The Power of Connection

Recent Developments in Relational-Cultural Theory

Judith Jordan, Judith V. Jordan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317987239
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Relational-Cultural theory (RCT) proposes that all people grow through and toward relationships throughout the lifespan. RCT challenges prevailing theories that depict the "separate self" as the hallmark of maturity. Rather than movement toward autonomy and separation, RCT suggests we develop ever more differentiated ways of connecting. An increase in growth-fostering relationships results in: a sense of vitality and zest; increasing clarity about ourselves and others; augmented creativity and ability to take action; an experience of worth and empowerment; and a desire for more connectedness with others. Disconnections are inevitable in relationships and RCT focuses on relational resilience, the ways people can re-establish positive and growth-fostering relationships.

RCT further emphasizes the importance of cultural and societal forces in causing either growth-fostering connection or destructive disconnection. This volume explores the process of change in therapy and in other relationships; how race and other forms of stratification create pain; and how people develop resilience and strength in relationships characterized by mutuality.

This book was based on a special issue of Women and Therapy.

Section One: RCT and Therapy

Introduction to Section One: RCT and Therapy

Section One of this volume looks at the application of Relational-Cultural theory (RCT) to the practice of psychotherapy. The first article by Stiver, Rosen, Surrey and Miller looks at the occasions in therapy when something new and growth-fostering occurs. Eldridge, Surrey, Rosen and Miller then look at the way in which therapists facilitate the capacity to move and be moved by the other. Change entails experiencing a greater freedom of relational movement. In “Strengthening Resilience in a Risky World,” Hartling reviews the literature describing individual, internal characteristics associated with resilience and explores the relational aspects of these characteristics. In Walker’s chapter, “When Racism gets Personal: Toward Relational Healing,” we see the ways in which racial anxiety impedes movement toward authenticity, mutuality and empowerment in intimate relationships Walker notes that the anxieties endemic to race-based culture have the potential to thwart our most earnest efforts to make and maintain good connection. In “How Therapy Helps When the Culture Hurts,” Walker examines the impact of cultural disconnections on the therapy relationship.

Creative Moments in Relational-Cultural Therapy

Irene Pierce Stiver

Wendy Rosen

Janet Surrey

Jean Baker Miller

SUMMARY. Creative moments in therapy are those occasions when something new and growth-fostering occurs. This article offers three illustrations and a discussion of these characteristics. It is based on a panel discussion held at the Stone Center-Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital “Learning from Women Conference” in April, 2000.

Introduction

What do we mean by creative moments? We will discuss the meanings of these moments at greater length after presenting a few examples. However, as an initial suggestion, we will say that creative moments refers to those times in therapy when something new happens–something is created. From the perspective of Relational-Cultural Theory, they are the occasions when the new creation is growth-fostering, that is, it propels the relationship in a healing and enlarging direction. They lead to what we call “movement-in-relationship.” The relationship deepens and expands and so do each (or all) of the participants.

Vignette One: “Susan”

By Irene P. Stiver, PhD

I will be talking about my work with a woman in her fifties whom I’ll call Susan. She entered therapy one day with a sense of urgency; even before she sat down she started talking. She began with, “I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time, what do you think of all this Clinton business?” This was the beginning of the Kenneth Starr revelations, with Monica’s confirmation that she had had “a relationship with the President”; there were loud accusations of perjury and predictions that this would lead to the President’s impeachment.

Various thoughts, some desperate, went quickly through my mind. How could I tell her how I really felt? My feelings were very strong, if complicated, about this whole business, and I knew that our politics would not be similar.

She came from a very steadfast Republican family. At the same time, I knew that one of our major themes in therapy was her mother’s silence and its profound effect on her. She never knew what her mother thought of anything. As a child, if she tried to pursue her mother about what she wanted, thought, or would do, her mother would convey non-verbally (by facial and bodily expression) that she experienced Susan as too aggressive and forceful; she wanted Susan to back off.

Susan had recently started to date a man for the first time since her divorce more than five years ago and with great trepidation had introduced him to her parents. She told me her father said, “He seems very nice.” I then asked what her mother thought of him and she said she had no idea. Her mother had said nothing.

When I wondered if she considered asking her mother what she thought, she looked really horrified and said it made her anxious to even contemplate that possibility. She felt it would be an assault on her mother. Her mother would not be able to tolerate such an assault, and Susan would end up feeling like a bad person.

This story and others like it flashed through my mind in the short period while she was framing the question, and I was trying to determine what to do. I felt I had to answer. I could not replicate this part of her relationship with her mother, that is, evade and not appreciate her need to know and all that meant. So I said, “Well I must admit, I am angry at everyone involved but I am especially infuriated with Starr who has his own agenda, that is, he is out to get Clinton. I think Clinton was very irresponsible and so was Monica.”

Susan listened and then asked more about what I thought of Clinton “getting away with” perjury and what message that sent to the country. Her new boyfriend had said now all drug users can lie about taking drugs because the President committed perjury; they will think that they can get away with it. I then said something–with thoughts of Carol Gilligan–about how moral issues can be seen in context and I thought that when a married man is having an affair, especially if he’s President, he would typically lie about it. I did not think it was of the same order as other perjuries. We were at this point having a conversation with a give and take between us.

She then asked me how my feminist colleagues and I felt about Clinton’s affair with Monica. He had betrayed his wife and was taking advantage of a very young woman, an intern in the White House. I said my sense was that feminists were mixed in their reactions. I had read other perspectives and discussed this with other women and they clearly had differences of opinion. That his behavior was outrageous was the general consensus–for me as well.

But another consideration I and some other feminists had was that Clinton had really done a great deal for women, more than any other president in terms of his stand on certain issues and the appointments he made. Even though he treated his wife terribly with his affairs and sexual betrayals, he also seemed to truly value Hillary for her intelligence and strength, more than other presidents and their wives.

All the time I was talking, I was thinking, “Oh my God. What am I doing? How will this affect the relationship–the transference?” So I said, “You know, to share these ideas goes against much of my background as a therapist; that is, a therapist should not bring her personal opinions into the therapy; it would have a negative impact on the therapy and on her. I am concerned that this might get in the way of the work we are doing.”

She responded with much energy, saying how important it was to her that I had been immediately responsive. She said that it took so much courage for her to ask me and it would have felt awful if I had not responded. She had come in with a sense of urgency but had not dared to think of how I might respond.

After the session, I was very distressed since I still worried that I had done something wrong. I feared that I might have silenced and suppressed her ability to hold on and express opinions different from mine. After all, I had more power to influence her and there was the danger she would feel ashamed for having a different perspective. I thought I should have explored the many complicated meanings these questions had for her and somehow found a way to be less definitive about how I felt.

But I also knew that what I did was more syntonic with our Relational-Cultural Model and my understanding of Susan. So despite my doubts and concerns about what I had done, I was strongly influenced by our concepts about reframing therapy. First, to address the transference issue, we have said that we did not agree with the notion that the therapist’s neutrality was essential to the development of the transference. Instead, we believe that: (1) transference develops under all circumstances and (2) as long as the therapist remains relatively neutral she may not perceive the significant differences between this new relationship with her therapist and those relational images from the past that the patient brings into therapy.

In contrast, when the therapist is able to create a new relational context that is mutually empathic and empowering, she will provide a fertile ground for the patient to develop more positive relational images and their meanings. I felt I had to provide her with a different relational context from her experience at home, a context in which her curiosity could be respected and responded to.

Thus, our understanding of the goal of therapy had to lead me to respond as I had, that is, to create a mutually empathic and mutually empowering relationship so that the patient can feel safe enough over time to represent herself more fully. To engage with her in this mutually empathic way, I had to be authentic and deeply appreciative of her sense of urgency and her need to know what I thought. I was moved by the courage it took for her to take such a risk with me. She risked that I would confirm the dangers of asking such a personal question and that I would humiliate her and cut her off by refusing to be responsive to what she was asking of me. I believe that she was moved by my willingness to share both my vulnerability and concerns in the process.

However, after the session I continued to obsess and worry despite my awareness of what I’ve just said. It is still amazing to me after all the years of doing this work and my deep belief and commitment to these ideas, that all the authority figures from my past can still lead me to doubt what I truly know.

I dreaded my next session with Susan, but my dread quickly dissipated in seeing her mood and presence when she arrived. She began by telling me how important it was that I had respected her question, and what it meant to have someone see her questions and curiosity as justified. She talked about never having dared to ask questions like that of anyone, feeling sure they would not like it.

Later in this and subsequent sessions, she spoke about realizing how judgmental a person she was and thought that our discussion had helped her see that more clearly. Indeed, she was very judgmental, especially of herself. She went back to a time when she learned that a woman teacher in one of her children’s schools was having an affair with a male teacher. She was scandalized and wanted to “report it” but she didn’t. And now she could tell me about an analogous situation in her own life many years ago–a secret affair, which filled her with enormous guilt and scorn toward herself. It was a new revelation and a new awareness.

This creative moment occurred about a year-and-a-half ago. Susan is braver now in daring to confront and ask people what they think, and our relationship continues to grow with all the expected glitches and disconnections en route.

Vignette Two: “Maura”

By Wendy Rosen, PhD, LICSW

I had known Maura for about three months as her couples therapist. She and her partner eventually went their separate ways, which at the time saddened me very much. Even though I’d held no illusions about the sustaining power of their relationship, I just liked them both so much and I wished that each of them could find and keep love. At Maura’s request, I referred her partner for individual therapy, and they both saw me through the break up. Following termination, Maura chose not to continue any therapy, and I didn’t hear from either of them for almost two years.

Maura had always struck me as a very passionate, powerful, and absolutely compelling woman. She was sharp, wise, ambitious, incredibly street-smart, and verbally formidable on the outside but she also held certain other parts of herself within a very protected place. Maura revealed these aspects of herself much more sparingly, entrusting what has proven to be a very big and very fragile heart to a select few. That’s one of the reasons why this break up had been so painful for her. It had been a very long time since she had allowed herself to open up to someone again, having been crushed several years prior by the loss of a woman with whom she had been deeply in love.

When Maura left couples therapy with me, she had also left her mark on me. I don’t think I could have articulated it at the time, but it had something to do with what I experienced as her deep sensitivity, her courage, and her tremendous generosity. She inspired me in some unusual way, and I felt privileged in her trust of me. I knew I would miss Maura and with her departure, I felt my own painful sense of remorse for the loss she was left to carry with her.

Maura’s life had been a series of tough challenges. She was the oldest child growing up in a large, extended, close-knit Irish Catholic family. Both her parents were from very large, struggling, working-class families, and they had married young. Her mother, whose family had been quite poor and who’d had a particularly rough life of her own, was perpetually overwhelmed, anxious, short-tempered, and physically abusive, primarily to Maura. She always perceived Maura as the toughest and most durable of her children, and thus, never spared the rod on her. Maura quickly learned to be tough. Her father made it clear early on that she would have to fight her own fights, both literally and figuratively. He was a rugged, no-nonsense kind of guy who repeatedly emphasized the importance of family bonds and loyalty, until one day when, with no explanation, he abruptly left his wife and children for another woman.

This was devastating to his family, but particularly to Maura, who felt betrayed in some fundamental way. Here was a man who had consistently espoused the creed that “family is everything” and then turned around and walked out on his own. This stood as a glaring and wrenching hypocrisy in the face of Maura’s, by then, strong personal ethos. Given her mother’s emotional fragility and relative inability to fight for the protection of her children, especially now that she was on her own, Maura felt extraordinarily responsible for her family, particularly for three of her four younger siblings.

Maura was extremely close to her sister, Kathleen, who was closest in age to her. Kathleen knew Maura better than most, and she had a remarkably generous spirit. Everyone loved Kathleen, but especially Maura. If Maura was the one to whom everyone turned for strength and material support, Kathleen was the one to whom Maura turned for essential moral support. In Maura’s eyes, Kathleen was the real beating heart of the family.

When Maura was a child, she had serious learning disabilities, which often left her feeling humiliated and ashamed in school. She compensated for these challenges through her considerable physical prowess and tremendous athletic capabilities. She engaged in numerous sports and became a competitive athlete. Never one to fold in the face of challenge, Maura devoted herself to competing and winning, refusing ever to become, in her words, a “cupcake.” A cupcake was soft in the middle, and thus, would inevitably “choke” when called upon to enter the real contest in both sport and life.

Succumbing to pain or hardship in any form was simply not an option, and any feelings that set Maura off course were to be quickly eradicated. Maura’s oft-repeated mantra was “buck up.” Despite an academic history marred by extraordinary challenges, Maura managed to get athletic scholarships, graduate, and continue her athletic competition, in addition to some coaching. She attracted a lot of interest from others as a result of her strength, courage, and shrewd savvy. She knew how to survive, how to win, and above all, how to get people moving and go for the best deal. Many of Maura’s most enduring connections were forged at the negotiating table. If you were willing to come to that table, she would always meet you there, and no one would ever leave it without having gained something. One of her most famous and engaging lines has always been, “Come on! Work with me here!” And most everyone did. This has since led her to a very successful life in business.

After Maura terminated her couples work with me, I would periodically hear random bits of news of her through the grapevine of people we remotely knew in common. I always felt a surge of warmth at these moments and was happy to have even small scraps of information about how she was managing post-breakup. She’d left a lasting impression on me, and I always hoped she would find happiness in a relationship with someone who could really appreciate her in all of her unique complexity.

One of the more significant events that I heard about proved to be both painful and rather complicated. One of Maura’s younger siblings, a sister, was found to be having a serious substance abuse problem and was increasingly unable to care for her very young daughter, Cara. Given that there was no father in the picture and that neither Maura’s mother or her other siblings were in any kind of favorable position to pitch in, Maura quickly took over. This was so much her way. If a problem presented itself and Maura could do something about it, she did, with no questions asked and not a moment’s hesitation. Cara, four years old, moved in with Maura, and suddenly her life was irrevocably changed.

Motherhood, of any sort, had never been a part of Maura’s vision for herself. She was single, gay, and on a fast-paced business track, always entertaining interesting new entrepreneurial opportunities. She had a number of friends, most of them without children. Her rapid trajectory came to a screeching halt, necessitating a complete revamping of present and future plans. While she adored Cara and had no question about the validity of her decision, Maura also faced some very real personal loss with this change in her life. Her responsibility for the caretaking of Cara had now become her primary commitment, rendering her other ambitions and way of life very much secondary. Not one to indulge grief excessively, Maura didn’t miss a beat in transitioning to her new role. She once told me in no uncertain terms, “I will never s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Section One: RCT and Therapy
• Section Two: The Importance of Power
• Section Three: RCT and Social Justice
• Index