A difference of opinion that I have with Sue Johnson is that she does not understand pursuing and avoiding as two different personality styles, but rather as flexible forms of adaptation to any given relationship. She makes the accurate point that one person may find themselves pursuing in one relationship and avoiding in the next. Though I also have witnessed situations where there has been cross-over from one relationship to the next, my experience has been that there is an even stronger trend towards “preferred action tendency” in the marriage-of-opposites; that is, underlying the ability of both types to flexibly adapt, most individuals in these relationships have powerful underlying preferences to respond in one way or another.
As I have discussed in a web document elsewhere (Borders, 2002) the key dynamic is located in two different relationships with the problem of vulnerability. One defends against vulnerability by reaching for rescue to someone else, the other defends against vulnerability by avoiding experiences that evoke vulnerability.
An inherent difficulty arises within each type, a kind of lopsidedness in development. The pursuer, with their focus upon being reassured by the other, is inherently limited in growing their own self-reliance. The avoider, in their avoidance of emotional feelings that might lead to rejection from others, is inherently limited in their emotional aliveness and intimacy.
Each type, sensing something missing in themselves, is drawn towards the other type… thus creating the marriage-of-opposites. However, following powerful attraction to the other, when close-in, each struggles with the others primary mode of responding. The pursuer begins to feel abandoned by the avoiders failure to emotionally reach. The avoider begins to feel engulfed, judged and not accepted by the pursuers powerful expression of need and confrontation.
The “individual project” is about each partner engaging the limitations of their own particular style, and the way that these limitations detract from the marriage. It is my experience that “working the individual projects” powerfully enhances the eft cycle work with the couple.
