Of late, I have been struggling to work through negative cycles highly resistant to change. In particular, I have begun to focus upon the “key shift” that each partner needs to make that would allow them to feel less defensive/threatened by their partner’s behavior. With this in mind, I have begun to explore following up the eft sessions with brief individual phone sessions, with this or that partner, specifically to further tease apart and unpack why they continue to feel threatened by their partners behavior. 

Communication is the primary potentiating and limiting factor in the healing of the marriage-of-opposites. As a rule of thumb, when we don’t know how to say a “certain something” that “certain something” does not get shared, or it comes out in a negative cycle way. Beyond that, when we do not have a sense of how to speak a feeling inside, or a need… the inner experience inside remains global, under-differentiated, inarticulate and poorly sorted out. If we do not know how to speak of something… we hardly know how to think about/consider/or feel that something – much less even begin to share it with someone else. Commonly, avoiders in this situation learn to repress/suppress what they are truly feeling inside; in essence they learn “not to go there,” and so much of what is felt inside never gets shared with others or even themselves. Pursuers, on the other hand, can end up repeatedly trying to communicate their feelings/needs inside but do so in a global, emotionally-infused way that threatens or scares off their partner. The acquisition of languaging skills that are both expressive and considerate of the other is a central task of eft couples therapy. 

At some level inside each partner in the negative cycle is in some form of protest towards the other. On the outside the protest appears reactive and defensive. On the inside, the partner in protest is trying to maintain “a certain fidelity” to who they are inside. The problem is that the protest  gets all wrapped up in the negative cycle and is not a functional sharing/communication of what is inside. It is the longing for connection all covered over with defense and self-protection. An opening to vulnerable expression  is the only solution to this. By hook or crook, safety must first be created in order for underlying vulnerability to open out. 

In contrast to pursuers who fear abandonment and being seen as somehow “bad-bad” (bad object not to be loved), avoiders tend to be more focused upon the question of their performance in the world as capable/adequate/admirable versus incapable/inadequate/shameful. In contrast to pursuers functioning more from “their gut” avoiders tend to be more concerned with outside images of success and social appropriateness.  Avoiders tend to be truly intimidated by the pursuers tendency to confront and seek to avoid vulnerability and socially appearing shameful and socially irresponsible or negligent, or even selfish. 

The dynamic for many pursuers is that they end up in a place where they are left “all bad.” This is often the outcome of the negative cycle where their avoiding partner distances them out of their fear of confrontation, leaving the pursuer triggered into abandonment feeling, and more and more escalated and carrying the feeling of all the badness. It is my experience that pursuers, on the whole, end up carrying the “self-badness” feeling far more often than avoiders. The reason for this is that while avoiders typically clam up in defense as a response to conflict, pursuers become escalated and increasingly disregulated as they keep trying to reach their avoiding partner who is pulling away. In essence, the abandonment panic leads to escalated reaching on the pursuers part, which only shuts the avoider down further, resulting in a frustrated anger within the pursuer, which then causes the pursuer to become hunkered down or withdraw further. The pursuer then begins to feel that somehow the whole terrible cycle is their bad… that somehow they end up feeling that they themselves are the very reason they don’t get the contact they so desperately need. Over time, it is not uncommon that the “hopeful pursuer” eventually becomes the “burned=out pursuer.” This is a dangerous development in the marriage… if this situation persists too long without repair or therapeutic intervention, the pursuer can begin to profoundly detach and withdraw from the marriage, putting the very survival of the marriage at risk. Bringing the burned-out pursuer back into marital re-engagement can be a very challenging and uncertain process.