We're No Fun Anymore

Helping Couples Cultivate Joyful Marriages Through the Power of Play

Robert Schwarz, Elaine Braff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136664922
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In the 21st century, we tend to expect more than ever from our relationships without knowing how to sustain them. Often a married couple juggling the many demands of life, work and children take their bond for granted. They fail to cultivate and nurture the positive interactions they share, neglecting the fun, playful and sexy side of the relationship. Over time, this neglect creates an increasing spiral of dysfunction. We're No Fun Anymore reminds therapists and the couples they treat that marriage does not have to mean forfeiting the passion, playfulness and joy in a relationship. With 50 combined years of clinical experience backing it, the program outlined in this book will help to build up a relationship without first tearing it down, examining its weaknesses, or trying to fix its problems.

Integrating findings from neuroscience, social psychology, positive psychology and marriage research, We're No Fun Anymore shows couple therapists how to create and magnify positive energy between their clients to refortify the foundation of their relationship and help it stand strong, even in times of strife and crisis. Readers will find a practical (and fun) plan to get their marriage out of the rut that's robbing it of fun, recapture the pleasure of dating, romance, and love, and revive the playful quality of sex that makes it the pleasurable and enjoyable experience it's supposed to be. Clinicians will also get the bonus of increasing the fun that they have in their personal lives and in their clinical work with clients.

1

The Power of Play in Relationships and Life

Theory and Research

WHAT IS PLAY?

Defining what we mean when we use the word play in this book is a surprisingly difficult task. The word play is used in everyday parlance and seems like a simple enough concept. Yet, it has multiple meanings and connotations. In fact, play has more than 90 different meaning variations in the dictionary. It can be a verb, as in to play a game. It can be a noun, such as a Broadway play. Then, there is the adjective playful and the adverb playfully. If we were to ask you to make a mental picture in your mind of being playful, 10 different people would give us 10 different descriptions.

But, are there a few things on which we can probably all agree? For almost everyone, play refers to some type of activity most often associated with positive emotions, such as fun and pleasure. Athletes, musicians, and artists, who more or less “play” for a living, would probably also add that the playing is best when they can get into the zone or a “flow.” Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p. 41) explained that “flow helps to integrate the self because in that state of deep concentration consciousness is unusually well ordered. Thoughts, intentions, feelings, and all the senses are focused on the same goal. Experience is in harmony.”

One definition of play is that it is an activity that is engaged in for no specific purpose other than generating pleasure and fun (Terr, 1999). While this captures an important aspect of play, it does not tell the entire story. For instance, what about playing music or playing a sport? Certainly, one of the goals of these activities is to generate the positive emotion of fun, but there is a larger purpose involved. There is even effort spent “playing” (called practice) that is often not immediately enjoyable. But, there is also a big emotional payoff with the interpersonal synching that occurs when the musicians are “tight” or the team is playing well together. Perhaps the first example of play in life is the game of peekaboo. On the surface, it looks like a silly activity between parent and child whose only purpose is to create laughter, but there is far more happening. Just because one is not conscious of the deeper purpose does not mean that there is no purpose.

Notice that we said that play has no real purpose other than fun. That assumption may have a huge cultural loading. While we do not talk at length about this in this book, there is a clear subtext that Western culture,^* particularly American culture with its roots in Puritanism and Calvinism, is deeply entrenched in a repressed framework that emphasizes a work-only ethic, eschewing the very possibility that play can have any real value. Even those living in the United States who are steeped in other cultures that may have differing attitudes are probably heavily influenced by the rigorous prevailing popular mores concerning work versus play. The one value play has, “fun,” is just not that important in that mental outlook. But, do we really need, or want, to stay embedded in that frame?

The more we delve into it, the more we begin to see that this playing concept is not as simple as perhaps we first thought. Is a couple going out on a date engaging in a form of playing? We think so. From our perspective, the concept of play must be broadened. For instance, we include fun, games, pleasure, laughter, and humor as significant aspects of playing.

According to Huizinga (1949), “Play is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life’” (p. 28). Most play researchers continue to ascribe to the notion that play is intrinsically motivated and occurs in a “space distinct from reality” (Gordon & Esbjorn-Hargens, 2007). In addition, most play theorists and researchers agree with Bateson’s (1972) concept that during interpersonal play there is a meta-message that communicates “this is play.”

Play is also “an attitude of throwing off constraint” (Millar, 1968, p. 21). “When we throw off the constraints of a given context, we are free to move, to engage with new contexts as well as to engage the context of our recent experience as an object of play” (Gordon, 2008, p. 6). The attitude of play allows us to shift our awareness so that we can both become aware of our interpretative frames and manipulate them. Many of the qualities of play and playfulness in the following manner were summarized eloquently: “Novelty and risk of a new situation or experience only add to the intensity and pleasure of play. The player is able to be in control of being out of control and so enjoys a sense of both risk and mastery simultaneously” (Gordon & Esbjorn-Hargens, 2007, p. 217).

Play is a broad-based spectrum of consciousness that includes different degrees of: freedom from constraint, openness, novelty, flexibility, lightheartedness, cooperation, humor, risk taking, trust, creativity, vulnerability, and positive emotion. Play can be a reference to an activity that lasts several hours or a momentary interchange. Play includes both behavioral and attitudinal components, and generally the attitudinal component is the more important one since most behaviors can become playful with the proper attitude. Doing dinner dishes can be a dreadful chore, or it can be a playful shared activity. A normally fun game can lose its “playfulness” when approached with the wrong attitude.

The attitude determines engagement in the playful activity. A certain amount of positive emotion, such as humor, joy, amusement, and interest, must be present. There is a minimum amount of positive emotion needed to activate the transformative chemistry of play. For an activity to remain playful, it must generate even more positive emotion: Play creates positive emotion, and play begets more play.

Play in its many forms is a generator of positive emotion. It is this reciprocal spiral of amplifying positive emotion that makes play so useful in life and in important relationships. The more people play, the more positive emotions are generated, which in turn makes play easier and thus helps to generate even more positive emotion. When partners “are fun” with one another, they expand and broaden their bonds together.

Perhaps the most common association to the word play is the idea of “playing a game.” It can be helpful to think of a relationship as a game, although not in the cavalier sense of needing to win and another needing to lose, but rather as a mutual activity guided by fair play, engagement, and back and forth. Much marital relationship advice, from Gottman (1999) to Gray (1993, 1995), to this book, is based on the premise that there are “rules” and “guidelines” that lead to successful relationships. Those who follow the rules do well, and those who do not fare poorly; like any other game or sport, attitude is vital. One needs to play the game.

To summarize, play is a broad-based spectrum of consciousness and behavior that includes different degrees of freedom from constraint, openness, novelty, flexibility, lightheartedness, cooperation, humor, risk taking, trust, creativity, vulnerability, and positive emotion that generates increased levels of positive emotion, behavioral flexibility, and interpersonal connection.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Since this book is about a strategy that is designed to help couples flourish, it fits well with the mission of positive psychology: to understand and foster the factors that help human beings flourish (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Furthermore, it is safe to say that our emphasis on the power of play and humor suggests that we believe in the therapeutic helpfulness of positive emotions. The theory and research in positive psychology support the premise that positive emotions help people, and by extension, couples flourish.

The broaden and build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) has suggested that the function of positive emotions is to help people broaden their thought-action repertoires^* and build enduring personal resources. This would be in contrast to negative emotions, which tend to narrow a person’s action and thought tendencies. Negative emotions such as fear or anger are highly useful in an immediate survival circumstance, leading to a narrowing of choices, to fight or flight. However, the broadened action potentials that come from positive emotions lead to long-standing resource development. Fredrickson (1998) noted:

Take play, the urge associated with joy, as an example. Animal research has found the specific forms of chasing play evident in juveniles of a species, like running into a flexible sapling or branch and catapulting oneself in an unexpected direction are seen in adults of that species exclusively during predator avoidance (Dolhinow, 1987). Such correspondences suggest that juvenile play builds enduring physical resources (Boulton & Smith, 1992; Caro, 1988, p. 220)

She then cited other research that supported the long-term benefits of play, including building lasting social bonds and attachment (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000); brain development (Panksepp, 1998); and creativity (Sherrod & Singer, 1989). “Two decades of research by Isen and her colleagues suggest that positive affect produces a broad, flexible cognitive organization and ability to integrate diverse material” (Isen, 1990, p. 89) (in Fredrickson, 2001, p. 221).

Broadening response repertoires is a help to couples. There is an old joke: What is the difference between neurosis and health? Health is one damn thing after another, and neurosis is the same damn thing after another. Individuals and couples get caught in highly limited and limiting thought-action patterns. From a theoretical perspective, anything that helps to break a couple out of the repertoire of the same damn thing after another is probably helpful.

Fredrickson and Branigan (2005) found that eliciting positive emotions of joy and contentment increased the thought-action repertoires of subjects compared to controls, and eliciting negative emotional reactions of fear and anger narrowed thought-action repertoires of subjects compared to controls. This finding certainly fits what seems like common sense. The next logical point is: If negative emotions create a narrowing effect and positive emotions create a broadening effect, is it possible then that positive emotions are an antidote to the narrowing effects of negative emotion? Fredrickson and Levenson (1998) referred to this as the “undoing hypothesis.” In experimental conditions, positive emotions were found to facilitate more rapid cardiovascular recovery after stress than neutral emotions. Negative emotions had the slowest cardiovascular recovery (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998; Fredrickson, 2001).

Frederickson and her colleagues also discovered that experiencing positive emotions builds psychological resiliency and activates upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Fredrickson and Joiner (2002) found that individuals who experienced more positive emotion over time developed more “broad-minded” coping skills (a measure of resiliency). Further, the increase in broad-minded coping skills predicted increased positive emotions across time; in other words, it led to the development of a positive upward cycle.

Burns et al. (2008) replicated these findings and found evidence that positive emotions and interpersonal trust also mutually supported each other. The authors found some evidence suggesting that increases in dopamine may be the biological correlate of the beneficial effects of positive emotions on well-being.

Cohn et al. (2009) attempted to unpack happiness and looked at the relationship among positive emotion, life, and resilience. They found that positive emotion was highly correlated with resilience, but life satisfaction was not. They stated the following:

The finding that positive emotions predict growth better than does life satisfaction is crucial. A wide variety of positive feelings, states, and evaluations predict positive life outcomes (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005), but when momentary positive emotions were disentangled from general life satisfaction, it was the momentary emotions that remained predictive. (p. 366)

They also stated:

Growth in life satisfaction was predicted specifically by feeling good, not by avoidance of feeling bad. … However, it appears that positive emotions at moderately high levels (approximately half a standard deviation) can buffer against the effects of negative emotions. (p. 366)

These findings are important both clinically and in the real world of couples therapy because they suggest that it is important to generate positive emotions in the moment on a regular basis. Echoing the work of Gottman (1999), it is not the avoidance of negative emotions (or conflict) that predicts happiness, it is having large enough doses of positive emotion that counteracts the effects of negative emotion.

HOW IMPORTANT IS PLAY IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY?

While we did cite Frederickson’s comments on the importance of play as a positive emotion, for the most part play and humor are not seen as that significant in positive psychology texts. Given the emphasis on “happiness” in many positive psychology texts, we find it fascinating, and troubling, that play in all of its forms gets so little airtime. For instance, in the positive affectivity and negative affectivity scale (Seligman, 2002), words such as playful or amused are not included.

In Authentic Happiness, Seligman (2002), the father of positive psychology, focused on the six virtues of wisdom and knowledge: courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance, spirituality, and transcendence. Work, gratitude, and forgiveness get significant page real estate. Yet, the only place that playfulness and humor get any mention is as one of 24 strengths (pp. 157–158). He only discussed play and games in the child-rearing section. In the How of Happiness, Lyubomirsky (2007) focused heavily on strategies to increase gratitude and create committed goals. Again, playfulness and humor at best were relegated to ancillary roles.

What are we to make of this? If positive emotions are so important, why not include one of the major sources of positive emotion: play? Frankly, we do not really know the answer, although there may be several explanations. First, most of these scientists are embedded within a work-oriented culture that does not value play outside its importance during childhood. The culture in which science operates seems to dictate that when we grow up we ought to discard childish things, play among them. This bias influences the way the research is conducted and framed. Second, we think we have a much broader definition for what we are terming play. For instance, when it comes to making good marriages better, Seligman (2002) cited Gottman’s (1999) work emphasizing the importance of going out on a date at least once a week as well as engaging in affection at least 5 minutes a day. We would characterize these two things as central aspects of play, yet this does not appear to be recognized as such by Seligman. Finally, we suspect that the literature on benefits of play in producing positive emotion and transformative change (e.g., from Huizinga, 1949; to Millar, 1968; to Terr, 1999; to Schaefer, 2003; to Gordon & Esbjorn-Hargens, 2007; to Brown, 2009) simply have yet to penetrate the positive psychology world. It is hoped this book will help to change that situation.

The Ratio of Positive to Negative

In their work with couples, therapists most often focus on attempting to remove or limit conflict and other negative emotions. As a therapeutic strategy, this practice is based on the premise that conflict is fundamentally a negative component within interpersonal relationships. But, is this so? According to researcher Gottman (Gottman, 1994, 1999; Gottman & Gottman, 2010), marital conflict is neither an accurate nor a consistent predictor of marital dissatisfaction. Gottman’s research substantiated the knowledge therapists gain from their own clinical experience: Many successful long-term marital relationships have moderate and sometimes even significant degrees of conflict. As therapists, therefore, it is important to acknowledge that conflict reduction does not, in and of itself, engender successful relationships.

A more accurate and useful therapeutic view of the significance of conflict within a marriage is that it is one factor among several operating within the relationship dynamic. As for a measure by which marriage success can be more accurately predicted, Gottman (1994) has established that it is the ratio of positive-to-negative experiences that is a more accurate and valid predictor of happiness in a marriage. The common understanding of Gottman’s work is that if a relationship is to be healthy and sustainable, it needs to consist of five positive experiences for every one negative (the “five-to-one-rule”) (for instance, see Marano, 2004). Couples who are on their way to divorce have a ratio of 0.8 to 1.0 (Gottman, 1994; Gottman & Gottman, 2010). In fact, Gottman’s 5 to 1 rule applies to couples when they are in conflict. Gottman has stated that in daily living, 20 positive experiences to 1 negative is the target for healthy couples (Gottman, 2011). As clinicians, we have repeatedly used the ratio of 10:1 as the minimum target for couples to hit if they want to have very happy relationships.

Frederickson (2009) has suggested that for people to be happy in general they need a ratio of at least three positive emotions to one negative emotion. One could get hung up on which ratio is the correct one, but we do not believe this would be productive. These ratios are not necessarily scored in the same manner. For instance, the Gottman research derives these ratios via the use of relatively objective measures scored by researchers watching videotape. We ask our couples for a felt sense of their experience; they score themselves and come up with the ratio that represents their experience. The critical point for us as therapists is that in a healthy, sustainabl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Introduction
• 1. The Power of Play in Relationships and Life: Theory and Research
• 2. The Couples’ Play and Positive Interaction Assessment and Marital Play Deficiency “Disorder”
• 3. No Play Zone: Looking at Barriers, Permission, and the Problems of Play
• 4. Cultivating a Play-It-Forward Attitude
• 5. Playful Practices That Pack a Punch
• 6. Promoting Paired Play: A Play Inventory for Couples
• 7. Protecting the Play Zone: Dating in Captivity*
• 8. Sex and Sexuality and Marital Play Deficiency “Disorder”
• 9. The Playful Therapist: Personifying Play in Your Practice
• Afterword
• References
• Index