Dialectical Perspective
Sooo if you have no idea what that means basically i'm gonna tell you. I've been thinking alot about it lately and this entry is based on my discussion with my current and past professors, as well as the lesson we had today in pysch class. I thought it was super interesting and it's all about relationships. I think i might actually start writing weekly about relationships with friends and family and all that stuff because i find it soooo interesting and it's taught me alot.
Basically Dialectical Perspectives is some fancy ass name for interactions in a relationship based on needs and challenges the people face in them. That we as boyfriends and girlfriends seek important but different things in virtually every relationship and throughout the entire relationship. So these differences cause tensions in the relationship that often end up leading to breakup. This doesn't have to be the case though if both parties care enough about each other (is the juice worth the squeeze?) things can be worked out.
connection VS autonomy
The first tension tends to be that of connection vs autonomy. Basically nobody is going to want to be all about themself, recognizing this we do seek out involvement with others but at the same time we're unwilling to sacrifice our entire identity to even the best of relationships. With that being said so many times you'll hear about a break up and one party is saying things like:
"We barely spent any time together"
"He/She wasn't committed to the relationship"
"We had different needs"
These are all statements of somebody who was in need of the connection part of this tension... The other party was likely to be saying things like:
"I was feeling trapped"
"I needed freedom"
"I don't always want to have to answer to him/her"
These are all statements of somebody who was in need of the autonomy part of this tension.
openness VS privacy
This tension has to do with the people in the relationship wanting to share deep and meaningful pieces of who they are or withdrawing and not willing to let that intimate privacy out yet in fear of how the other person may respond. The key here is that if you want to establish a deeper feeling and emotional level with your boyfriend or girlfriend you eventually will share some very personal information about yourself but it the person has to WANT to give up such types of information. It cannot be forced and will not achieve as much significance if it is forced out of the person.
predictability VS novelty
This tension basically has to do with security and boredom issues. Stability is an important need in relationships but too much can lead to a feeling of staleness or lack of excitement. Although too much familiarity can be boring nobody wants a completely unpredictable partner. Too many surprises can threaten the foundations the relationship stands on.
With any of these tensions arising in a couple, it does not mean that things can't be worked at if both parties love and care enough about each other. Is the juice worth the squeeze? There are solutions for these relational tensions because no one party is wrong for feeling the way they feel. So if both people are really anxious for some juice then there are ways to manage these tensions.
Balance is a very good way to start dealing with such tensions. Basically both people realize what side of the tension they are on and that both sides are legitimate forces in all relationships. You then balance out these tensions by compromising on both sides. Willingness from both parties to lose SOME but not all of what he or she wants.
Integration is another way to approach the problem in addition to or instead of trying to balance things out. Managing things this way both people simultaneously accept opposing forces without trying to diminish them or put them down. For example, in the predictability VS novelty case, perhaps the couple would do something once a week, but that something was something they had never done before each week. You integrate both tensions into one common ground.
Recalibration is another way a couple can look at things. Both people can transform their attitude from loving someone in spite of their differences to loving someone because of those differences. Or consider how two people who each felt hurt by each other's unwillingness to share parts of his or her past might redefine the secrests as creating an attractive mystery instead of being a problem to be solved.
Reaffirmation is a strategy that acknowledges that these tensions will never disappear. So instead of trying to make them go away the couple embraces the challenges the tensions presented and whatever doesn't tear us down makes us stronger kind of mentality comes into play.
Good To Know
In all this it is important to remember that relationships are constantly changing. That does not mean they're doomed to deteriorate, but even the strongest of ones are rarely stable for long periods of time. Just because troubles might emerge does not need to cause for panic. This is normal in a relationship and should be approached with understanding and consideration for your boyfriend or girlfriends feelings.
Movement in the relationship is always to a new place. Even though a relationship may move back to a stage it has experienced before, it will never be the same. Most healthy long-term relationships will go through several phases of experimenting, when the partners try out new ways of behaving with each other. Though each time it is characterized by the same features the specifics and emotions will feel different each time.
It is possible for two people who have never experienced a serious relationship before to move more slowly to get to a certain point in a relationship, where as if two people have gone through such steps one or serveral times before tend to get to the same place in the relationship much more quickly then those who have not yet been through such experiences. This is not wrong or abnormal but not always a truth in the case. Common responses to such actions would be:
"Well you guys did move a little fast"
"Maybe you two should have slowed things down"
Because one persons view of how to conduct a relationship differs from yours, it does not mean that it was a wrong course of action.
This concludes this long post about relationships and again it's all based on the discussion me and my professor had and the lesson she gave today, lessons i have been taught in the past as well as past studies and my own personal application. Some of the stuff i wrote is directly quoted from the text book Looking Out Looking In, by Ronald B. Adler, a book on types of relationships and communication. I just wanted to post this because lessons like this always have taught me alot about myself as well as others. I thought i should share because it always can be related to anybody in a relationship or past relationships that you may have experienced on some level.
Basically Dialectical Perspectives is some fancy ass name for interactions in a relationship based on needs and challenges the people face in them. That we as boyfriends and girlfriends seek important but different things in virtually every relationship and throughout the entire relationship. So these differences cause tensions in the relationship that often end up leading to breakup. This doesn't have to be the case though if both parties care enough about each other (is the juice worth the squeeze?) things can be worked out.
connection VS autonomy
The first tension tends to be that of connection vs autonomy. Basically nobody is going to want to be all about themself, recognizing this we do seek out involvement with others but at the same time we're unwilling to sacrifice our entire identity to even the best of relationships. With that being said so many times you'll hear about a break up and one party is saying things like:
"We barely spent any time together"
"He/She wasn't committed to the relationship"
"We had different needs"
These are all statements of somebody who was in need of the connection part of this tension... The other party was likely to be saying things like:
"I was feeling trapped"
"I needed freedom"
"I don't always want to have to answer to him/her"
These are all statements of somebody who was in need of the autonomy part of this tension.
openness VS privacy
This tension has to do with the people in the relationship wanting to share deep and meaningful pieces of who they are or withdrawing and not willing to let that intimate privacy out yet in fear of how the other person may respond. The key here is that if you want to establish a deeper feeling and emotional level with your boyfriend or girlfriend you eventually will share some very personal information about yourself but it the person has to WANT to give up such types of information. It cannot be forced and will not achieve as much significance if it is forced out of the person.
predictability VS novelty
This tension basically has to do with security and boredom issues. Stability is an important need in relationships but too much can lead to a feeling of staleness or lack of excitement. Although too much familiarity can be boring nobody wants a completely unpredictable partner. Too many surprises can threaten the foundations the relationship stands on.
With any of these tensions arising in a couple, it does not mean that things can't be worked at if both parties love and care enough about each other. Is the juice worth the squeeze? There are solutions for these relational tensions because no one party is wrong for feeling the way they feel. So if both people are really anxious for some juice then there are ways to manage these tensions.
Balance is a very good way to start dealing with such tensions. Basically both people realize what side of the tension they are on and that both sides are legitimate forces in all relationships. You then balance out these tensions by compromising on both sides. Willingness from both parties to lose SOME but not all of what he or she wants.
Integration is another way to approach the problem in addition to or instead of trying to balance things out. Managing things this way both people simultaneously accept opposing forces without trying to diminish them or put them down. For example, in the predictability VS novelty case, perhaps the couple would do something once a week, but that something was something they had never done before each week. You integrate both tensions into one common ground.
Recalibration is another way a couple can look at things. Both people can transform their attitude from loving someone in spite of their differences to loving someone because of those differences. Or consider how two people who each felt hurt by each other's unwillingness to share parts of his or her past might redefine the secrests as creating an attractive mystery instead of being a problem to be solved.
Reaffirmation is a strategy that acknowledges that these tensions will never disappear. So instead of trying to make them go away the couple embraces the challenges the tensions presented and whatever doesn't tear us down makes us stronger kind of mentality comes into play.
Good To Know
In all this it is important to remember that relationships are constantly changing. That does not mean they're doomed to deteriorate, but even the strongest of ones are rarely stable for long periods of time. Just because troubles might emerge does not need to cause for panic. This is normal in a relationship and should be approached with understanding and consideration for your boyfriend or girlfriends feelings.
Movement in the relationship is always to a new place. Even though a relationship may move back to a stage it has experienced before, it will never be the same. Most healthy long-term relationships will go through several phases of experimenting, when the partners try out new ways of behaving with each other. Though each time it is characterized by the same features the specifics and emotions will feel different each time.
It is possible for two people who have never experienced a serious relationship before to move more slowly to get to a certain point in a relationship, where as if two people have gone through such steps one or serveral times before tend to get to the same place in the relationship much more quickly then those who have not yet been through such experiences. This is not wrong or abnormal but not always a truth in the case. Common responses to such actions would be:
"Well you guys did move a little fast"
"Maybe you two should have slowed things down"
Because one persons view of how to conduct a relationship differs from yours, it does not mean that it was a wrong course of action.
This concludes this long post about relationships and again it's all based on the discussion me and my professor had and the lesson she gave today, lessons i have been taught in the past as well as past studies and my own personal application. Some of the stuff i wrote is directly quoted from the text book Looking Out Looking In, by Ronald B. Adler, a book on types of relationships and communication. I just wanted to post this because lessons like this always have taught me alot about myself as well as others. I thought i should share because it always can be related to anybody in a relationship or past relationships that you may have experienced on some level.