Relationship Therapy is about “connecting”.
Relationship therapy enhances “a feeling of being close”. This is a very tricky area. We may think we know, “being close”, and we do. Most of us have very wonderful feelings and memories of “being close” and “feeling connected”. However, sometimes and even many times these feelings are the opposite, distant and disconnected. This is where relationship therapy comes in. It looks at both sides of this coin, feeling close and feeling distant.
Connection and closeness come through disconnected feelings and images.
The deepest message is in the actual difficulty you are having with someone. Not to become obsessed with it, but to use it as material for connection and closeness. If negative experiences are taken as bad, and “I better get rid of it”, then it will persist and get worse. Negative experiences show the way to the vulnerability that needs attention. This vulnerability is in everyone, everyone knows hurt, tenderness, and the anxiety of getting hurt again. The very thing that closeness heals.
The purpose of relationship therapy is to feel better, so how do painful feelings make that happen?
Usually, painful emotions in relationships stem from confusion, sometimes big confusion. This confusion is about “right and wrong”, coming from family and cultural standards, some more rigid than others. When these confusions are looked at in the light of day, they can be seen for how useful they are. Many times some of these old beliefs are worn out vehicles that have lost their wheels, they just don’t go anymore. This realization alone can dispel a lot of struggle because the doubtful beliefs are considered for their lack of validity.
Confusion in varying degrees:
The first level is, “I don’t have any confusion, you do, because you don’t do what I say.”
The second level is, “I might have confusion, but I am positive you are all wrong”.
The third level is, “I don’t have a clue, but I’ll never tell you that.
The forth level is, “I’m confused. I wonder what this is about”.
There is actually more fear of connection and closeness in the first level. This person is disconnected from their inner life. This person has been hurt before and has yet to value that hurt, and the necessity for happiness. The fourth level has a willingness to accept that something difficult has happened and now maybe I can learn something from it. Through this process of looking at the confusion, the disconnection and lack of closeness gives way to new understanding of self and other.
