literally taken from this thread. He even used the term, “Sexual Crucible” yesterday. When he said that, I swear I started wondering if I had uncovered Cobra’s secret identity.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -- Socrates
