Interpersonal Transformation (Part I)
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The document explores the de-evolution of romantic relationships, highlighting how attraction is often influenced by unresolved relational traumas from both early life and adulthood. It discusses the unconscious factors that lead individuals to select partners based on these traumas, resulting in repetitive patterns and enactments within relationships. The author provides key principles for recognizing and avoiding these destructive dynamics to facilitate healthier interactions.
Interpersonal Transformation (Part I)
- 1. Interpersonal Transformation: Part I James Tobin, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist, PSY 22074 www.jamestobinphd.com February 1, 2014
- 2. The Standard View of Romantic Relationships: The Foundation • Attraction/ “chemistry” • We just understand each other/we seem to know each other • Common interests • Similar background/values 2
- 3. The De-evolution of Relationships • Dating • Sex (often intense and passionate at the beginning) • Commitment • The relationship evolves • Things change in comparison to how they were in the beginning • Unresolved conflict or avoidance of conflict • “We grew apart” • Infidelity • Crisis drives a wedge between the two persons 3
- 4. Typical Reactions to the Failed Relationship • I could not have predicted how things would go ... • What attracted me to him/her turned out to annoy and frustrate me ... • My needs were not fulfilled ... • We lost interest in each other ... couldn’t keep it fresh ... became bored with each other .... 4
- 5. A psychological understanding of the de-evolution of relationships 5
- 6. Attraction • Attraction/chemistry is usually based on “baggage.” • We are attracted to those people who hold the potential to hurt us as we have been hurt before (our original relational trauma). • The person we see “registers” something in our brains ... we find them familiar, yet we don’t understand why. • We are driven to bond to the persons most likely to re-traumatize us. 6
- 7. Why seek to be re-traumatized? • No one knows. • Evolution: what is familiar is chosen over that which would challenge us to develop new adaptations or jettison the adaptations we have grown accustomed to using. • Correcting the original relational trauma: we may believe that if we re-create the original trauma in the present day, we can finally overcome or solve it. 7
- 8. The Two Types of Relational Trauma Type I: The Original Relational Trauma of Early Life • It is inevitable that we get relationally injured early in development. • This original trauma stays stored within us. • In adult life, we are “programmed” to repeat the original trauma (1: our aura communicates it to others, and 2: we induce others to become parental surrogates). 8
- 9. The Two Types of Relational Trauma Type II: Relational Trauma of Adult Life • We all get hurt in adult romantic relationships. • In an effort to not get hurt again, we may: (1) Do a cross-over: become our past partner; our current partner becomes ourselves in the previous relationship (2) Sabotage the relationship (3) Withdraw from the emotionality of the relationship 9
- 10. Our “Selection” of a Partner • We are not really selecting our partner, as the partner (and how we relate to them) is pre- determined by trauma of Types I and/or II. • The partner is selected (NOT CHOSEN) by unconscious factors – we simply cannot help it!!! • The relationship is destined to fail and usually does! 10
- 11. Repetition • Some version of the past is always being repeated in the present. • The amount of repetition is determined by the amount of the previous traumas that remains unresolved. • “We are doomed to repeat what we do not remember”(Freud); in contemporary psychology, repetitive processes are called “enactments.” 11
- 12. Enactments • A majority of human interactions are nothing more than enactments. • A good way to think about enactments is that Person A acts/behaves in ways that begin to constrict the bandwidth of relatedness Person B generates back toward Person A (this is “induction”). • Example • Over time, the bandwidth is narrowed to such an extent that Person A falsely assumes or actually creates a situation in which he/she is “traumatized” by Person B. • In essence, Person B is unconsciously recruited to perpetrate upon Person A. 12
- 13. Enactments 13
- 14. Key Issue: How does one recognize and avoid enactments as early as possible? • From the first phone call, or meeting, induction is always occurring and the relationship is poised to shift quickly into an enactment. • This is characteristics of all relationships in human life. 14
- 15. Key Issue: How does one recognize and avoid enactments as early as possible? Recognize when you are inducing the other • you employ guilt or passivity to get what you want • you seek to punish the other (when he/she doesn’t do what you want) • you forgive the other too easily/too repetitively • you threaten the other that you will leave • you act to manipulate the other • you feel vulnerable • you reject requests from the other for time together or time apart • you begin to sabotage (by doing things to self or other) 15
- 16. Key Issue: How does one recognize and avoid enactments as early as possible? Recognize when you are being induced by the other • you feel too strongly • you are driven to frustration/anger at the actions of the other • you take things personally • you become overly confident or very insecure • you are strongly attracted/the sex is notably passionate • you become very reactive or under-reactive • your life becomes overtaken by the relationship • your friends/family become worried about you • you become split into either an emotional support/friend or a sex partner 16
- 17. If induction takes a foothold, .... • Things typically devolve, quickly or gradually. • But in any “normal” relationship, induction will (and must) take place. • The trick is to not let it get out of hand – if it does, both partners enact and are no longer “real” persons with each other. • The key idea is to attempt to maintain (in yourself and in the other) the widest bandwidth of relatedness as possible. 17
- 18. How to prevent induction get out of hand (these are the fundamentals of interpersonal transformation) • 5 key principles 18
- 19. #1 • Recognize when you are inducing or being induced (AND AVOID BOTH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE) 19
- 20. #2 • Understand the demand quality of repetition in all of your relationships 20
- 21. #3 • Identify the themes of unresolved attachment traumas that are put onto you, or that you put onto the other 21
- 22. #4 • View the other as a healing agent, not as a re- traumatizer (assume this!) 22
- 23. #5 • Explore and emotionally digest your Type I and II relational traumas 23
- 24. James Tobin, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist PSY 22074 220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1 Newport Beach, CA 92660 949-338-4388 Email: jt@jamestobinphd.com Website: www.jamestobinphd.com