August 2009 Newsletter
August 1, 2009
The Therapy Process
by Timothy Furness
The therapy process is very often a deeply spiritual journey for both the therapist as well as the client. Quite a few years ago I came across a delightful passage I picked up from Stephen Howard, which he in turn received from his mentors. Stephen speaks of the freedom of living life in the here and the now, the delight of living life in the here and the now, the power of living life in the here and the now. So I also pass this wisdom on to whoever may be touched by its simplicity and meaningfulness. I have discovered that this wisdom serves me well when I am lost or confused or distracted by my own life situation. In the therapy process I often regain my clarity and focus by asking which of these four interwoven elements I am missing right now. It helps me to know how to live and helps me guide others on their life journey. Each element is also an injunction about caring for myself in the process. The four elements of the spiritual journey:
- Show up.
- Pay attention.
- Tell the truth.
- Don’t get too attached to the outcome.
These spiritual elements can provide a powerful framework for living life well with your partner in a love relationship. Relationships can be the source of our greatest delights and some of our deepest meaningful experiences. And relationships can also quickly go awry for many reasons beyond emotional immaturity and lack of friendship. Life can get messy. People change. Unfortunate things just happen. Marriages heading to divorce often contain lots of negativity according to John Gottman’s “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert” (2000). This negativity – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling –usually overwhelms or “floods” one or both of the partners, guaranteeing that “repair attempts” will fail. And before the inevitable breakup, these partners will live lonely lives in a parallel existence with each other. That is why a key ingredient to a successful relationship is probably the most important relationship of all: the relationship with yourself. In “Passionate Marriage” (1997), David Schnarch presents the concept of “holding onto yourself.”
As he puts it:
Hold onto you is a simple idea with many meanings. Self-mastery and self-control involve learning about yourself, confronting yourself and shifting to self-validated intimacy, and taking care of yourself (self-soothing which helps mediate the “flooding” we sometimes experience with our partners during conflict). Learning to hold onto yourself nudges your personal development and your marriage forward, and fundamentally changes how you and your partner interact. Holding onto yourself is a shorthand way of talking about differentiation. It involves several activities and processes:
- Maintaining a clear sense of who you are as you become increasingly intimate with a partner who is increasingly more important to you; knowing what you value and believe, and not defending a false or inaccurate self-picture.
- Maintaining a sense of perspective about your anxieties, limitations, and shortcomings so that they neither drive nor immobilize you.
- The willingness to engage in self-confrontation necessary for your growth. This includes standing up to your fears – taking the hits about yourself, your family of origin, your marriage, and your life; confronting your own selfishness, hatred, manipulation of others, sadism, withholding, and self-denigrations; and resisting your attempts to avoid yourself.
- Acknowledging your projections and distortions and admitting when you are wrong – whether or not your partner does likewise.
- Tolerating the pain involved in growing; mobilizing yourself toward the growth you value and aspire to; soothing your own hurts when necessary, without excessive self-indulgence; supporting rather than berating yourself.