Getting the Love You Want, 20th An. Ed. (14 page)
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Authors: Ph.D Harville Hendrix
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AFTER INTRODUCING THE Reromanticizing exercise to scores of couples, I began to notice a curious phenomenon: the positive value of doing this exercise seemed to flatten out after a few months. The couples were faithfully following the instructions, but they were no longer experiencing the deep pleasure they had when they began doing the exercise. It occurred to me that I needed to build the concept of “random reinforcement” into the exercise. Random reinforcement, one of the principles of behavioral science, is the idea that a
pleasurable action loses its effectiveness if it’s repeated with predictable regularity. For example, if your partner brings you coffee in bed every morning, it no longer feels as special as it did when it was an occasional act, or “treat.” Random rewards, on the other hand, create an air of uncertainty and expectancy that increases their impact on the receiver. This concept was discovered accidentally by a group of scientists who were training laboratory animals by rewarding them with treats. One day the apparatus that dispensed the treats malfunctioned, and the animals were not rewarded for their efforts. The next day the machine was repaired and the regular reward schedule was resumed. To the trainers’ surprise, the animals were even more highly motivated to perform than before. The fact that the reward had become unpredictable improved their performance.
pleasurable action loses its effectiveness if it’s repeated with predictable regularity. For example, if your partner brings you coffee in bed every morning, it no longer feels as special as it did when it was an occasional act, or “treat.” Random rewards, on the other hand, create an air of uncertainty and expectancy that increases their impact on the receiver. This concept was discovered accidentally by a group of scientists who were training laboratory animals by rewarding them with treats. One day the apparatus that dispensed the treats malfunctioned, and the animals were not rewarded for their efforts. The next day the machine was repaired and the regular reward schedule was resumed. To the trainers’ surprise, the animals were even more highly motivated to perform than before. The fact that the reward had become unpredictable improved their performance.
The phenomenon of random reinforcement can easily be observed in daily life. Most husbands and wives give each other presents on special occasions like birthdays and Christmas and anniversaries. These gifts are so customary that they are almost taken for granted. Although the presents may be enjoyed, they don’t carry the same emotional impact as a present that is given as a total surprise. A behaviorist would say that the reason routine gifts aren’t as exciting is that the “psychoneurological system has become desensitized to predictable, repetitive pleasure.” The same principle applies to the Reromanticizing exercise. When couples become locked into a particular kind of caring behavior—for example, when they give each other back rubs every night before bed or a bouquet of flowers every Saturday—they begin to derive less pleasure from them. A curve ball needs to be thrown in now and then to pique their interest.
To add this element of suspense, I created the idea of the Surprise List exercise. These were caring behaviors above and beyond those requested by either partner. Each would generate a list by paying close attention to their partner’s wishes and
dreams. A woman who causally mentioned to her husband that she liked a dress she saw in a store window might be delighted to find that very dress—in the correct size—hanging in her closet. A man who expressed his interest in Gilbert and Sullivan might open the mail and find a love note from his partner and two tickets to a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. When couples added unanticipated pleasures like these to their regular caring behaviors, the beneficial effect of the exercise continued on a gentle rise.
dreams. A woman who causally mentioned to her husband that she liked a dress she saw in a store window might be delighted to find that very dress—in the correct size—hanging in her closet. A man who expressed his interest in Gilbert and Sullivan might open the mail and find a love note from his partner and two tickets to a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. When couples added unanticipated pleasures like these to their regular caring behaviors, the beneficial effect of the exercise continued on a gentle rise.
AS TIME WENT on, I made another addition to the Reromanticizing process. I asked couples to engage in several high-energy, fun activities a week. These were to be spontaneous, one-on-one activities like wrestling, tickling, massaging, showering together, jumping up and down, or dancing. Competitive sports like tennis qualified only if a couple could play the game without stirring up tension.
The reason I added more exuberant activities to the list was that most people tend to choose fairly passive activities as their caring behaviors; they have forgotten how to have fun together. As soon as I noted this trend, I surveyed all my clients and found that they spent, on average, about ten minutes a week playing and laughing together. Improving this bleak statistic became a priority for me. I knew that when couples have fun together they identify each other as a source of pleasure and safety, which intensifies their emotional bond. When the old brain registers a positive flow of energy, it knows that the person associated with the energy is connected to life and safety, and the two people begin to connect with each other on a deeper unconscious level.
WITH THE ADDITION of the Surprise List and the Fun List, I now had a useful tool to help couples begin therapy on a positive note. But, like any exercise that leads to personal growth, this simple exercise was often met with resistance. A certain degree of resistance is to be expected. When a husband and wife have been treating each other like enemies for five years, it’s going to feel strange to start writing love notes again. The exercise is going to feel artificial and contrived (which, of course, it is), and to the old brain anything that is not routine and habituated feels unnatural. The only way to lessen this automatic resistance is to repeat a new behavior often enough so that it begins to feel familiar and therefore safe.
A deeper source of resistance to the exercise, however, is a paradoxical one—the
fear
of pleasure. On a conscious level, we go to great lengths to seek happiness. Why, then, should we be afraid of it? To make sense of this reaction, we need to remember that the sensation of being fully alive is deeply pleasurable. When we were young children, our life energy was boundless and we experienced intense joy. But some of our pleasure was curtailed by our caregivers so that we could be safe and conform to social norms: “Girls don’t yell and run.” “Don’t jump on the couch.” “Be careful! Come down from that tree.” “You’re making too much noise.” But our fun was also cut short because it threatened the repressed state of our caregivers. They had long given up diving into the lake, rolling down the hill, skipping down the sidewalk, and jumping up and down for joy. As these limits were imposed on us, sometimes in punitive ways, we began to make an unlikely association between pleasure and pain. If we experienced certain kinds of pleasure or perhaps a high degree of pleasure, we were ignored, reprimanded, or punished. On an unconscious level, this negative stimulus triggered the fear of death. Eventually we limited our
own pleasure so that we could reduce our anxiety. We learned that to be fully alive was dangerous.
fear
of pleasure. On a conscious level, we go to great lengths to seek happiness. Why, then, should we be afraid of it? To make sense of this reaction, we need to remember that the sensation of being fully alive is deeply pleasurable. When we were young children, our life energy was boundless and we experienced intense joy. But some of our pleasure was curtailed by our caregivers so that we could be safe and conform to social norms: “Girls don’t yell and run.” “Don’t jump on the couch.” “Be careful! Come down from that tree.” “You’re making too much noise.” But our fun was also cut short because it threatened the repressed state of our caregivers. They had long given up diving into the lake, rolling down the hill, skipping down the sidewalk, and jumping up and down for joy. As these limits were imposed on us, sometimes in punitive ways, we began to make an unlikely association between pleasure and pain. If we experienced certain kinds of pleasure or perhaps a high degree of pleasure, we were ignored, reprimanded, or punished. On an unconscious level, this negative stimulus triggered the fear of death. Eventually we limited our
own pleasure so that we could reduce our anxiety. We learned that to be fully alive was dangerous.
However, applying the strange logic of children, we didn’t blame our parents or society for equating pleasure with pain; it simply appeared to be our lot in life. We told ourselves, “My parents limited my pleasure, so I must not have been worthy of it.” It was somehow safer to believe that we were intrinsically undeserving than to believe that our parents were incapable of meeting our needs or had deliberately diminished our happiness. Gradually we developed a built-in prohibition against pleasure.
People who grew up experiencing a great deal of repression tend to have a particularly hard time with the Reromanticizing exercise. They have difficulty coming up with any requests for caring behaviors, or they sabotage their partners’ efforts to carry them out. For example, one of my clients, a man with low self-esteem, wrote down on his list that he would like his partner to give him one compliment a day. This was easy for his partner to do because she thought he had a lot of admirable qualities. But when she tried to give him a daily compliment, he would immediately contradict her statement or qualify it to the point that it became meaningless. If she were to say something like “I liked the way you were talking to our son, Robbie, last night,” he would nullify it with a self-criticism: “Yeah. Well, I should do that more often. I never spend enough time with him.” Hearing anything good about himself was ego-dystonic, incompatible with his self-image. His determination to maintain this negative opinion was so strong that I had to train him to respond mechanically to his partner’s kind remarks with a “thank you” and leave it at that.
There was one man in my practice whose resistance to the Reromanticizing exercise took a different form: he just couldn’t seem to understand the instructions. “Dr. Hendrix,” he told me after the second session devoted to an explanation of the exercise, “I just don’t get the hang of this. Now, what is it that I’m supposed to do?” I went over the instructions once
again, making sure they were clearly understood. I knew, however, that his lack of comprehension was a cover-up for his inability to ask for something pleasurable. To help him over his emotional roadblock, I told him that, even though it appeared that asking his wife to do nice things for him was solely for his benefit, it was also a way for his wife to learn how to become a more loving person—which happened to be true. When it was put in this less self-serving context, he quickly understood the exercise. He was able to call a truce with the demon inside of him that told him he was not worthy of love. He took out a pencil and in a matter of minutes came up with a list of twenty-six things he would like her to do for him.
again, making sure they were clearly understood. I knew, however, that his lack of comprehension was a cover-up for his inability to ask for something pleasurable. To help him over his emotional roadblock, I told him that, even though it appeared that asking his wife to do nice things for him was solely for his benefit, it was also a way for his wife to learn how to become a more loving person—which happened to be true. When it was put in this less self-serving context, he quickly understood the exercise. He was able to call a truce with the demon inside of him that told him he was not worthy of love. He took out a pencil and in a matter of minutes came up with a list of twenty-six things he would like her to do for him.
Isolaters often have a difficult time with this exercise. They want to cooperate, but they just can’t think of anything their partners can do for them; they don’t seem to have any needs or desires. What they are really doing is hiding behind the psychic shield they erected as children to protect themselves from overbearing parents. They discovered early in life that one way to maintain a feeling of autonomy around their intrusive parents was to keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves. When they deprived their parents of this valuable information, their parents were less able to invade their space. After a while, many isolaters do the ultimate disappearing act and hide their feelings from themselves. In the end, it is safest not to know.
It is often the case, as I’ve mentioned before, that isolaters unwittingly re-create the struggle of their childhood by marrying fusers, people who have an unsatisfied need for intimacy. This way they perpetuate the conflict that consumed them as children—not as an idle replay of the past, or a neurotic addiction to pain, but as an unconscious act aimed at the resolution of fundamental human needs. When a fuser-isolater couple does this exercise, it results in a predictable dichotomy. The isolater painfully ekes out one or two requests, while the fuser furiously scribbles a long list of “I wants.” To the casual observer it appears that the isolater is a self-sufficient individual with
few needs and the fuser has limitless desires. The fact of the matter is that both individuals have the identical need to be loved and cared for. It’s just that one of them happens to be more in touch with those feelings than the other.
few needs and the fuser has limitless desires. The fact of the matter is that both individuals have the identical need to be loved and cared for. It’s just that one of them happens to be more in touch with those feelings than the other.
Whatever a person’s reason for resisting this exercise, my prescription is the same: “Keep doing the exercise exactly as described. Even if it causes you anxiety, keep it up. Do it harder and more aggressively than before. Eventually your anxiety will go away.” Given enough time and enough repetition, your brain can adjust to a different reality. The person with low self-esteem can gradually carve out a more positive identity. The isolater has a chance to discover that sharing secret desires does not compromise his or her independence. The fear of new behaviors gives way to the pleasure they stimulate, and they begin to be associated with safety and life. The caring-behavior exercise becomes a comfortable, reliable tool for personal growth.
THIS CARING-BEHAVIOR exercise, and several other exercises that you will read about in coming chapters, have convinced me that insight and behavioral change make powerful allies. It is not enough for partners to understand the unconscious motivations that they bring to their relationship; insight alone does not heal childhood wounds. Nor is it sufficient to introduce behavioral changes into a relationship without the couples understanding the reasons behind them. In either case, the couples experience only limited growth. Experience has taught me that the most effective form of therapy is one that combines both schools of thought. As you learn more about your unconscious motivations and transform these insights into supportive behaviors, you can create a more conscious and ultimately more rewarding relationship.
INCREASING YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOURSELF AND YOUR PARTNER
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
—JOHN 8:32
ALTHOUGH WE ALL agree in principle that our partners have their own points of view and their own valid perceptions, at the emotional level we are reluctant to accept this simple truth. We like to believe that the way we see the world is the way the world is. When our partners disagree with us, it is tempting to think that they are ill-informed or have a distorted point of view. How else could they be so wrong?
Some people are particularly entrenched in their private view of the world. This was especially true for a client of mine named Gene. The director of a successful corporation, he was very bright and accustomed to dominating those around him with the sheer force of his intellect. He totally eclipsed his wife, a gentle and good-hearted woman named Judy, who would sit beside him with her chin drawn in and her shoulders hunched forward, looking like a chastened child.
One of my objectives during their initial therapy sessions was to bolster Judy up so that she would have enough courage to express her opinions in front of her imposing husband. (In psychology textbooks, this is called “implementing the therapeutic balance.”) Normally, as soon as she would utter a few sentences, Gene would pounce on her and refute whatever she had to say. “That’s a lie! That’s absolutely not true,” he would blurt out. Then he would launch into a defense of his position. His summation was invariably the same: “This is not just my opinion, Dr. Hendrix. It happens to be the literal truth.” And I could see that he truly believed that his point of view was the only valid one, that he alone had a grip on reality.
It was pointless for me to try to convince him verbally of the narrowness of his vision; he would have turned our conversation into a forensic debate, and I had no doubt who would win. At the beginning of our eighth session together, however, I had a sudden inspiration. Judy had just ventured an opinion about a recent encounter between Gene and his father. Apparently she and Gene and her father-in-law had gone out to dinner together, and Gene’s father had said something to Gene that had wounded his pride. Judy’s perception was that Gene’s father had been trying to give him some constructive criticism; Gene’s perception was that his father had been cruel and spiteful. “You are wrong again, Judy,” Gene intoned. “How could you be so blind?”
I interrupted their conversation and told them that I wanted them to put their difference of opinion aside for a moment and spend ten minutes listening to a classical music tape that I happened to have in the office, a recording of Franck’s Violin Sonata in A. I slipped the tape into the cassette player and invited them to listen to the music and pay attention to any images that came to their minds. They both were a little puzzled by my request, and I sensed an impatience in Gene: how was listening to music going to help them resolve their difficulties? But by now Gene had enough confidence in me to allow
me to run the therapy sessions; he figured there must be some reason for my unusual suggestion.
me to run the therapy sessions; he figured there must be some reason for my unusual suggestion.
The three of us sat back and listened to the music. I stopped the tape after the second movement and, knowing full well that I was walking into a minefield, casually asked Judy and Gene what they thought of the music.
Gene spoke first. “What a lovely piece,” he said. “It was so lyrical. I especially enjoyed the violin part in the first movement.” He hummed several bars, and I was impressed by his ability to remember the notes and to hum them on key. Among his numerous attributes, he apparently had perfect pitch. “Such a beautiful melody,” he continued. “For some reason, the image that came to my mind was of the ocean. There were qualities to the music that reminded me of a Debussy sonata. Even though Franck is less impressionistic, there is the same sensuous texture. It must be the French heritage.”
I turned to Judy and asked for her opinion.
“That’s funny,” she said, in a voice that was so low I had to strain to hear her, “I had a different feeling about the music.” She burrowed deeper into the leather armchair, showing no desire to elaborate. How could she measure up to her husband’s learned critique?
“Tell me what you saw in it, Judy,” I urged. “I’d like to know what you were thinking, too.”
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “I guess the music seemed kind of stormy to me. Especially the piano part. All those chords, I got the image of storm clouds and wind—and a darkening sky.”
“Honey, what makes you think it was so dramatic?” Gene asked, in the patronizing tone of voice he reserved for his wife. “I almost fell asleep, it was so soothing. Listen to it more closely, Judy, and you’ll see what I mean. It has to be one of the most lyrical pieces of music ever written. Don’t you agree, Dr. Hendrix?” (Like many people, he spent a great deal of time trying to get his therapist to see his side of the story.)
“Yes, I do, Gene,” I obliged him. “I sensed a gentleness to the music, a romantic quality that at times was very soothing.” Then I turned to Judy and said, “But I also agree with you, Judy. There were parts that seemed to have a real sense of passion and drama. I guess I’m agreeing with both of you.” Gene started drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Why don’t the two of you listen to the tape again, but this time I want you to see if you can find evidence that supports your partner’s point of view. Gene, I want you to look for the dramatic tension; Judy, see if you can find the lighter, poetic touches.”
I rewound the tape, and they listened to the piece for the second time. Once again I asked for their opinions. This time both Gene and Judy heard qualities in the sonata that had previously eluded them. Gene made an interesting observation. The first time he had listened to the sonata, he said, he had been instinctively drawn to the violin. When he forced himself to pay more attention to the piano, he could see why he and Judy had had such different initial reactions. “There is a lot of tension to the music,” he conceded, “especially in those piano arpeggios in the beginning of the second movement. That was a beautiful passage that slipped by me the first time through. My mind must have been on something else. I can see how someone might think the music was stormy.” Judy, meanwhile, had been able to understand Gene’s first impression. The music hadn’t seemed so overwhelming to her the second time around. “There are some lovely, quiet parts,” she said. “In fact, the whole first movement is really quite subdued.”
By listening to the music from each other’s point of view, they had learned that the sonata was a richer piece of music than either of them had first perceived. There were serene passages and dramatic passages; it was complex, multifaceted.
“I wonder what would happen if we could talk to the performers and get their impressions,” wondered Gene, “and then talk to a music historian? I bet each person could add a great
deal to the music. The sonata would acquire more and more depth.”
deal to the music. The sonata would acquire more and more depth.”
I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way this discussion was going; my gamble had paid off. “That’s exactly what I hoped you would see,” I said to him. “That’s the whole point of this exercise. If the two of you would look at everything in the same open-minded way, you would realize two things: first, that each of you has a valid point of view; second, that reality is larger and more complex than either of you will ever know. All you can do is form impressions of the world—take more and more snapshots, each time aiming for a closer approximation of the truth. But one thing is certain. If you respect each other’s point of view and see it as a way to enrich your own, you will be able to take clearer, more accurate pictures.”
Given their new spirit of cooperation, I guided Gene and Judy back through a discussion of Gene’s encounter with his father. Gene was able to entertain the idea that there had been some goodwill behind his father’s criticism. Perhaps he had been screening out his father’s good intentions, just the way he had screened out the piano part to the Franck sonata. Judy, in turn, gained a greater appreciation for the long-term tension between father and son. When she mentally reviewed the dinner conversation in the context of the troubled history between Gene and his father, she could understand why her husband had been so upset by what had at first seemed to her to be a casual, well-intentioned remark. All of a sudden they had binocular, not monocular, vision.
WHEN YOU ACCEPT the limited nature of your own perceptions and become more receptive to the truth of your partner’s perceptions, a whole world opens up to you. Instead of seeing your partner’s differing views as a source of conflict, you realize
that they are a source of knowledge: “What are you seeing that I am not seeing?” “What have you learned that I have yet to learn?” Relationships give you the opportunity to be continually schooled in your own reality and in the reality of another person. Every one of your interactions contains a grain of truth, a sliver of insight, a glimpse into your hiddenness and your wholeness. As you add to your growing fund of knowledge, you are creating reality love, a love based on the emerging truth of yourself and your partner, not on romantic illusion.
that they are a source of knowledge: “What are you seeing that I am not seeing?” “What have you learned that I have yet to learn?” Relationships give you the opportunity to be continually schooled in your own reality and in the reality of another person. Every one of your interactions contains a grain of truth, a sliver of insight, a glimpse into your hiddenness and your wholeness. As you add to your growing fund of knowledge, you are creating reality love, a love based on the emerging truth of yourself and your partner, not on romantic illusion.
In chapter 6 we discussed a number of specific areas in which you can increase your knowledge. You have the opportunity to become more aware of the hidden agenda you bring to your relationship, of your disowned character traits, of your partner’s inner world, and of the healing potential of your relationship. As you can see from this brief look at Judy and Gene’s relationship, acquiring this information depends to a large degree on your willingness to value and learn from each other’s perceptions. Once both of you demonstrate a desire to expand your individual conceptions of the world, the details of everyday life become a gold mine of information.
An especially good area to mine for this hidden information is your spoken and unspoken criticisms of your partner: “You never come home on time.” “I can never lean on you.” “Why don’t you think of me for a change?” “You are so selfish.” At the time you are making these statements, you believe them to be accurate descriptions of your partner. But the truth of the matter is that they are often descriptions of parts of yourself.
Take a look at this example to see how much information can be gleaned from one chronic, emotional complaint. Let’s suppose that a woman routinely criticizes her partner for being disorganized. “You are always disorganized! I can never depend on you!” When her partner demands some specific examples, she retorts, “You are terrible about planning for vacations. You always forget the essentials when we go camping.
You never remember the kids’ birthdays. And you always leave the kitchen a jumbled mess when you cook!” Not surprisingly, the man’s automatic response to this barrage of accusations is a blanket denial followed by a countercriticism: “That’s not true. You’re exaggerating.
You’re
more disorganized than I am!”
You never remember the kids’ birthdays. And you always leave the kitchen a jumbled mess when you cook!” Not surprisingly, the man’s automatic response to this barrage of accusations is a blanket denial followed by a countercriticism: “That’s not true. You’re exaggerating.
You’re
more disorganized than I am!”
How can this heated argument be turned into useful information ? First, the man would learn something about himself if he assumed that his partner’s criticism contained an element of truth; most people are experts at spotting their mates’ Achilles’ heel. Unfortunately, most people also tend to deliver this valuable information in an accusatory manner, immediately arousing the partners’ defenses. If this man were able to override his defensive response, he would be able to see that there are indeed many areas of his life in which he is not well organized; the pain of hearing a criticism is largely due to its accuracy. If he could accept the truth in his partner’s remarks, he would become more aware of a significant disowned trait. That would eliminate his need to project this trait back onto his wife, and it would also give him the data he needed in order to grow and change.
This observation about the hidden information contained in a criticism can be expressed as a general principle:
Principle I: Most of your partner’s criticisms of you have some basis in reality.
What else could the couple learn from the above interchange? If the woman had an open mind, she might be able to gain some valuable information about her own childhood wounds. She could do this by following a simple procedure. First, she could write her criticism of her partner on a piece of paper: “You are always so disorganized!” Then she could answer the following questions:
How do I feel when my partner acts this way?
What thoughts do I have when my partner acts this way?
What deeper feelings might underlie these thoughts and feelings?
Did I ever have these thoughts and feelings when I was a child?
By going through this simple analytical process, she could determine whether or not her partner’s behavior brought back any strong memories from her childhood. Let’s suppose the exercise helps the woman discover that her parents were always disorganized and had little time or energy to pay attention to her needs. Not surprisingly, when her partner acts in a similar manner, she is filled with the same fears she had as a child. Buried in her criticism of her partner, therefore, is a plaintive cry from childhood: “Why can’t someone take care of me?”
This leads us to a second general principle:
Principle 2: Many of your repetitious, emotional criticisms of your partner are disguised statements of your own unmet needs.
There is another piece of information that can be derived from criticism, one that usually requires a great deal of soul-searching. It is possible that the woman’s criticism of her partner is a valid statement about herself. In other words, all the while she is berating her mate for his lack of organization, she may be as disorganized as he is. To find out if this is true, she could ask herself a general question: “In what way is my criticism of my partner also true of me?” She should keep in mind that the way in which she is disorganized may be quite different from her partner’s M.O. She may keep an immaculate kitchen, for example, and be a whiz at planning vacations—the areas where he has difficulties—but have a hard time prioritizing her tasks at work or managing the family budget. With this new insight, she would be able to determine whether or not she was attempting to disown a negative part of herself by externalizing it, projecting
it onto her partner, and then criticizing him for it. If she found that to be true, she would have the information she needs to allow herself to separate her own negative traits from her partner’s: “I am disorganized in this specific way; my partner is disorganized in that specific way.” In psychological terms, she would be “owning” and “withdrawing” her projections. Jesus said it more poetically: “Cast out the log in your own eye so that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye.”
it onto her partner, and then criticizing him for it. If she found that to be true, she would have the information she needs to allow herself to separate her own negative traits from her partner’s: “I am disorganized in this specific way; my partner is disorganized in that specific way.” In psychological terms, she would be “owning” and “withdrawing” her projections. Jesus said it more poetically: “Cast out the log in your own eye so that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye.”
This leads us to a third observation about criticism:
Principle 3: Some of your repetitive, emotional criticisms of your partner may be an accurate description of a disowned part of yourself.
Often, when a recurring criticism is not a description of a disowned part of the self, it is a description of another unconscious aspect—the lost self. If this woman were to scrutinize her behavior and find herself to be supremely well organized in all aspects of her life, her criticism of her husband might be an unconscious wish to be
less
organized—to be more relaxed, flexible, and spontaneous. When she criticizes her husband for behaving in a carefree manner, she may be secretly resenting his freedom. When partners criticize each other for being too energetic, too sexy, too playful, too dedicated to their work, they may be identifying an undeveloped or repressed area of their own psyches. Now we have our fourth and final principle:
less
organized—to be more relaxed, flexible, and spontaneous. When she criticizes her husband for behaving in a carefree manner, she may be secretly resenting his freedom. When partners criticize each other for being too energetic, too sexy, too playful, too dedicated to their work, they may be identifying an undeveloped or repressed area of their own psyches. Now we have our fourth and final principle:
Principle 4: Some of your criticisms of your partner may help you identify your own lost self.
In the next chapter, in an exercise called the Behavior Change Request Dialogue, I will show you how to take the knowledge that you can glean from your mutual criticisms and convert it into an effective, growth-producing process.
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