This post is the spark notes version of the theory of differentiation as explained by David Schnarch in the book "Intimacy and Desire."
Differentiation is one of the most important and impactful theories that I've ever read and can be incredibly useful for self growth and development. The theory of differentiation is foundational to how I do therapy and my outlook on life. I've taken what I consider the most important aspects and concepts from the book and consolidated them into this post (it's a long one). I highly recommend reading the book itself as it gives a deeper understanding of the principles involved.
Differentiation: Your ability to keep your emotional balance while interacting in important relationships. Being able to be closely connected to another human being while also remaining independent from them emotionally. Another way to think about it is your level of emotional maturity.
Differentiation is a theory couched in connection as it says that relationships are where our level of differentiation is tested the most. Relationships, especially romantic ones, are the catalyst for self-growth and are the ultimate test of faith, patience, and strength.
There are many core concepts in the book. For efficiency's sake, I will simply put "Core Concept" by future concepts that are important.
Core Concept
A reflected sense of self vs a solid sense of self
Reflected sense of self: Who you think you are, how you feel about yourself, and how you choose to carry yourself is directly influenced by, or linked to, what others think about you, how they behave towards you, and how they feel about you.
Solid sense of self: Who you think you are, how you feel about yourself, and how you choose to carry yourself is independent of what others think about you, how they behave towards you, and how they feel about you.
To expound I will give the example that David Schnarch uses in the book to explain this.
Picture your ego as a giant inflatable balloon and you have a hand pump in front of it to pump up your ego balloon. A person with a reflected sense of self cannot, or does not, inflate their own ego balloon. Instead, they rely on the people around them to inflate it for them. In other words, someone that operates from a place of a reflected sense of self relies on the people around them to feel good about themself. If someone isn't inflating their ego, they are feeling bad about themselves. Or, if someone says something negative about them, then they react negatively. A reflected sense of self is defined by reactivity. If you are reactive to anything anyone else says or does, that is a reflected sense of self.
On the other hand, someone with a solid sense of self inflates their own ego balloon and doesn't need anyone else to do it for them. They are more or less impervious to the behavior of others because they don't need anyone else's approval, validation, or acceptance. They are solid within themselves and own what's theirs while simultaneously recognizing what isn't theirs to own in terms of other people's issues and thereby not reacting to their poor behavior.
The healthiest person operates from a solid sense of self. They have chosen how they want to be and are that regardless of how others interact with them. They take full accountability for their actions while not taking on responsibility that isn't theirs. They are fully connected to others while also being emotionally independent.
A solid sense of self may seem like an unattainable ideal but it isn't. It just takes a lot of self work and a radical taking of accountability for oneself.
“A solid sense of self develops from confronting yourself, challenging yourself to do what’s right, and earning your own self-respect. It develops inside you, rather than internalizing what’s around you.”
Core Concept
4 Points of Balance: Components of a solid sense of self
Solid Flexible Self – the ability to be clear about who you are and what you’re about, especially when your partner pressures you to adapt and conform.
Quiet Mind-Calm Heart – being able to calm yourself down, soothe your own hurts, and regulate your own anxieties.
Grounded Responding – the ability to stay calm and not overreact, rather than creating distance, running away, or becoming anxiously attached when your partner gets anxious or upset.
Meaningful Endurance – being able to step up and face the issues that are evident in your relationship, and the ability to tolerate discomfort for the sake of growth.
These are the components of a solid sense of self. They are meant to provide direction on where you may be lacking in your level of differentiation as well as guidance for how to develop it.
We will come back to the four points of balance later but for now we will take a deep dive on aspects of a reflected sense of self.
Reflected Sense of Self
The concept of a reflected sense of self is complex so we will venture into several aspects of a reflected sense of self to help with comprehension.
I've taken several quotes from the book that I think best describe this concept.
“Our first realization of being a “self” elicits anger and frustration rather than joy and relief. It starts the moment you and mommy are not a single entity. Suddenly there is an 'I' and a 'thou'. Your initial experience of selfhood comes when your parent or care-giver isn’t doing what you want. When you’re feeling comfortable and nurtured, you’re not aware there are two of you.”
“Borrowed functioning is a way people cope with the fact that our first self is a reflected sense of self. Borrowed functioning is borrowed because it doesn’t give you a solid sense of self or the ability to function in lasting ways. It’s like your self is a balloon others inflate. While you’re inflated, things seem better. You may look better, feel better, and even act better briefly, but these transfusions of “pseudo-self” don’t hold up. Even if your partner doesn’t deflate you, you 'leak' enough to require further inflation before long.”
**Borrowed functioning is exactly what it implies. It's you borrowing the ability to function from another individual as you depend on them for your emotional well-being.
“Normal people depend on others for their sense of identity, self-worth, and security. We do so because we are generally at a modest level of personal development. A reflected sense of self is the first self we have. Many people never develop much of a solid self and engage in borrowed functioning all their lives. But the price of feeling good about yourself because others approve of you is feeling bad about yourself when they don’t.”
Two Main Types
Dominant type: Seek to control, manipulate, dominate, change, or intimidate their partner. Don’t accept negative feedback. Don’t take responsibility for their actions. Everyone has to conform to them and what they want. Selfish. Care about themselves much more than others. Blame others for their own emotions.
Submissive type: Seek to please, pacify, save, or submit to their partner. Don’t offer negative feedback. Accept responsibility that isn’t theirs. Conform to the people around them. Selfless to the exclusion of taking care of themselves. Care about others more than they care about themselves. Blame themselves for the emotions of others.
You will gravitate to more of one type than the other but you will likely exhibit both types of a reflected sense of self around different people.
Core Concept
Mind mapping
“Reading someone’s mind means understanding his thoughts, feelings, and motivations by studying his reactions and behavior. Mind-mapping arises from awareness that (a) other people have their own minds, with their own perceptions, beliefs and desires, and that (b) other people’s behavior can be explained and predicted by deducing the content of their mind.”
“If you have a reflected sense of self, being able to read other peoples’ minds is all-important. You do it constantly, vigilantly searching for clues about how others think and feel about you. You have to know what other people are thinking to make sure you look good in their eyes. That’s what a reflected sense of self is all about, and you can’t be sure you’ve got other people’s approval if you can’t map their minds.
“Actually you are hyper vigilant, scanning for advance warning of the rejection you anticipate. You play three moves ahead. You become expert at it. It’s a full-time job. You don’t want to be caught off guard or look like a fool.”
“Mind-mapping lies at the heart of all social interactions. Manipulating the mental states of others to alter their behavior is a sign of social intelligence. Successful social interactions, straightforward or manipulative, come from recognizing who the players are and what makes them tick. There are usually loads of mind-mapping going on in unpleasant and unsatisfying interactions too, it’s just more likely to be inaccurate.”
“Mind mapping allows you to present yourself in such a way as to get the acceptance and validation you need from others.”
Two ways of mapping:
We either use our own mental state, our thoughts and feelings, as a model of what’s happening inside the other person (projection) or we adopt alternative character traits and do a mental recalibration. We either assume the world is as we are or we assume that it isn't and adapt like a social chameleon according to the individual we are relating to.
Mind mapping isn't always bad! It's human nature to mind map to some degree or another but we can get considerably better at it when we are willing to do our own self growth.
“Mind-mapping accuracy and benevolence improve when you’re willing and able to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, including confronting yourself and mapping your own mind. When you’re not willing to look at yourself or be truly known, or the most important thing to you is having things your way, you’ll map others’ minds constantly, but it won’t involve empathy.”
In other words, your ability to mind map will be hampered by the degree to which you haven't resolved your own insecurities and fears because you won't be willing to see things as they are if those things are perceived as threatening in some way.
Core Concept
High Desire Partner (HDP) and Low Desire Partner (LDP)
High Desire Partner – The person that has more desire for something compared to the other person or people involved.
Low Desire Partner – The person that has less desire for something compared to the other person or people involved.
“There is a low desire partner and a high desire partner on virtually every issue and decision in any relationship. One person wants to do something (HDP) and the other doesn’t or wants to do it less (LDP). Even if you and the other person want the same thing, one of you will want it more. At every point of contention, high desire partner and low desire partner are positions people take relative to each other. Once there is a conflict, it’s clear who fills which position.”
“There is always a low desire partner and high desire partner in every relationship, romantic or otherwise. Acknowledging this, can change how you feel, whether you are the high desire partner or the low desire partner. It allows you to stop being defensive or feeling inadequate or ‘different’. It is a logical view of how problems occur: The LDP and HDP are positions in a relationship.”
So basically, you never care at the same level as another person. Eventually one person will inevitably care more or less than you about any given thing. That isn't a good or bad thing, it just is, and it shouldn't be taken negatively by either party. Problems that arise from a disparity in desire, in anything, is evidence of a reflected sense of self. Yes, even the big, hot button topics.
Food for thought:
The low desire partner almost always controls outcomes when discrepancy in desire occurs. This applies in cleanliness, chores, kids, sex, activities, visiting relatives, etc. This is especially true in relationships that operate on a reflected sense of self.
Core Concept
“People who can’t control themselves control the people around them.”
We've arrived at one of the most important concept of the book. Pay close attention to what this talks about. This links and completes the concepts that we've previously gone over.
“Trying to regulate the emotions (of people) around you is an indirect way of trying to regulate yourself.”
“If you can’t regulate your own emotional temperature, you’ll regulate everyone around you to keep yourself comfortable. Think of a parent who can’t control his temper or anxieties. Everyone else in the family has to act accordingly to keep him calm.”
“Your inability to hold on to your self upsets others’ emotional balance. The more your reflected sense of self drives you, and the more you look to others, the more others will feel oppressed and controlled. The more you try to regulate yourself through others, the more you trigger their refusal to submit to tyranny, which is part of human nature.”
In other words, most people attempt to control the people around them, consciously or subconsciously, in order to get their needs met. Since they can't, or rather won't, control their own emotions, their only option is to control others.
This principle is rampant everywhere. You try to control the people around you if you operate from a place of a reflected sense of self at all. Needing anyone to do, be, feel, think, or anything remotely related to those words is a sign of reflected sense of self and is an attempt to assuage your own emotional state by controlling those around you. This principle underlies the dogmatism and radicalism that is so prevalent in politics, religion, gender roles, societal norms, etc. It's all an attempt to force others to take a view point that you are comfortable with rather than challenge your own discomfort but on a much larger scale.
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."
~ Albert Einstein
So what is the solution? Change. Personal change on a soul searching level.
“There is more than enough power and control to go around, when you empower and control yourself.”
I've come up with a list of 25 signs of a reflected sense of self to help you self identify where you may need some self work.
25 signs of a reflected sense of self:
Defensiveness/ taking offense
Needing approval
Emotional highs and lows as a result of someone else’s actions
Trying to control others/ manipulation
Trying to change others
Reactive to others
Your happiness changes based on other people’s actions
Weak boundaries
Trouble knowing your goals, desires, dreams, or passions
Not knowing why you do things
Group identity – Identity is based off of a group of people
Susceptible to peer pressure
Empathizing too much
Social anxiety
Codependency
Changing yourself to fit a relationship
Low self-esteem
Chronic anxiety – don’t feel comfortable in your own skin
Living another person’s definition of ”happiness” or “success”
Feelings of emptiness
Lack of accountability for actions
Getting the “fuck its”
Isolating/ creating distance
Conflict/ heated arguments
Serial dating
This list is not even close to being comprehensive. I could list more. But this is good enough for now.
In the same vein I've created a list of questions you can ask yourself to help you understand where you may be lacking in each of the four points of balance. Feel free to skip them if you want to.
Identifying Your Reflected Sense of Self
Solid Flexible Self – the ability to be clear about who you are and what you’re about, especially when your partner pressures you to adapt and conform.
What relationships make you feel pressure to be different than how you want to be? How do you change for those relationships if you do?
What relationships are you not true to yourself for the sake of peace or for other reasons? Why aren't you true to yourself? Or how do you not follow through and honor your feelings in those relationships?
In what relationships do you pressure others to change for you? Why do you pressure them?
In what relationships does your presence make others feel pressure to be different than how they want to be? Why would someone else feel that way?
In what ways are you not completely honest with yourself about who you are and what you want? Why aren’t you?
In what ways are you not completely honest with others about who you are and what you want? Why aren’t you?
What beliefs are holding you back from having a more solid, flexible self? Why do you hold on to those beliefs?
Quiet Mind-Calm Heart – being able to calm yourself down, soothe your own hurts, and regulate your own anxieties.
In what situations do you force the people around you to change for your own comfort? What insecurities or fears are underlying these behaviors?
What unhealthy behaviors do you use to help soothe yourself?
How long does it take to soothe yourself when you experience a low level of a negative emotion? How long at a high level?
How often do you get feelings so strong that they are overwhelming or difficult to handle? (% out of 100)
How often do you need to resolve a problem immediately in order to feel okay? (% out of 100)
What beliefs are holding you back from soothing yourself?
Grounded Responding – the ability to stay calm and not overreact, rather than creating distance, running away, or becoming anxiously attached when your partner gets anxious or upset.
What do you get defensive about or offended by? Why do you get defensive or offended?
What comments or insults do you react to that are untrue? Why do you react that way if you know they aren’t true?
What insecurities do you take out on others? Why do you react that way?
What unhealthy behaviors do you exhibit when you’re hurt emotionally? Why do you choose to react that way?
How able are you to control your response in the moment, no matter what emotion you are feeling and no matter how intensely you are feeling it?
Do you let others dictate your behavior by getting angry when they get angry, by being rude when they are rude, etc.? Why do you give them power over you?
How often do you regret how you reacted to a situation after the fact? (% out of 100)
How often to expect others to apologize to you first? (% out of 100)
How often do you create distance with someone when they offend you? (% out of 100)
How often do you blow up at someone when they offend you? (% out of 100)
What beliefs are holding you back from improving your grounded responding?
Meaningful Endurance – being able to step up and face the issues that are evident in your relationship, and the ability to tolerate discomfort for the sake of growth.
How often do you hold grudges and are unwilling to forgive others? (% out of 100)
How often do you get the “fuck its” when a problem arises? (% out of 100)
How often do you blame others for your reaction and/or justify your behavior? (% out of 100)
When do you stop to consider your role in a problem or conflict? In the moment? After a day? After the other person apologizes? Never?
How often do you remember how important the relationship is in the moment of a heated conflict? (% out of 100)
How often to you act like that relationship is as important to you as you believe it is in the midst of heated conflict? (% out of 100)
How comfortable are you with being uncomfortable?
What beliefs do you have about discomfort that prevent you from having meaningful endurance?
Four Points of Balance
I'll go over each of the four points of balance with a bit more description than before using quotes from the book and my own summary.
Solid Flexible Self: “The first point of balance, when you have a solid flexible self as opposed to a reflected sense of self, lets you maintain your own psychological ‘shape’ in close proximity to important partners who pressure you to accommodate them. You don’t have to keep distance (physically or emotionally) to stay clear about who you are. The more solid your sense of self, the more important you can let your partner be to you, and the more you can let yourself be truly known. You can seek advice and let yourself be influenced by others. You can change your mind when warranted. You can be flexible without losing your identity.”
Quiet Mind-Calm Heart: “The second point of balance – having a quiet mind and calm heart – allows you to regulate your own emotions, feelings, and anxieties. If you can’t soothe and comfort yourself, then your desires and life’s frustrations will pull you apart. Self-soothing is your ability to calm yourself down, soothe your own hurt feelings, and keep your fears and anxieties under control. A quiet mind-calm heart plays a critical role in mature adult love. It is central to our being the most adaptable, resilient animal on the planet.”
Grounded Responding: “The third point of balance involves making grounded responses to the people and events around you. It means not overreacting in response to your partner’s anxiety (or other emotions). Grounded responding plays a big role in mind-mapping: You have to buffer what you learn when you map the minds of the people you love. If you’re like most people, your ability to mind-map far exceeds your ability to remain calm and grounded. Mapping your partner’s mind can make you upset and highly reactive.”
Meaningful Endurance: “The fourth point of balance lets you endure discomfort for growth. All animals seek pleasure and avoid pain. But what makes humans adaptive and successful is our capacity to forego immediate gratification and endure hardship. This allows us to pursue long-term goals and values we hold dear. Being able to endure the pain and heartache of relationships makes marriage, families, parenting, and caring for others possible. That’s not easy. But it’s easier to tolerate when your pain and heartache is meaningful, when it serves some purpose you value or something good might come out of it. Purposeless, wasteful, stubborn, or foolish pain and suffering is much harder to tolerate and accomplishes virtually nothing.”
“Enduring anxiety for the sake of growth is part of becoming a mature adult, everything is uncomfortable at first.”
“All four points of balance are involved in maintaining, caring for, and developing your self. These four abilities are the pillars undergirding your sense of self. These four capacities will help you keep your emotional balance when things get rough.”
“Do you stay clear about who you are when someone tampers with your sense of self or do you fall apart? Can you calm yourself when you’re hurt and upset, or do you need someone else to comfort you? When your partner is struggling, do you overreact and run away from or cling to your partner? Do you accomplish those difficult things that need to be done to meet your goals, or do you give up, bail out, or goof off? These four points of balance determine the strength or weakness of your sense of self.”
Differentiated responding in action:
Solid Flexible Self: Holding on to yourself while someone pressures you to change. Knowing who you are and sticking to it regardless of the pressure you get from others. Not giving in to peer pressure or demands from others. Not needing to pretend to be someone else. Not pretending not to care or care and being comfortable with what you care about. Being 100% comfortable being authentically you but recognizing you are not perfect and will always have things you can improve upon. Taking others' perspectives into account but not taking them as law for how you see yourself.
Quiet Mind-Calm Heart: Regulating your own anxiety. Knowing your own insecurities and confronting them in the moment. Being able to calm yourself down without demanding someone else change in order for you to be comforted. Being able to calm yourself so that you confront situations that are uncomfortable and don't avoid them.
Grounded Responding: Staying non-reactive and engaged. Having self-mastery and recognizing you are in charge of how you respond and act, no matter what the circumstances. Being able to respond calmly even if you were wronged or someone meant to be offensive. Being proactive in resolving issues and not waiting for others to take the first step. Not needing to disengage to resolve an issue. Recognizing the importance of the person to you even when in the midst of an argument.
Meaningful Endurance: Confronting yourself and tolerating discomfort so you can grow. Not avoiding or denying your part in a problem. Looking inward for the source of the problem rather than outward. Being honest with yourself and others. Actively seeking to change and being comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Recognizing discomfort is necessary for positive change. Not avoiding something, like a hard conversation or choice, even when it will result in pain, for you or others.
This is more of a roadmap than anything else. The four points of balance show you where you aren't balanced within yourself and invite you to create the balance you have been neglecting. Self confrontation comes with inevitable changes in relationships. Making these changes also enables others to have the chance of self improvement and growth although it is their choice to take that opportunity or continue on their path of self destruction.
How do you know if you are operating from a reflected sense of self or a solid sense of self?
The answer lies in what you do and why you do it.
This is the primary challenge in differentiation is that two people can do the exact same thing, in the exact same way, for entirely different reasons. Or more applicably, you can do the exact same behavior for entirely different reasons. For example, as a kid you may have wanted to stay up late because you weren't allowed to. Now you might stay up because there is something that you want to do that is more important than sleep, or as you get older and the body deteriorates, because you have to. This is a non-threatening example but it applies to anything else. Why we do things matters more than what we do. That may not seem true to the people outside of ourselves but if we want to truly love and respect ourself, then it matters far more what our intention was. Even if others don't respect you, you should try to live a life that you are proud of and should try to feel self-respect. A person who has a solid sense of self aligns with the best version of themselves at all times or at least strives to do so.
Romantic Relationships
“Marriage is a state of slavery involving two masters and two slaves.”
Devil’s Dictionary
Romantic relationships get their own section because they are so salient to the theory of differentiation. They are irreplaceable as a means of bringing up your worst insecurities and fears and give you an opportunity to face yourself like nothing else ever will.
The quote above alludes to the idea of people in a relationship operating from a reflected sense of self. Both parties are slaves due to their reliance on their partner for feeling good about themselves and they are both masters because of the control they have over their partner's emotional well-being.
Core Concept
We search for a partner at the same level of differentiation as we are.
We won't dive into this very deeply but it's relevant to go into now, albeit briefly. If you have 10 red flags you will seek someone else out with 10 red flags. Someone with 8 red flags will eventually get tired of their partner being more unhealthy and will eventually end the relationship. Wonder why you keep getting into unhealthy relationships? Or stay in them? Now you know. You think your partner has a lot of problems? So do you then!
Time for more quotes!
“Innumerable iterations of ‘If you love me you will’ and ‘If you love me you won’t ask’ enshrine our expectations that our partner should do whatever it takes to make us happy. It inflates your reflected sense of self when she does something for you that she doesn’t really want to do, or gives up something she really wants. In truth, you probably expect her to sacrifice her self to support your self. This interaction drives poorly differentiated people’s relationships.”
“Reciprocity is a beautiful thing. But if your relationship hinges on it, you’re in trouble. Many couples temporarily establish a high level of intimacy through reciprocal validation and disclosure, but invariably they can’t maintain this level once borrowed functioning collapses. Relationships built on other-validated intimacy crater when one partner won’t accept and validate the other or disclose in kind.”
“Your dependence on acceptance, validation, and empathy from your partner – and feeling entitled to it – cause emotional gridlock. In long-term love relationships, other-validated intimacy is inherently time-limited.”
Core Concept
Emotional Gridlock
Emotional Gridlock – When what you want to do blocks what your partner wants to do, or vice versa. Things you can’t agree to disagree about. These are often issues that couples believe are unresolvable.
“Gridlock is universal, occurring all around the world. But gridlock is always custom tailored because you and your partner co-construct it. Your pattern of gridlock says a lot about who you and your partner really are.”
Sign of emotional gridlock:
Constant, repetitive arguments.
You can’t agree to disagree about the issue.
Increased communication provides no solution, and often makes things worse.
You feel like you have no room for compromise or negotiation because your integrity is on the line.
Apologies or repair attempts cease or are unsuccessful.
You and your partner frequently have angry hurt feelings.
You feel alienated and cut off from each other.
6 Steps of Emotional Gridlock
During the lust, infatuation, and attachment phases occurring in your brain, you and your partner are validating, reassuring, and accommodating each other in whatever ways you can.
Difficult, contentious interactions arise between you. You both are frustrated about not getting the validation, accommodation, and soothing you want. You’re also frustrated about being unable to satisfy your partner’s complaints.
Your limited ability to hold on to your self, plus your unresolved personal issues, create an upper limit to how much you can accommodate, validate, and regulate your partner before your own functioning deteriorates. The same holds true for your partner. Even the most patient and giving people can only go so far.
Your unwillingness to violate what remains of your integrity shows up. Your drive to preserve your tenuous sense of self becomes tenacious. You can’t accommodate your partner without violating your integrity, and you refuse to adapt.
Eventually you don’t want to adapt to your partner. Your battered reflected sense of self ushers in willful refusal, stubbornness, and defiance.
Your partner accommodates you as much as she can or wants to, and eventually stops. You do the same. You both have no room to back up or go forward. At that point, you’re gridlocked. You have no good solution in sight and no prospect of resolution. Things look pretty bleak.
“Conflict in love relationships is inevitable. You can’t avoid it with premarital education, communication skills training, or psychotherapy. Mind mapping limits the utility of communication skills and empathy training, because no matter how nicely you say something, your partner is tracking your thoughts, emotions, and motivations. Gridlock comes from good communication: successful mind mapping. Your partner usually knows what you really want (or don’t want).”
“Gridlock is not an inherent weakness in love relationships. Gridlock is testimony to their elegant design. Emotional gridlock is a normal and natural development in the evolution of a relationship and the people within it. Going through emotional gridlock creates anxiety, anger, frustration, feelings of rejection, and emotional pressure. Gridlock is nature’s survival boot-camp for adult-wannabees.”
“When misunderstood and mishandled, gridlock leads to divorce. Given that gridlock is usually misunderstood and mishandled, it is arguably the greatest single cause of divorce around the world. It is commonly misunderstood as irreconcilable differences, or communication problems, or falling out of love. But gridlock isn’t caused by lack of communication, so more communication won’t resolve it. When people are unable to resolve gridlock with a communication-based approach, they wrongly convince themselves their problems are irreconcilable. If they depend on a reflected sense of self, they feel unloved and become unloving.”
“Conflict avoidant couples often keep everything rigidly equal to prop up their reflected sense of selves.”
Emotional gridlock. Coming to a head with your partner about something. The conflict is derived from your individual insecurities and fears and need for validation from your partner. It comes from operating from a reflected sense of self.
So how do you get out of it? Self growth.
Getting Out of Emotional Gridlock
“Other validated-intimacy is synchrony personified, the Holy Grail in our never-ending quest to find our perfect soul mate. Synchrony means one partner discloses and the other accepts and validates and/or discloses in kind. The importance of emotional synchrony is well known: Potential partners court through synchronized behaviors, mirroring each other deliberately or unconsciously. In dating situations, when one partner crosses his legs, the other crosses hers. When one leans inward, the other does too. When one tells a joke, the other one laughs. Research indicates dating couples are less likely to have sex if they don’t establish high levels of synchrony.”
“However, in the last several decades child development experts have studied what happens when infants and mothers get out of sync. Scientists no longer view “time out of sync” as lost time for attachment and bonding. “Time out of sync” is just as important as “time in sync.” They are two different halves of a whole relationship.”
This quote is referring to the importance of developing a sense of self when it says "time out of sync."
“So getting out of sync isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s important: To resolve gridlock, you have to deliberately get out of step and dampen negative reverberations in your relationship. You have to stop responding in kind and author new behaviors.”
“It’s easier to tolerate the inevitable tensions, deprivations, and conflicts of a relationship when you stop seeing them as conflicts with your partner. They arise from two different sides of your self, your reflected sense of self and your solid sense of self. The tensions within you, and between the two of you, drive you to develop your solid flexible self, to have a quiet mind-calm heart, to achieve grounded responding, and to put forth meaningful endurance.”
“The more important your partner is to you, the greater the challenge to your selfhood, especially if his/her immediate response is not warm and fuzzy.”
“When your partner becomes more important to you than your four points of balance, problems arise. If you’re desperate for your partner’s validation, all it takes is you knowing he or she wants things to be different. When your partner becomes more important than your four points of balance can handle, you are confronted by a set of choices you don’t want. The way marriage works there are four possibilities: a) dominate your partner, b) submit to your partner, c) withdraw physically or emotionally from your partner, d) strengthen your four points of balance.”
So your choices are to either destroy your relationship or change yourself. Which will it be?
Concept time! We are gonna go over a whole bunch of concepts related to differentiation discussed in the book with very little input from myself because the book does a better job of explaining things.
Autonomy vs Attachment: How to Feel Freedom and Connection In a Relationship
“We want closeness and connection and freedom and self-direction. Imbalance either way causes our self to feel impinged upon.”
“Choosing is an exercise of autonomy. When we feel we have no choice, desire often fades. But when we won’t choose, to avoid responsibility for shaping our lives, this kills desire as well.”
“Autonomy doesn’t mean you do whatever you want and fuck everyone else. You have no autonomy and no self-direction if you can’t control your fears and soothe your emotions, or make yourself do what you need to do. When your four points of balance are weak, you have no freedom, nor do those around you. People that can’t control themselves control the people around them.”
“Autonomy promotes stable attachments. When you’d like to unload your frustrations on your partner, and he or she deserves it – but you don’t do it – that is real autonomy.”
Two-Choice Dilemmas
“Normal couples have desire problems because of forced choice decisions built into love relationships called a two-choice dilemma. A two-choice dilemma is when you want two choices but only get one. It’s like wanting to eat your cake and have it later too.”
Examples:
I want to be in a monogamous relationship with you, but you’ve had repeated extramarital affairs. (The partner’s two-choice dilemma: I want to have sex with other people, but I don’t want to get divorced.)
I want to spend our money on things I know you don’t approve of, but I want you to make me feel okay and tell me I’m not selfish. (The partner’s two-choice dilemma: I am tired of being the bad guy around here, but I don’t want you spending more money.)
If I tell you how angry I am at you, I’m afraid you’ll leave! (The partner’s two-choice dilemma: We need to talk more, but I don’t want you to hurt my feelings.)
“People often improvise a solution: They steal their partner’s choice, this way they get two choices. It’s like having an affair but not telling your partner because if you did she would leave. Or saying ‘I still can’t decide’ in order to avoid a difficult conversation and still keep your partner around. Dodging your two-choice dilemmas is another example of borrowed functioning that creates emotional gridlock.”
“Two-choice dilemma’s exist because choices are finite in love relationships. In emotionally fused relationships, your choices decrease as your partner starts to develop a more solid flexible self.”
Normal Marital Sadism
Sadism - pleasure derived from inflicting physical or psychological pain or abuse on others.
"The worst in you can (and probably often does) run the show. There's a side to all of us that's primitive, petty, vindictive, and punitive. The more you and your partner are emotionally fused - the more likely you and your partner engage in normal marital sadism."
"You're a normal marital sadist if you frequently: a) need to "get even", b) hold grudges, c) can't control your temper, or d) feel justified and entitled to attain retribution when your feelings are hurt. You deliberately hurt your partner."
The weaker your four points of balance, the more likely you are to practice normal marital sadism.
"There is one benefit of accurately labeling normal marital sadism: It hurts to see yourself inflicting pain on others. Hopefully this creates internal conflict and crisis. But if you refuse to confront yourself, then concepts like normal marital sadism are worse than a waste of time."
Safety and Security
"People who grow up with anxiety hope and pray that in a good marriage they finally won't feel anxious, or insecure, or vulnerable. Unfortunately, trying to get your security from your spouse leads to perpetual insecurity. The more you try, the more vulnerable and insecure you become. The ensuing clutching and grabbing for your partner encourages her to move away, creating a downward spiral that destroys many marriages. Ultimately, the only security you can really count on is your relationship with yourself. Your security lies in developing your four points of balance."
"Constant efforts to keep things safe and secure lead to long-term marital instability. But when instability is actually the result of battles of self-development, conflict and upheaval can lead to stability and peace. Conflicts arising in a relationship are often a godsend if you focus on becoming more emotionally balanced within yourself."
Intimacy
“When your four points of balance aren’t well developed, there are real limits to how much intimacy you can handle.”
“Self-confrontation is a core part of intimacy. The more you reveal to your partner who you really are, without masking or misrepresentation, the greater your experience of intimacy will be. Conversely, the more your disclosures involve self-presentation, rather than self-confrontation, the more intimacy will seem superficial. If you want to increase the meaningfulness of intimacy, let your partner map your mind while you take a good look at yourself.”
“In other validated intimacy the Low Desire Partner controls intimacy but in self validated intimacy, the High Desire Partner controls its timing, frequency, and depth. Self-validated intimacy gives control to the partner who wants it the most. When you have a solid flexible self and can soothe yourself, you are able to validate your own disclosures and can say anything you need to. Your partner no longer controls you or the level of intimacy in your relationship.”
“Just because intimacy is an intersubjective state, that doesn’t mean both people feel it equally. If you heed these guidelines, and your partner doesn’t, then you will have a profound experience, and your partner won’t. This will involve more self-validated intimacy for you, because you’ll have to validate your experience when it differs from your partner’s. It takes two to create intimacy, but only one partner may feel it.”
Affairs
Affairs are almost exclusively a result of poorly differentiated individuals. If someone who depends on self-validated intimacy isn’t getting it from their partner, they turn to someone else to give them the validation that they can’t provide themselves.
“Your four points of balance don’t blind you to attractive people who catch your eye. Because of our origins, even the most highly differentiated person will be sexually attracted to others. Becoming well-differentiated doesn’t eliminate the inner tensions this creates. Your four points of balance help you tolerate the sexual tension and handle it cleanly. You keep your reflected sense of self on a tight leash.”
“The best in us wants monogamy for good reasons. Many of us prefer to have sex with just one person we love, particularly if this doesn’t involve sexual martyrdom. If we have a choice about having great sex and intimacy, we’d rather stay home than go out. A lot of time and energy is wasted looking for clandestine romance, and many of us don’t need the extra complexity. Intimacy is difficult at best. We don’t want any additional things standing in the way of the deepest possible connection with our partner. As people strengthen their four points of balance, they decide extramarital affairs aren’t worth it.”
**This quote isn't to say that monogamy is the best choice or only acceptable choice. This quote is specifically referring to people who have chosen traditional, monogamous relationships.
How to Improve your Four Points in Relationships
"It turns out that your brain is more changeable throughout your life than scientists ever imagined, more like soft clay than carved stone. Your brain strengthens through repetition, like a weak muscle. There's also increasing evidence your brain can rewire itself, even in the face of catastrophic brain damage and emotional trauma."
You set the limits of not only how much you can change, but also how fast.
Cycles of Relationships
"Think of relationships having two distinct cycles. One is the comfort/ safety cycle, where your relationship remains familiar and anxiety is low. The comfort/safety cycle gradually becomes the avoidance cycle. The other is the growth cycle, where your relationship changes and anxiety is higher."
The comfort/ safety cycle becomes the avoidance cycle if staying in the comfort cycle is more important or threatening than the growth cycle.
"The weaker your four points of balance, the more you need to be pushed into the growth cycle."
In other words, the more you operate from a reflected sense of self, the worse things need to get before you actually make a change. This is a great example of how we create our own suffering.
Integrity
"First and foremost, hold on to yourself!"
"Integrity is more than an abstract principle, it is a core human experience. Integrity is your sense of internal consistency. When you violate your integrity and you scrutinize yourself, you feel dishonored, ashamed, and diminished. Self-confrontation obviously plays a critical role. To the degree you are dishonest with yourself and you won't self-confront, you lack integrity because your self is poorly defined. But if you lie to yourself about who you really are, this won't bother you much."
"The lower your differentiation, the more you lack integrity."
“You don’t have to give yourself up, or do whatever your partner wants – in fact, you do the exact opposite. Stop operating like you’re giving yourself up and have the courage to choose what’s most important to you. Be straight up with your partner.”
Collaborative Alliances
Working on mutual goals even when they are anxiety-provoking or personally disadvantageous.
1. Being honest even when it's personally disadvantageous or difficult.
2. Not tampering with or withholding information to manipulate your partner.
3. Confronting yourself and letting your partner mind-map you and read you accurately.
"As I said, collaborative alliances require working on mutual goals, even when they are anxiety-provoking or personally disadvantageous. When you misrepresent yourself, you've dropped your alliance. When you mask your mind from accurately being mapped, you've done it again. Some of us couldn't carry a collaborative alliance if it was given to us wrapped in a box."
If collaborative alliances seem scary, that's because they are to someone who operates from a reflected sense of self.
8 Points of Establishing Alliance
Collaborative alliances focus on what needs to be done.
Actions rather than words.
Reestablishing a collaborative alliance with your partner is more important than the fact that your alliance crashed.
Keeping your relationship going is more important than your fears that it's failing.
Pay attention when you drop the alliance.
Be aware and acknowledge when you mess up the alliance. Getting clear how you (not your partner) repeatedly drop your alliance improves things quickly.
How you feel isn't the main issue.
Getting nervous doesn't entitle you to drop your end of things. The key issue in collaborative alliances is living up to your responsibilities. The fact that your feelings are understandable, given your circumstances, doesn't change your responsibility to hold on to your self and do what's right.
In a collaborative alliance your responsibilities are yours.
A collaborative alliance involves keeping up your end of the deal when your partner has temporarily dropped hers. Your partner's bad behavior doesn't excuse your own. Rather than leaving your responsibilities unfulfilled and letting the lowest common denominator run your relationship, confront your partner about dropping his part of the bargain after you are sure you have fulfilled yours.
Collaborative alliances don't always feel good.
Sometimes collaborative alliances require confronting, challenging, and refusing to accommodate. This can be hard. Likewise a collaborative alliance does not mean always making your partner feel good about himself, or validated or accepted, or secure and safe.
Collaborative alliances never involve blinding yourself.
Not from your partner, yourself, or anything going on between you. Be honest with yourself and your partner.
Collaborative alliances test your integrity.
As you become better differentiated, you do what you know to be right, in order to be at peace with your self in your own mind.
Building a Solid Sense of Self
“Our self mobilizes itself by allowing itself to want. What we want eventually involves becoming more than what we are. Rather than being driven by discomforts and deprivations, our sense of ‘unfulfilled destiny’ drives us forward.”
The most important component in developing a solid sense of self is desire. Nothing can take the place of intrinsically wanting to make a change. Then it takes work. A lot of work.
The best way that I know of to develop a solid sense of self is therapy. That's its purpose. In my therapy practice I combine the principles of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), which I will go over in another post, and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR). They are two of the most effective therapies in the world (research backed) when used independently but when combined make a tool that is one of the closest things to magic that I've ever experienced. I've seen people undergo unbelievable amounts of change in time periods that would make even the most faithful of people incredulous. It's like having the cheat code to personal growth and development. It's incredible. I can't tell you how often I have people sitting in my office in stunned disbelief relaying how they've struggled with whatever we just healed for 10, 20, 50 years but was resolved in one session. Not to say it's always that fast, but it happens much more often than you'd believe.
You can try to make these changes on your own as well but that would be a much longer and more painstaking process. Yet again, you choose how long you want to suffer. But, should you not be able to get over your ego to get to therapy, or if you don't have the funds, then it just takes a shit ton of practice and years to decades of work. Enjoy!
Save yourself some time and a lot of pain and get some help from people who specialize in healing. We have no problem going to mechanic or hiring an electrician or financial advisor when we could benefit from their field of expertise but therapy...
Makes sense.
For those who are open to plant medicine, ayahuasca is the mother of personal growth and development. That shit will fuck you up, in the absolute best of ways. It will make you face yourself and come out the other side a more complete and healed person. And no, you don't have to travel outside of wherever you live to find it, you just have to be in the right circles. I recommend going to anything where people who are into spirituality congregate. You'll find it pretty easily in those circles guaranteed.
Another path for those who are open to spirituality is spiritual healing. For those of you who say it isn't for you, you have no idea what you're missing out on. I've had insane experiences with spirituality that led to monumental personal growth and I went into each spiritual session believing it was gonna be bullshit. Spirituality worked to heal parts of myself that EMDR couldn't. Spirituality is like magic too. Try all of it. There was a period of time in which I was depressed and nothing was working, including EMDR, and a whole bunch of other stuff I tried. I would sit in therapy sessions trying not to cry the whole time and then get home and lay in bed and did that on repeat for six months straight. Eventually I said "fuck it" and scheduled a 30 minute Reiki session over the phone. Two sessions later my depression was completely gone. Completely gone. Again, this won't be equally quick for everyone but anything that can create that level of change in one single hour is worth checking out.
So there we have it. Differentiation. This theory is foundational to my therapy because taking accountability for yourself is the first step to making any kind of a change in yourself. Stop blaming others for your problems and start looking inward. It's the only way to truly achieve long-term, inalienable peace. You are the only thing standing in the way of that peace.
From first hand experience, life is way better after you put in the work. Become someone you can say you're proud of without reservations. It's 100% worth the fight.
Here's some additional tips/ things to think about to help you develop a solid sense of self.
Tips for developing Quiet Mind-Calm Heart
Give your dilemma meaning – don’t think of your partner as the problem, make your focus you trying to better yourself and your life.
If you can’t regulate your emotions, control your behavior – stop talking, slow breathing, untense your muscles, lower your volume, etc.
Don’t take your partner’s behavior (or lack or response) personally.
Self-soothing may require breaking contact with your partner – take a time out but schedule a time to reconnect. Avoiding a situation is a terrible form of self-soothing.
Stop your negative mental tapes – stop your negative ruminating thought patterns or amping yourself up.
Use time apart effectively – take time to be apart and pursue your own interests or use the time to recharge.
Work on self compassion - I recommend the book Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff.
Other tips to develop your solid sense of self:
Be curious
Emotions are just information. Just like a cut on your arm hurts to let you know there's a problem, emotions do the same exact thing. Start exploring your emotions rather than running from them.
Question everything
We often take our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, conclusions, etc as facts. We are probably wrong more often than we are right. If you question what you've taken as fact then you have opened yourself up to the possibility of learning.
Learn to be alone
Get comfortable with you. The idea of differentiation is based on the idea of being able to stand alone. Be able to sit with yourself without any distractions.
Know yourself
Your personality, dreams, likes, dislikes, values, etc.
Know what success, happiness, and fulfillment mean to you
Don't ascribe to the bullshit put out there by corporations selling you a pipe dream of what is in their best interest. If you think money is gonna make you happy, or power, or sexual partners, or drugs, or whatever the fuck it is as shown by the majority of the media, you're wrong. They are marketing insecurity and perpetuating it for their own gain. The path to happiness is not found in insecurity. I deal with this constantly in therapy.
Explore your passions
Find what fulfills you. Do more of it.
Set boundaries and say no
Start exercising your personal integrity and say no to what you don't want to do. Saying no isn't bad and doing so doesn't make you a bad person or rude or mean or whatever you fear. Saying no is healthy.
Take responsibility for yourself, not others
Focus on you. Fix yourself. You can't force anyone to change and trying to will only backfire.
Learn to Be Alone
Take a second to reflect on who you are. Are you happy with what you see?
Are you completely comfortable with who you are? What aspects of yourself are you completely comfortable with?
What aspects of yourself make you uncomfortable? Do you turn to work, hobbies, sex, vices, or anything else to distract you from yourself? What aspects are you the most uncomfortable with?
Are you happy when you’re not in any kind of a romantic relationship (anything from a one night stand to marriage)? Have you spent time being single with the purpose of self-growth? Why not?
Does being alone give you anxiety? If it does, why does it?
Are you genuinely happy with your life? What’s holding you back from being happier?
Are you able to engage in things you enjoy by yourself and still have the same level of enjoyment as if you did it with others?
Knowing Yourself
What are fundamental parts of your personality? Who are you at the deepest level? Who do you want to become?
What are your goals? What do you want to achieve in your lifetime?
What are the most important things in your life?
If you died today and were able to look back on your life, what would you want to be remembered by? What would you wish you had done more of or less of? What would actually matter to you about what you did in your life?
What do you love to do more than anything else?
What do you hate to do more than anything else?
What are your most important values? Name up to 10 of your most important values. (Google “values list” if you want to see a large list. I recommend the list that contains over 200 values)
Critical Definitions
How do you define happiness?
Does your happiness depend on others being happy? Does it depend on material possessions? Does it depend on achievements? Does it depend on anything else that is external? Why does it depend on those things if it does?
What are the five things that make you the most happy? What are the similarities between them?
What are up to five things that make you the most miserable? What are the similarities between them?
How do you define success?
Does your definition of success depend on others’ perception of your success? Does it depend on material possessions? Does it depend on achievements? Does it depend on anything else that is external? Why does it depend on those things if it does?
What are 5 things that make you feel the most successful? What are the similarities between them?
How do you define fulfillment?
Does your definition of fulfillment depend on others? Does it depend on material possessions? Does it depend on achievements? Does it depend on anything else that is external? Why does it depend on those things if it does?
What are the 5 things that make you feel the most fulfilled? What are the similarities between them?
Creating Boundaries
Boundaries: Guidelines, rules, or limits that a person creates to identify reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave towards them or how they will respond when someone passes those limits.
Boundaries allow you to stick up for yourself and create the life you want both in how you act and in how others treat you. Following through with your boundaries creates a happy and stable life while not having boundaries is draining and often results in an unstable life.
Some ideas about areas of life that require boundaries:
Personal needs
Family, friends, significant others
Boundaries with yourself (integrity to who you want to be)
Work
Sexuality
Time and energy
Culture, religion, etc.
Setting Boundaries
Who do you want to be? What are your values? How can you set boundaries for how you behave?
Are there any individuals make you feel insecure, hurt, frustrated, sad, or angry after spending time with them? What do your typical interactions with these people look like? What have you done in the past to control the situation? What’s worked and what hasn’t? What boundaries to you need to set with them?
What behaviors or actions would you like people to stop directing at you?
When certain people ask for favors, does it leave you feeling overwhelmed or drained? How can you set a boundary with them?
Do you put others’ happiness above your own? If you do, why do you do it?
What things do people say about others that make you feel uncomfortable?
Are there things you feel uncomfortable sharing with others?
When pressured do you do things you don’t want to do? How can you set a boundary when pressured?
What do you want to prevent from happening in the future?
Do you allow work to take advantage of you? Do you say yes at work when you don’t want to? How can you set boundaries at work or other areas of your life that have more firm commitments?
What are other areas of life that you need to set boundaries in? What boundaries do you need to set?
What recharges you emotionally and do you take time to do them?
Taking Responsibility for Yourself
What responsibilities do you have to/for yourself?
Are you fulfilling your own responsibilities to yourself? How are you succeeding?
How are you letting yourself down and not fulfilling your responsibilities to yourself?
What responsibilities do you force upon yourself that you don’t need to or shouldn’t?
Why do you force them on yourself if you don’t need to or shouldn’t?
What responsibilities do you have for others?
What responsibilities are forced upon you by others? Do you actually have a choice to take them on?
Why do you take them on if you have a choice and don’t want them?
Exploring Your Passions
What are you passionate about?
How often do you engage in the things you’re passionate about?
Do you engage in your passions as often as you’d like? If not, why not?
What are you secretly passionate about?
Why is that passion a secret? (If applicable)
How comfortable are you with sharing your passions with others?
What holds you back from sharing your passions? Why aren’t you comfortable sharing them?
What is something you’d like to try that you believe you could be passionate about?
What is stopping you from trying it?
Like the post?
Comments