WHAT RELATIONSHIP IS PROSPECTIVE?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In any close relationship - child-parent, female-male, friendly - our children's and our adult part is involved.

Our children's part brings into relationships all our childhood experience of interacting with the first close people - parents, and together with the experience, we bring in our childhood aspirations, fears and learned strategies for interacting with the first significant people in our life.

Together with the child in the inner world lives the Appraiser, the Tyrant, the Controller - the condemning part that does not recognize the natural rights of the Child.

She is responsible for the compliance of the Child with the rules of adjustment to the very first close people learned in due time.

The more traumatic the early years of life were, the more these expectations and automatic adjustment strategies work.

and the more implacable Tyrant.

We feel this inner drama as loneliness, pain from unfulfilled needs, badness (when we are "in the Child")

or self-hatred, self-rejection, condemnation, self-suppression (if associated with the Tyrant).

The traumatic person constantly migrates from the children's part to the tyrannical one, experiencing alternately need, then self-suppression, then guilt, then self-accusation, then fear, then attacks on oneself, etc.

Our adult part is capable of accepting this inner Child with all its vulnerabilities, allowing us to put ourselves and our needs first, it stimulates self-protection, self-respect, recognizes the rights, for example, to spend money on ourselves, do what we love, choose with whom communicate, etc.

This adult part, recognizing all vital rights and dignity for the Child, recognizes them for all other Children, i.e. is the most important link in healthy, constructive interaction with other people.

If only the Child and the Tyrant are present in the internal structure, then, accordingly, communication, including close communication, occurs at the same level. The child needs, waits, adjusts to the Other, the Tyrant blames, shames, expects compliance with a certain ideal.

And we remember that the stronger the trauma, the harder these internal patterns are brought into contact.

I gradually move on to the main idea of this article - what kind of relationships can be constructive, nourishing, life-stimulating, and also - what to focus on so that they are, at the very beginning?

But first, I would like to note one very important component.

Our childish part, in addition to what was described above, creates attachment.

We intuitively choose a person who can (we believe) meet our needs and can create affection with him.

Attachment is experienced as a deep emotional connection, and it is born, as already mentioned, in the child's part.

All our close relationships are built on these three whales, or rather, parts, and the quality of these very relationships depends on the quality of internal interactions between the Child, Tyrant and Adult.

In therapy, we strive to ensure that the wounded Child gets out of the Tyrant's influence and falls under the “care” of the Adult part.

The adult part accepts, forgives, encourages, and in every possible way contributes to separation, separation from parental figures. Being "in the adult part", we feel trust in ourselves, in our strengths, We feel that we can cope with different life tasks. The adult encourages less unhealthy addiction.

Recall that if in a relationship there is only a Child with his attachment and expectations that someone else will take care of him, and a Tyrant who prohibits and suppresses the very needs and rights that he needs, then there is nothing left but to hope to a significant Other.

Who will allow, accept and warm.

From all that has been said above, it follows that in relations with other people we will also deal with the same triumvirate, and then it is very important to understand - in what interrelationships are the three parts of the Other.

I will focus now on female-male, partnerships, although with a certain degree of probability these criteria will fit any close relationship.

So, on what grounds can we determine the probable prospect of their development?

We need to pay attention to the presence of the ability.

1. The ability to be separate and the willingness to see the other person as separate. A separate person says "I" and he asks about You. He does not imagine about you, does not hang labels, does not fantasize, does not save without asking. He asks, he is interested in You.

2. Ability to be involved. He reacts to what you say, responding with thoughts and feelings to your thoughts and feelings. If the Adult is absent, the person is not able to get involved, he is in contact only with his own world, he cannot be in contact with the world of the Other.

3. Willingness to gradually approach. The child wants to immediately rush into bodily contact (for example, sex) or closes if he is afraid of intimacy, or runs away. If there is no Adult, then there is no one to calm such a Child in his fear of the Other. The frightened Child defends himself in advance. The adult helps to cope with the uncertainty in the gradual development of the relationship.

4. The ability to accept otherness without arguing with it. If your dissimilarity is challenged, not giving you the right to have your own values, views, convictions, then you are dealing with a frightened Child and a Tyrant who is in a pair with him accusing you - now you.

5. Ability for compassion, empathy, support

It is quite obvious that the Tyrant is capable, at best, of lecturing, criticizing, but not supporting in any way.

The child only knows how to regret, but is not able to share the suffering.

Compassion (not out of duty!) Is only capable of a person who has recognized the significance of his own sufferings, and has experienced them for the benefit of himself.

Many have the ability to be attached, but not everyone has the ability to love (accept) and respect.

These skills are built up with Meaningful experience, the need to be Mature.

Of course, Children will be present in any relationship.

And, by the way, your willingness to open your Child (your vulnerability) to the Other - that is, your Trust to open this vulnerability, is the main criterion for the prospects of a relationship.