Relationship Garden Blog

Recently Tim Atkinson, the Executive Director of Imago Relationships International, shared the following personal reflections on his experience with Intentional Dialogue in moments of conflict.  I share his insights with his permission…

“I’ve realized that 5 years into attempting to practice dialogue in my life, I still get reactive in some situations, and it doesn’t feel like that’s ever going away.

But what I do notice is that there are two things that happen when I get triggered:

1.       I think about how wrong the other person is, and feel angry with them

2.       I notice my own reaction and become curious about it

Before I came across Imago, the anger was 100% of my experience, and all my effort went into working out why the other person was wrong.  Therefore conflict was exhausting, frustrating, and sapped my energy, and I would become unavailable to the other person because I was consumed in my reaction, which might even last for days as I worked out the many ways in which the other person was wrong, wrong, wrong, and which words I might choose to tell them that.

Over the past week or so I have been dealing with some very frustrating situations, but it gave me an opportunity to notice a difference. I did find myself thinking about the situation, but there were some new  thoughts around “Why am I reacting?”

Then it came into my mind that there’s a point that sometimes (when I’m not too triggered) I feel close to when the amount of anger and the amount of curiosity are equally balanced.

So I wondered whether  if I went further, the amount of curiosity about my own reaction would exceed my anger, and the result of any situation of conflict would primarily be that I get a new opportunity to understand my own reactions, and to understand myself more deeply, and through that become more available.  In such a situation, conflict would always be an experience of growth, and my contribution could always being one of giving.  Conflict might even be something I seek out, because then I would truly be able to be powerful at bringing together different perspectives, and through the differences find a deeper meaning underneath.  (This is something the Imago Board has been doing over the last few days, in a way I found deeply inspiring)

What do you think?  Does this critical balance point exist, beyond which all situations which anger us make us stronger rather than weaker?    Is it an experience some of you have after more time at this than me?  If that point exists, does something profound happen when you get there, in which the path of self-growth accelerates, and our life changes for ever as a result?”    Tim (Atkinson)

 Introduction:  Dialogue shouldn’t just be for managing differences and discussing difficult issues.  Intentional Dialogue works best when we use it to communicate a variety of important feelings – and what is more important than the love we feel for each other.

So in that spirit I offer the following dialogue.  Find a quiet time, perhaps over dinner of in front of a fire to share the following:

(Remember to mirror each sentence stem)

1. On the day I met you the first thing I noticed was….
2. As we got to know each other what I came to love about you was….
3. My fondest memory of our early days/years together is….
4. What I value most about our relationship now is….
5. One fantasy I have of how I would like to spend a day together is…
6. One dream I have for our future is….

Summarize, let your partner know what makes sense about what they have shared, and empathize (how I imagine you feel as you think about our relationship)….then switch!  Perhaps finish with a romantic kiss.

 Instructions:  Find a quiet time that is good for both of you, and a place to sit and talk where you will not be disturbed.  Take a minute or two before you begin to sit together quietly and remind yourselves of how precious your relationship is.  Take turns completing the following sentences.  The listener should listen quietly (mirroring if you know how) before sharing your own answers.

1. One thing I’m really looking forward to about the coming holidays is…
2. Of all my childhood holiday memories, the one that means the most to me is…
3. One painful childhood memory I have from this time of year is (if relevant)….
4. One thing I’m grateful to you for as I think about getting ready for the holidays….
5. One dream I have for our holiday celebration is…
6. One fear or worry I have about the upcoming holidays is….
7. What you can do to support or nurture me during this season is…
8. One thing I can imagine doing to support or nurture you is….
9. When the holidays are over this year what I would like us to be able to say to each other is….

END WITH A HUG AND/OR KISS!

In Gary Chapman’s intriguing book, “The Five Languages of Love,” he explores how people express and receive love in different ways.  He identifies five major categories of what he calls love language:   words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Which language we are most comfortable with depends on who we are – on our personality, our history, even our genetic make up.  The Imago Getting the Love You Want Workshop encourages couples to explore all five of the love languages through dialogue, caring behaviors, loving gifts and behavioral change – to find ways of expressing our love both verbally and behaviorally.

In the therapy office, however, the emphasis often gets stuck in the verbal.  The primary tool of Imago therapy is the Intentional dialogue which is primarily a verbal experience.  When used with compassion and courage the dialogue has the potential to be a powerfully bonding experience.  However, the connection is often limited to the arena of “the word”.  We let our partners know that we have heard what they said by mirroring their words.  We then use words to let them know how they make sense to us, and we again use words to express our empathy for their emotional reality.

This summer I had a “light bulb” moment in which I experienced what validation and empathy feel like when they are expressed in behavior or deed rather than through verbal expression.

A little background.  Two days before we were supposed to board an airplane for a long planned and much needed vacation I fell and broke my foot.  The look of regret on the doctor’s face said it all – the vacation was not to be.  After some initial cursing and crying we regrouped and undaunted, cancelled the vacation and began to search the web for less ambitious options within driving distance.  The next day, armed with a portable wheelchair and my newly acquired crutches my husband and I set out to explore the beauties of

And here is where my “aha” moment occurred.  After a tough experience at the first hotel which was technically accessible except for the almost insurmountable step into the room, we opened the door to the room in our second hotel.  When I saw the spacious, easily navigatable space, the bathroom with plenty of bars, a low sink and a roll-in showe,r something inside of me melted – I felt safe and that my reality had been truly seen and acknowledged.  This feeling reoccurred throughout our trip every time we encountered a space that I didn’t have to struggle to be in.  And I noticed that the feeling was a familiar feeling – it was the feeling I get at that moment in an Intentional Dialogue when I experience the validation step as being truly “on target.”

As my husband and I discussed it I realized that what was happening for me was that when the layout of a hotel or restaurant was truly handicapped accessible what I experienced was that whoever had designed it had really understood my reality and what my world was like.  In the movie, “The Story of Us,” the lead character played by Bruce Willis says, “when I first met Katie I felt like she really got me, and believe me, there is no greater feeling than to be gotten.”  As we meandered through

In the validation phase of Intentional Dialogue we let our partners know that we “get them,” that their world makes sense to us even if it is not our world.  That was what I was experiencing in a very physical way in those restaurants and hotels – that somebody got what my world felt like and had designed the space accordingly. 

So then I began wondering if validation can be expressed behaviorally what about empathy?  Quickly I flashed on the hundreds of people throughout our journey who would take one look at us struggling and move to offer a hand or open a door or rearrange the furniture.  My most powerful memory of what I started calling behavioral empathy was in a crowded rest area in the middle of a nasty thunderstorm when the line of women waiting for the rest room took one look at me on my crutches and almost with one voice said, “Let the lady through.”  I found myself repeating the Blanche Dubois line from Streetcar Named Desire:  “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

So as we went on our road trip my husband Steve and I began to discuss what this idea of behavioral validation would look like in an intimate relationship.  Steve’s analogy is that a relationship is like a house – we decorate it with our words, but we furnish it with our deeds, our behavior on a day to day basis.  Behavioral validation is essential to a well furnished house.

As the trip progressed more and more examples began to emerge for me:

-Your partner likes to sit in a certain part of a restaurant so you ask for that table, even if you don’t particularly care,

-Your partner likes a certain kind of music so you put it on without asking

-Your partner has certain habits or rituals that are important to them so you pace your day accordingly – even if they have no particular meaning for you.

I think the essence of behavioral validation is when one partner truly “gets” the others world = their likes, dislikes, fears, pleasures, etc. and accommodates their behavior accordingly without needing to discuss it.  The more such validation is incorporated into a couple’s daily life, the deeper and safer the connection will be.

Behavioral empathy on the other hand is more about accurately reading your partner’s emotional state and responding accordingly:

-          you see the fatigue on your partners face and you take over putting the kids to bed,

-          you sense your partners stress level and put off tackling another difficult problem till another time,

-          You see that your partner is sad or scared and you give them a hug.

Is behavioral empathy different from the “caring behaviors” we discuss in the Workshop?  I believe so.  Caring behaviors are things we do that say, “I love you.”  Behavioral empathy on the other hand are things we do that say, “I sense that you are feeling ____________and I want to help or support you with that.”  And sometimes the two will overlap, but not always.

Now that I am back to hobbling around my own home I am left contemplating this summer’s hidden gift:  that the validation and empathy we express verbally through intentional dialogue can also be expressed behaviorally through our actions, Indeed, I believe that part of what John Gottman would call a “sound marital house,” is furnishing it with validating behaviors and empathic deeds.  Happy Decorating.

Copyright:  Laura Marshall, LCSW

August, 2009

“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree,and at the right time, and for the right purpose, andin the right way, that is not within everybody’spower, that is not easy.”  Aristotle 

In recent weeks the list serve of Imago Relationship Therapists has been home to a fascinating discussion on the nature of anger, it’s role in healthy relationships and whether it’s expression in a therapy session is useful, destructive or possibly both.  The discussion has been very rich and I post for you consideration some of the more intriguing ideas.

Dorsey Cartwright writes:   There are times in my life where I have experienced what to me was an empowering and grounding anger. Some of those times have related to injustices related to situations outside of me or setting a boundary for myself are two examples that come to mind.  While I know that anger can be a secondary reaction to underlying feelings, it also seems to me that it can stand by itself as an empowering and life enhancing emotion in and of itself. I understand that it shows up less that way in our work with couples yet I don’t want the nobility of that emotion when expressed consciously to be lost.  Doug Hickok writes:  I thought it might be interesting to share with you what my wonderful  psychodrama instructor, Dorothy Satten of the Westwood Institute, says  about anger and rage.  It is noteworthy, by the way, that “Anger and rage” are often said as  a phrase, both words together, which implies that they are the same  thing. Not according to Dorothy.  She says anger is local and focused, and it’s a natural, healthy  feeling reaction to a perceived injustice. When a person is angry, s/ he can tell you immediately exactly what that anger is about. The  person who is angry usually has a red face, may or may not use a  raised voice, and can focus clearly on the cause of the anger.Rage is global. It is unfocused, and the person who is full of rage  will often cite multiple causes, or may not be able to speak it at  all. The raging person usually has a white face, balled up fists and a  rigid body. The quiet rager will go on and on, getting more and more  worked up, but not necessarily in a noisy way.

Dorothy teaches that the appropriate approaches to anger and rage by 

the therapist are very different. …

I suspect that the mixed results many therapists get with clients when 

they do vent may be because of some confusion about this difference 

between rage and anger, and about the different approaches needed for 

each.

Evelyn Benoit writes:  My offering is that I remember Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross saying that anger is a natural mechanism that takes fifteen seconds to say ‘no thank you’ which, if honored when the child is very young, is a wonderful tool in service of the child’s uniqueness/truth.  Unfortunately, for most, the quick ‘no thank you’ was ignored, ridiculed, punished, etc., and it is an accumulation of the response or reaction to those (usually unintended) assaults on the child’s innocence and uniqueness that grows into rage.   Judith Minter writes:   For most of us anger has been/can be frightening, either by the implied rejection of us by loved powerful ones or by violence that can accompany out-of-control anger. It can also be grounding as we look underneath at the tender underbelly of anger and find pain. But I think a lot of people confuse the energy of anger with inappropriate acting out of anger.  We don’t have to be destructive.  That is a choice.  Anger is not an excuse.  As we Imagoans know, looking at it and voicing it in a constructive way can lead us deeper into ourselves (and our partners) to learn about our needs, hurts, longings, that transforms it to a sense of relief and validation. 

Sharon Fisher writes:  Just to add another perspective on anger,  there is a book called Destructive Emotions edited by  Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence author) that is a review of a week long conversation between the Dalai Lama and 7 scientists to explore how to define and manage destructive emotions.  In the book it becomes evident that the Western viewpoint is that all emotions are not good or bad, but it depends on what you do with them, while the Buddhist perspective is that there are in fact destructive emotions, including anger, that result in  preventing a person from accessing more positive emotions such as compassion while he/she is in a state of anger, and that state of being is destructive to self and others.  There are a couple of interesting chapters on programs both in the West and the East that focus on teaching children how to develop emotion regulation skills while enhancing their ability to access positive emotions such as empathy and compassion, along with strong evidence that mindfulness meditation strengthens one’s ability to access positive emotions and regulate one’s affect.

Thomas Wagner writes: When Winnicott writes about destruction he is referring not to a pure affect of anger/rage but to a merging of anger and certain cognitions in the form of fantasies.  Such is the stuff of war, cruelty, tyranny and most of the horrors of human history.  And yet, destructive fantasies are a part of being human–from infancy to old age.  One can live with destructive fantasies and still be a loving, compassionate person.  What is needed is awareness, not discharge.  It is helpful to vent anger only if awareness is brought to bear–awareness of the feelings and the narrative meanings attached to the anger (which can be infinitely varied).  This leads to understanding and integration.  (Thus, Winnecott’s genius in working with chidren.)  This is why bombing the hell out of

 It is important not to think of anger as a thing–like a toxic chemical–that needs to be discharged.  Anger is a physiologically-based affect that is attached to certain thought patterns.  Most personality theories recognize that anger is invoked as a protection against feelings of vulnerability.  Parents who scream at their children experience momentary relief–which is reinforcing.  It gives them the momentary sensation of conquering their vulnerability.  Spouse abusers experience this too, which is why, in spite of all the remorse, the violence escalates.  They become addicted to their anger.  In the ’70s there were a number of cathartic therapies–scream therapy, primal therapy, bioenergetics–premised on the idea that if we just got that stuff out of our system… Well, not so much in vogue anymore.  However, there is an important place for anger expression in therapy–if it is accompanied by mindfulness of the underlying hurt, or as Jeffrey Young might put it, the Angry Child uncovers the Vulnerable Child.
This is not an argument against anger-containment exercises, but a caution against thinking that pleasurable relief resulting from anger expression (endorphin rush) is a sign of new relational patterns being established.   He further shares:  Both injustice and hopelessness pervade anger at all levels from irritation to rage–along with  many other attitudes.  Expression and containment both play a role, but the goal as I see it is integration and revising the neural pathways.  Containment and expression do not by themselves unravel the incredibly complex tangle of pain, fear, anger, longing, projection, armor, memories etc. that make people so richly fascinating (and miserable) it is important to look closely at the subtle workings of affects–especially anger–since it plays such a huge role in the difficulties of couples communicating.  I believe it is important to neither demonize anger as something to avoid at all costs or to idealize it as some sort of elixer of the soul.  Most of our discussion of anger is based on subjective experience, which can be distorted in the service of an ideal self.  Clients I work with tend to view their own anger as a transmitter of truth and justice, whereas the anger of the spouse is viewed as a sure sign of lunacy.  So it goes.
     Anger is spoken of in varying ways: irritation, annoyance, contempt, resentment, arrogance, rage and so on.  These are not unique, self-contained affects but rather the way anger interacts with other affects and thought processes.  The intensity of anger varies according to the degree of real threat, but also the intensity of early life trauma that is being contained.  Anger and rage are not discrete entities.  I think of rage as anger at the extreme end of a contiuum. …     Anger maybe a catalyst to experiencing insights, feelings, interactions that are quite exhilerating…or it may lead to something quite ugly.  But those positive and negative experiences do not reside in anger itself.My own belief is that while anger seems to be a universal human emotion, what we do with it determines whether is is the catalyst towards life changing insight, growth and healing, or whether we use it as an excuse to hurt ourselves and others, creating a cycle of pain and disconnection.  Ultimately it is each individual’s responsibility to understand the source of their pain and to take the necessary steps to heal the pain.  In the end, self love and forgiveness leads to compassion, understanding and connection.