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Develop relationships
Updated: 2 days ago
This blog suggests developing relationships through additional roles. A role in a relationship is a set of expected behaviours. Roles can be reciprocal. Given in return for the other. Reciprocal roles reinforce each other. This can be both helpful and unhelpful. Here I outline some reciprocal roles, their role in mental health and suggest how psychological therapy can help add roles.
How do roles come about?
People develop roles to survive their environment. These roles may be consciously chosen and/or unconsciously adopted. Adopted in response to our internal and external environments Bringing roles into your awareness can help you examine their usefulness and consider if you want to add to them. Below are some examples of reciprocal roles in relationships :
Role A | Role B |
intellectual | thoughtless |
emotional | unfeeling |
hopeful | hopeless |
responsible | irresponsible |
sadistic | masochistic |
controlling | controlled |
sad | angry |
anxious | calm |
seducing | seduced |
disclosing | withholding |
rejecting | rejected |
selling | buying |
parent | child |
judging | judged |
narcissist | acolyte |
doer | done too |
Each of these roles represents one part of reality. So when these roles are paired together they can allow two people to better cope with reality. A complementarity. Complementarities can also mean it is harder to add to your roles. Split off from the parts of yourself represented by the other person. Emphasising one aspect of reality and neglecting another. Reciprocal roles may also affect the symptoms of mental health problems. I have outlined how this happens in a selection of conditions below :
Reciprocal roles in mental health problems
Generalised anxiety - reciprocal roles which over or under value the benefits of worry and/or overly focus on the future or the past.
Social anxiety - reciprocal roles which a) differ in the fears of being authentic or causing offence b) people pleasing, finishing the session early, arriving late c) acting as if we were incredibly fragile or beyond harm d) seeing therapy as entirely typical or wholly different experience of life.
Health anxiety - reciprocal roles which disagree about a) how desirable it is to accept uncertainty/mortality/vulnerability b) where expertise lies c) what is a realistic speed of change.
Chronic grief - roles which contrast in their views of a) endings b) the period of our lives which is most salient c) mark or ignore the passing of time.
Depression - roles with a variety of approaches to a) experiencing sadness / anger b) status, education and/or income c) critical, shaming, demanding and/or punitive interactions versus helpless or rescuing ones.
Anger related issues - roles which disagree about a) the value of expressing sadness b) passive aggression or not saying if we are hurt by the other c) experiencing other feelings.
Paranoia - roles where there is a suspicion of motives or an unquestioning of interactions.
Violence - roles which include a) submission, masochism or a lack of boundaries b) a lack of explanation, abrupt interactions, non verbal communication c) ruptures.
Medically unexplained symptoms - roles which vary in their a) experiences of uncertainty, control, confusion and anger b) feelings of exclusion, discrimination c ) meaning of physical symptoms.
So understanding reciprocal roles can help develop our relationships and relieve the symptoms of mental health problems. However, adding to our usual roles is not easy. Our roles make up part of our personality. A such they are likely to be longstanding and closely held. Reinforced by our self image and the responses of other people. This is where psychological therapy can sometimes help.
How might psychological therapy help add roles?
Psychological therapists aim to create new experiences useful to their client. Engage in repeated, healthy, and conscious interactions with nearly all aspects of reality. Novel useful interactions that are, practiced in therapy, then habituated. Deliberately adding roles by being flexible, and responding to the relational reality of each relationship. Avoiding my way or your way battles.
So to work, therapy has to 'feel real but not too real.' This difference allows for the therapist and client to play instead of acting out. So interactions, in therapy, are consequential but without the usual consequences. Aiding the participants to tolerate a wider range of emotional experiences and roles than outside therapy ( Benjamin, 2019.)
In my experience, these habits, help :
The client decides when to start, and when to end, therapy.
The therapist persists when it is not clear how they can help.
Communicate an expectation of honesty.
Open each session with : 'What would you like from me today?'
Offering choice about the level of structure, homework, silence, past/present/future focus, content, challenge, theory and/or practice.
Take turns in being vulnerable.
Articulate immediate thoughts and feelings, as well as, more considered ones.
Note what, and how much, is thought, talked about and emotionally experienced.
Pay attention to what is happening in our bodies and minds. Aim to think and feel at the same time. Put wits to our feelings and feelings to our words.
Ground when emotions make it hard to think or when thoughts make it hard to feel.
Remember opinions in therapy : 'May be true of you, or merely of you with me, or merely my perception of you based on my own experience. I may not always think this to be true. You or I may disagree' ( Benjamin, 1995.)
Witness, acknowledge and use breaks in the rhythm of therapy. In particular, failures in responsiveness are acknowledged and repaired.
Don't place yourself between two significant others e.g. fathers and sons.
Wonder how therapy re-enacts the harm, and help, the client has experienced in the past.
Notice what is not being thought, talked about or emotionally experienced. For example culturally taboo experiences like identity, sex, death, child abuse, incest, anger, violence and money. Model how this might be done, and be helpful, in therapy.
Keep an eye out for popular interpersonal games e.g. 'Yes, but'; 'It's simple'; 'It's too good to be true'; 'If only' and 'Why me.'
Allow yourself to be cared for as a precursor to people allowing care.
Engage in parallel play as preparation to experience each other's influence.
Identify and communicate apparent similarities in early and other, experiences.
'Like two terrified children who compare their experiences and so understand each other completely' - Ferenczi, 1995.
Model that imperfect, separate, people can be loved and be useful to each other. Affected but not overwhelmed.
Seek regular feedback in multiple forms. Reflect on the sessions away from the session especially in clinical supervision. Identify any possible dissociation. Share that reflection, demonstrate that the client, and their experience, have a consistent place in your mind.
'If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.' - Auden https://poets.org/poem/more-loving-one. The necessary asymmetry of therapy. Where the therapist is the paid advocate for love.
In sum, we can develop our relationships. Through understanding the reciprocal roles we take with other people. Their role in mental health problems. Psychological therapy too can help us add to our typical patterns of relating, relieve the symptoms of mental health problems and expand the possibilities in relationships for each of us. Particular habits in therapy make this more likely.
References
Benjamin, J. (1995). Like subjects, love objects: Essays on recognition and sexual difference. Yale University Press.
Benjamin, J. (2019, Apr, 1). Enactment and the theory of the third. Retrieved : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA0dcQ13rt8&list=LLSr6fHMgXhGzrFJ1qwcKfJA&index=2&t=0s
Berne, E. (1968). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships (Vol. 2768). Penguin Uk.
Ferenczi, S., Dupont, J., Balint, M., & Jackson, N. Z. (1995). The clinical diary of Sándor Ferenczi. Harvard University Press.
Perry, A. (2020). A typical initial consultation, white board video. Retrieved : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj7iek0lNYk
Ryle, A., Kellett, S., Hepple, J., & Calvert, R. (2014). Cognitive analytic therapy at 30. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 20(4), 258-268.
An earlier version of this article is available on my counselling directory page. See https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/the-surprising-ways-you-can-come-unstuck-in-therapy
n.b. I have also collated a list of other free resources on psychological therapy. You can access them here : CLICK HERE
