Emotional Safety

Viewing Couples Through the Lens of Affect

Don R. Catherall

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135918767
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psicología
• Categoría: Asesoramiento psicoterapéutico

Emotional Safety is designed to help couple therapists identify and conceptualize the problems of their clients and to provide solutions, focusing on the two central elements of emotion and attachment.

Problems occur in relationships when the partners no longer feel safe being open and vulnerable with each other. Emotional Safety: Viewing Couples Through the Lens of Affect enables couple therapists to recognize and articulate the emotional subtext of their clients' interactions. The emotional safety model is based on modern affect theory and focuses on the affective tone of messages in the areas of attachment and esteem. The model allows therapists to address the subtle interplay of perceived threat and emotional reaction which underlies their clients' difficulties and disrupts emotional safety.

Part I
Theory and Foundation

1
The Problem

Kurt and Sally walked into my office looking subdued and uncomfortable. Kurt smiled briefly; Sally rolled her eyes. They both seemed a bit embarrassed to be back to see me. We had completed a course of therapy 2 years earlier and they had left feeling pretty good about their relationship. Now here they were again, looking as glum as they did at the beginning of the previous therapy. I inquired about what had brought them back to see me. They both hesitated, then Sally started talking.

“Well, I guess we’re here because of the same problems as before. Kurt doesn’t really want to be married. He’s too busy for a wife and family. He’s always got something more important to do.”

Kurt closed his eyes and sighed. “She’s right about one thing, not much has changed. Everything I do is still wrong.” He paused, then added sarcastically, “and nothing Sally does is ever wrong.”

Sally looked at him and said, “That’s not what you told your sister. You said that I couldn’t do anything right at home so that’s why I do my volunteer work.” Sally turned to me and said, “Kurt doesn’t think I’m any good as a mother.”

Kurt responds in an exasperated tone, “I never said you were not a good mother. I’ve always said you were a good mother.” He takes a deep breath and says, “I just told her that you missed working and being a mother wasn’t enough—that you needed to be doing something where you get positive feedback from adults.” He gestured at me, “We learned that here the last time.”

Sally says, “Well, I certainly never get positive feedback from you, do I? Not that you’re ever around to give it.”

I felt a sinking feeling inside. Here we go again. It looked like Kurt and Sally had lost all the gains they had achieved in their previous course of therapy.

In the field of couple therapy, couples like Kurt and Sally are typically characterized as conflictual—two people who cannot agree on practically anything. Sometimes their disagreement is heated; sometimes it is a calmer description of their never-ending differences. In either case, there is an underlying, painful conflict that they have never been able to resolve. That conflict is always lurking in the vicinity, ready to spring into life over the most trivial interaction. However, for many other couples, the problem is not so overt.

Gil and Marian had a relationship that appeared positive in many respects. They led a very active life and enjoyed a variety of sports and other outdoor activities together. They were very social and spent a great deal of time with friends, both individually and as a couple. They were both intelligent, accomplished people, yet the level of their conversation with each other was superficial. They seldom expressed intense feelings or made emotional demands on each other. They each claimed to want greater physical intimacy in their relationship, but neither of them ever took the risk of actively trying to initiate it.

Periodically, they would have conflict. One fight was precipitated by Gil’s confession that he was bored at a gathering with Marian’s family. Marian wanted to know what he meant by “bored” and, within a few minutes, was accosting him about his passivity and failure to engage anyone in meaningful interaction. He reacted by attacking her for never saying what she really wanted of him. The conflict quickly escalated to a level at which neither of them was listening to the other; each was only making critical comments about the other. After such a fight, they would steer clear of each other for several days. Then they would begin to interact in a more formal tone. Eventually they would start to relax around each other and resume their usual pattern. At some future point, however, another burst of conflict would flare up, and they would go through the avoidance cycle once more.

Gil and Marian do not disagree on everything; they are more able to enjoy themselves as a couple than Kurt and Sally. Yet they often end up in an atmosphere of tension and excessive caution. Each partner holds back out of a fear of “things going bad” and somehow causing the relationship to lapse into a conflict that they won’t be able to resolve. When such conflict is triggered, it is likely to dominate the relationship for the rest of the day or even longer. Couples like Gil and Marian might be characterized as avoidant. Each partner learns to tiptoe around the other’s feelings, trying not to say anything that will set the other partner off.

An Underlying Lack of Safety

Both of these couples had a similar problem, though its outward manifestations were very different. In both cases, the partners did not feel emotionally safe with each other. Their relationships were burdened by a feeling that the partners had to tread carefully or some nebulous underlying conflict would flare into life. This feeling of not being emotionally safe showed itself in the two common forms that plague couples who have this problem: either (a) a heightened state of reactivity that results in repetitive, unresolved conflict, or (b) an ongoing state of disconnection that results in a superficial, unsatisfying relationship. Most couples with this problem fall into one of these two categories or a mixture of both.

Neither of these couples had been able to identify the exact nature of this problem, but each of the four partners was aware of it. They each lived with an underlying dread of triggering the conflict into life. Nor is this to say that these couples had failed to make progress in couple therapy. They had each resolved a variety of issues and even found some level of tolerance for those perpetual issues that are based on personality differences. But the recurring nature of their conflicts was not driven by the array of issues that they resolved in therapy. Those issues simply provided the content for their fights.

The reason that they fought—or avoided each other for fear of fighting—is the subject of this book. I use the term “fighting” to reflect the tone that characterizes their conflicts. Basically, a conflict qualifies as a fight when the partners start to feel they are in danger of suffering a significant personal loss. Of course, what will be lost is usually unclear, and the individuals are really not sure why they are so riled up. Many couples sense this and will acknowledge that they don’t really know what they’re fighting about or they will say that the fight is surely about something other than the issue that comprises the content of the fight.

Couple therapy can either help couples like these to resolve the series of surface issues, or it can help them to resolve the underlying problem, the thing that leads them to fight rather than discuss and negotiate their issues. Sometimes resolving the surface issues is enough. Some couples use therapy for that purpose and are satisfied to return to their normal relationship. But for most couples, resolving the content issues is never enough because there is an endless stream of such issues. Those couples can only find peace by finally confronting and resolving the underlying problem.

Two Realms of Potential Threat

Beneath the surface with these couples, each partner has an underlying feeling that he (or she) is not emotionally safe, that the couple is never far from something happening that will result in harm—either to the individuals or to the relationship. Consequently, the partners operate like they are in hostile territory. They don’t completely let down their guard with each other, and each partner remains on the lookout for the perception of threat. Some partners deal with this feeling of unsafety by withdrawing and revealing only part of themselves. Some deal with it by leaping to their defense at the least appearance of what they perceive to be a threat. Some become emotionally numb and stifle the passion out of their lives.

The underlying problem of not feeling safe with each other is largely confined to two discreet spheres of functioning, two realms in which the perception of threat occurs. Each partner is concerned about: (a) him- or herself, which is contained in the realm of esteem, and (b) the relationship, which is contained in the realm of attachment. The majority of conflict in relationships occurs in the realm of esteem, but that conflict is driven by the perception of threat, and threat can be perceived in either realm. When the therapist understands the nature of the partners’ perceptions of threat in these realms, she has a distinct advantage in being able to help them.

What They’re Fighting Over

I spent many years helping couples resolve the issue-oriented conflicts that they brought to therapy. Sometimes I was successful, but many times I knew that we had not really resolved the underlying problem that made them so terribly sensitive to each other. I could see unresolved concerns hanging over every interaction. Our sessions were filled with arguments about who is right, who hurt whom, whose version of reality is the correct one, and, most of all, who is to blame. Sometimes I could help those couples by teaching them to communicate better, especially to listen better. Yet I myself couldn’t hear what the argument was really about. It was when I finally got what the endless argument is really about that the seed for this book began to grow in my mind.

When the conflict is overt, the recurring argument is always the same: Each partner tries to correct the way that he or she is being portrayed by the other. They respond defensively. “I didn’t say it like that.” “That’s not what I meant.” “You’re the one that got us into this.” “So you’re saying it’s really my fault.” The argument stems from the clash between his efforts to change her view of him and her efforts to change his view of her. The underlying problem that fuels this recurring conflict is in the realm of esteem—how partners value themselves and each other. The realm of esteem is communicated in the views of self and other expressed by each partner. Such expressions may be direct or they may be very subtle and indirect. He may communicate that he views her as unable to handle something by simply saying so, “You aren’t able to do that,” by indirect implication, “So who are you going to get to help you with that?”, or most of all, by tone of voice, “You mean you’re going to do it by yourself?”

The conflict erupts when a partner reacts to how he feels he is being portrayed or viewed by the other partner. Of course, if a partner’s self-esteem is strong enough or his sense of self is sufficiently developed, he may be able to ignore the negative way he perceives he is seen or being portrayed by her. But when he does react, his goal is invariably to refute the way he perceives he is being portrayed by her (even when it is unspoken or what he thinks is only in her mind). It is as though he cannot see himself the way he wishes to be seen if she sees him otherwise. Partners thus fight to defend themselves against a perceived loss of esteem.¹ What they have to lose is their own good standing in each other’s eyes, and the underlying fear is that they will be humiliated if they lose that good standing. Losing the fight can mean suffering profound humiliation, and that is why some partners become so terribly invested in winning arguments that seem trivial on the surface.

As I came to see this more clearly, I found myself paying less attention to what was said and more attention to how it was said. Communication in an intimate relationship is not restricted to the words that are spoken; what is even more important is the tone in which the words are said. The tone of our communications conveys another whole language of meaning. That other language is called affect (pronounced a-fekt), and it is present in most of the communications between intimate partners. Affect is the biological component of emotion, and we often convey it without even noticing. An upset partner may be able to hide his feelings behind the words he uses, but it is much harder to hide the affective tone with which those words are said.

We convey affect in our tone of voice, our posture, our behavior, and especially in our facial expressions. When she accosts him about his tone, or his body language, or something he has done (or not done), or the look on his face, she is not being goofy and finding problems where none exist; she is addressing her perception of something that was conveyed in the language of affect. When he denies his behavior meant anything, or argues that his tone or his look was not as she perceived it, he may be unaware of what he has conveyed. Or she may have misperceived what she thought she saw or what she feared his behavior meant. Or he may be playing dumb and relying on the fact that the language of affect can be difficult to identify. In my experience, when partners perceive some kind of negative affective message, they’re almost always responding to something real—though they may overestimate its intensity.

Why They’re Fighting Over It

When two people enter into an intimate relationship, they bond and open themselves up to each other. Among other things, this means that he allows her feelings about him to influence his feelings about himself, and she allows his feelings about her to influence her feelings about herself. Literally, her view of him affects his view of himself, and vice versa. This is one of the primary elements of being vulnerable—being open enough to your partner’s view of you to allow it to influence your own view of yourself. One of the core premises of this book is that it is primarily through affective tone that intimate partners convey their views of each other!

An intimate connection is wonderful when the feelings are positive; her positive view of him helps him to feel even better about himself. Thus, people in love are lovely to be around. But the same connection can be devastating when the feelings are not positive; her negative view of him can make him feel terrible. When he perceives her view of him to be negative, he reacts. This is the basis of most recurring conflict; partners react by trying to argue with the other partner’s view of them to get the partner to see that he or she is wrong. In the course of arguing for how he should be seen, he often conveys a negative view of her—leading her to react similarly and creating a repetitive argument that never ends.

The Relationship

So are there sources of legitimate conflict outside the repetitive argument that will influence how each partner will be portrayed? In fact, there are all kinds of sources of legitimate conflict and couples argue about them plenty. The difference is in the tone of the argument and the impact it has on the relationship. It is like the difference between a debate over issues and a personal attack. Couples usually come for therapy when one ...