In Healing the Marriage-of-Opposites I allude to the core-styled as vulnerable and to the outer-styled as defended. Strictly speaking, both styles are forms of defensive organization. While the outer-styled typically defend with various forms of constriction (minimization, devaluing, intellectualization, emotional distancing, etc.), the core-styled are also locked into their own defensive forms (pursuing, reparative fantasy, maintaining illusion of withheld goodness, splitting into good and bad objects, etc.). At the end of the day, however, the defensive organization of the core-styled results in more exposure to vulnerability rather than less, in contrast to the outer-styled’s which typically results in an effective walling off of core feeling and lessened vulnerability. It is this very important difference in lived experience that I am attempting to capture by referring to the one style as vulnerable and the other as defended.

To a degree, this weblog is largely a dialogue with Healing The MarriageOfOpposites; a dialogue, an elaboration and extension of ideas expressed in that web document. For that reason, many of the blog entries will begin with a reference from that document. It is recommended that readers of this weblog familiarize themselves with Healing the MarriageOfOpposites in order to make best use of this blog.

To finally begin to fill out the MarriageOfOpposites. Two years since my first and last entry; many ideas and observations stored up… and finally the time and space to put them down. Note, to the left side of this page are links to more systematic presentations concerning the MarriageOfOpposites. This log, on the other hand, is a journal of concepts as they first arise or are first written down. So, to begin…

This is a journal devoted to the psycho-dynamics of the “marriage-of-opposites,” relationships variously characterized as minimizing/maximizing, leveling/sensitizing, fusing/isolating, clinging/avoiding, pursuing/distancing, hysterical/obsessional, and borderline/narcissistic. Many phenomena that branch off from this topic, including the “marriage-of-similarities,” will also be explored. This journal is meant to supplement more formal works on the topic; to provide a rough-hewn but alive picture of emergent understanding. In large part this work grows out of twenty-five years of doing intensive psychotherapy with both couples and individuals wherein marriage-of-opposites dynamics figured highly in determining the directions of people’s lives. In addition, outside of psychotherapy settings, I have repeatedly encountered these patterns in the lives of friends and colleagues, American cinema and literature, and most recently, in the relationships of American political figures.