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Pursuing and avoiding as personality types or as adaptations to different relationships

April 1, 2022

After many decades of working with couples I have come across a significant minority of situations where persons in the role of pursuers or avoiders in one relationship, switch these roles in succeeding relationships. A person might be a pursuer in one relationship but an avoider in a subsequent relationship, and visa versa. This contrast is pause for reflection… as it challenges the notion of pursuing/avoiding as personality traits and points to the two types as external adaptations to varied relationship situations. (to be continued)

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About Orin Borders, Ph.D.

Orin Borders, Ph.D, a psychologist in private practice with a long standing interest in the Marriage-Of-Opposites, is the originator on this site.

Current Project

Commentaries on the Marriage-of-Opposites

  • Chapter 1: The Phenomenon
  • Chapter 2: Final Common Pathways
  • Chapter 3: The Problem Of Nondifferentiation And Developmental Levels
  • Chapter 4: Defensive Presentations – When Appearances Deceive
  • Chapter 5: The Impact Of Gender
  • Chapter 6: The Core- Versus Outer-Styled…Two Differing Projects

Orin Borders, Ph.D.

530.448.9177

orinborders@gmail.com

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