There is the whole topic Of accountability in marriage. Accountability has to do with our “being responsible” for what we bring to our partner. In order for this even to be a factor in our marital lives we we must have a sense of ourselves in the relationship beyond our reacting to our partner, a sense of ourselves not only embedded in the marital dance, but also as individuals “choosing how we are in marital dance.” Our ability to offer ourselves and our partner “win-win” engagements is built upon this larger sense of ourselves as being both capable of choices and responsible for our choices.
Hence, in marriage we are always in dialectic between our reacting to our partner and our choosing within ourselves how we want to proceed with our reacting. This is at the center of the marital dance. Do we feel “room within ourselves” as we respond to our partner or do we feel locked into something with the other that precludes a sense of self inside that harbors our needs, wishes and dreams.
By accountability, I have in mind something far more profound that simply following through with what we verbally promise our partners, though verbal promises are certainly a part of the picture. This larger sense of accountability is concerned with our being true to ourselves in our lives with our partner, and our being true to the emotional depth of the relationship. It does not mean never failing or never hurting our partner. It does mean that “at the end of the day” we take our partner in, and care about what is there experience, even if we struggle with what they bring to us. And it does mean that, past the understandable moments of an inflamed fight, at the end of the day, we do not dismiss our partner with various labels “bad” or “impossible” … and if we do we must know about ourselves that we and our relationship are in difficulty that requires healing.
Commonly there is an early phase in couples therapy where one or both in the marriage rail against their partner for not giving them what they need. Sometimes this focus upon “what is wrong in the other” can be brief, sometimes it can go on for months, and commonly it comes and goes in cycles throughout the therapy. Somewhere in the couples therapy journey, however, there is “a moment of truth” when each in the marriage must face what they themselves bring or do not bring to the marriage. This is that place where we ask ourselves, do I really bring to my partner “win-win interactions.” Note that win-win interactions start with with a crucial acceptance of what ones partner’s capacities are, so that there is good opportunity for the partners success in the interaction. Otherwise, the interactions are a set-up for the partners failure… and the relationship’s failure.
What I have in mind here is that dimension where we face ourselves in our marriage. Without wishing to sound religious, that place where “we talk to God” about ourselves and our participation in our own lives; that place of total honesty with ourselves. In what we bring to our partner, in our real knowing of them, have we really “been working with who they are” in what we bring to them, or are we just in one more reenactment of proving them incapable/wrong/bad?
Likewise, we must also ask ourselves the therapeutically useful question, what am I doing in a relationship wherein my own participation is not functional? And perhaps, if am choosing to stay in this relationship, what greater functionality may I want to ask of myself… so as to be able to like myself at the end of the day.
Typically, struggling couples focus on the particulars of what the other does as “the problem” in the struggling relationship. That is, each in the marriage focus on “what the other does or fails to do” as needing to change in order for the marriage to improve. The unconscious thought is often “if I can get what I need from the other, then that will evoke the “loving feeling that is missing inside of me that I want to feel.” The difficulty with this unconscious reasoning is that it enmeshes “the other” in one’s “own ability to love the other” in an unstable fashion that is not sustainable. Hence, the ability to love “the other” is only as good as “the recent good interaction.” Deep change in the internal representation of “the other” does not occur. This dynamic readily evolves into the endless repetitions of negative and positive cycles. This lends an “unreal” and “insecure” feeling to the “underlying felt sense of the marriage.”
What has become increasingly clear to me is that depthful change within a marriage depends upon an improved capacity on the part of both in the marriage to internally represent “the other” in an increasingly positive light; that is, a shift within both in the “core attitude towards the other.” Hence, couples therapy must deeply engage each partner in how they “think about and feel” towards “the other” deeply inside. This, can only happen, within an atmosphere of reduced polarization and the creation of an “empathic bridge.”
It is enormously valuable to keep returning to the understanding that first and foremost… marriage is a dance. Beyond all of the particulars of this or that difference between two people, the overarching truth is that it is how well two people dance or do not dance with each other in their daily life that determines the extent of marital happiness. This understanding is especially valuable because it avoids the non-therapeutic trap of authoring who is right or wrong, capable or deficient, good or bad. The matter of healing is then redirected to the non-judgmental task of improving the dance with the particular “other” who is their partner, with evaluation of “the other” reduced to secondary importance. Discussions of this or that particular difficulty in “the other” that makes the relationship difficult is held within the larger context of “how do we make this work with each other?” The focus of the marital work shifts from the particular personality flaws in each partner to how do we “transact” with each other to make the better being together. It has been my experience that even marital partners highly mired in pain and blaming are nevertheless able to acknowledge that they do suffer from dancing poorly together and ultimately would like the dance to be better. Paradoxically, this then creates the safest emotional environment in the relationship for the eventual resolutions/reconciliation of painful differences.
It is often a very challenging task to move couples away from blaming and defense into a receptive examination of their transactional process. And, in fact, the therapy must begin with, and periodically return to, the particulars of damage, hurt and anger that this or that partner has sustained in the marriage. Otherwise, the therapeutic work would have no guts and depth. However, with the contributions to marital therapy made by by therapists from the attachment theory tradition (Sue Johnson), it is readily possible and powerful to reframe particular marital hurts, blamings and defense within a framework of thwarted need for connection and safety with the other. Such a reframing often brings down polarization, invites an empathy bridge within the marriage, and guides couples into an experience of attachment and emotional collaboration. So, in essence, the particular hurts of the couple are not “ignored in the service of being more mature,” but in fact are “honored and harnessed,” in the service of acquiring what is actually most missing and most wanted… secure attachment.
In the early years of psychoanalysis psychotherapeutic treatment was typically conducted six days per week with the patient doing free association laying on the couch out of sight from the analyst. In modern times many question the lack of actual relational contact between therapist and patient characteristic of this treatment situation. However, what is evident is the “deep emotional holding” that that daily sessions can potentially provide to the therapeutic journey. In fact, some patients and analysts doing this form of treatment report on the “Monday crust” that would often follow from having a Sunday break from treatment. Clearly, such treatment was intense and fully involving, even if limited in terms of much current psychotherapy understanding.
Most modern day psychoanalytic psychotherapy is conducted on a once per week basis, with some treatments two times per week, and other treatments every other week. While such treatments are often, in fact, invaluable in people’s lives, it is my current understanding that most psychotherapy inherently provides less than is truly needed; that is, most psychotherapy proceeds with inherent “psychotherapy deprivation.”
“Psychotherapy deprivation” is important because “deprivation in treatment” reenacts the deprivation in our patient’s histories that is so often implicated in our patient’s emotional wounding. At it’s worst, this amounts to a situation where the treatment that is entrusted to heal emotional wounds is itself inherently re-wounding. At it’s least, the “internalization process” that is at the heart of therapeutic healing is lessened.
What is to be done about this state of affairs?
Let me first talk about what is not done. Most therapists are in a state of denial; that is, most therapist, prohibit “their own knowing” about this limitation in the treatment they provide. Hence they interfere with “their patients knowing” about what is inherently missing or deficit in treatment. (to be cont)
