[Just as an FYI, this is a developing thought process, which means the logic loops are still falling in on themselves in places while I think this one through; it shakes the roots of a fundamental relationship principle I've held dear for a dozen-odd years, and I don't yet have something to replace it, so if the logic appears to cling in places and ( Read more... )

Rigidity in evolutionary processes is generally perceived to be a BadThingtm over the long term as it forces organic growth into potentially unnatural contortions to conform to structural restrictions. A world of absolutes is a harsh place, however easy it may seem to navigate between clear boundaries, just a world of ambiguity is perhaps a softer ( Read more... )

...how relevant this post is to my issues. *sigh*

On the creation and maintenance of "sick systems":
http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html

I've probably linked to it before. I should maybe have it tattooed somewhere for easy reference in future.

I've been thinking a lot lately about choice, especially in how it relates to validation in relationships, which in turn relates to how people self-soothe (or don't) their anxieties through either self-validation or other-validation. this in turn has lead me to examine some of my own motivations through the years for selecting relationships, both ( Read more... )

i've had a lot of cause to reflect on the way in which people establish friendships recently. ( cut to spare those who don't enjoy the social anthropology noodlings of this blog :) )

The family as an attachment systemResearch on romantic jealousy is consistent with the idea that jealousy is in part the product of threats to attachment relationships. In jealousy-provoking situations, people react not only to the possible loss of a romantic partner but also to the possible loss of an attachment figure (Sharpsteen and Kirkpatrick ( Read more... )

more from Hazan & Shaver's article, "Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, Vol 52, No. 3, pp. 511-524):

Unlike the Freudian conception, according to which the supposed irrationalities of adult love indicate regression to infancy or fixation at some earlier stage of psychosexual ( Read more... )

excerpted from Hazan & Shaver's article, "Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, Vol 52, No. 3, pp. 511-524):

Just as the feelings an infant presumably experiences in relationship with his or her mother are thought to reflect the quality of attachment to her, we expected that ( Read more... )

elsewhere in LJ, i've got friends working their way through the initial definitions of "what is polyamory and how will we implement it for ourselves?", and others who are questioning what people consider to be the most difficult aspect of polyamoury. these are not conversations exclusive to the poly world; one could easily rephrase the first ( Read more... )

in the world of Contextual Therapy, the core principle of relationships is that we develop or dismiss/destroy relationships on the basis of merited trust, that being trust earned from having more positive transactions than negative ones on the relational ledger. try though some might to deny it, all relationships have ledgers, because all ( Read more... )