Learner therapist (17)……the systemic communications breakdown in relationships

Learner therapist (17)……the systemic communications breakdown in relationships
Torrey Orton
April 25, 2012

How couples can't talk …and how therapists can help them.

You've seen this before, haven't you?
Couple walks in for a session, or is part way through, or is at the end, and suddenly bursts into a flurry of "you always say that…" or "you've got the facts wrong: I said red, not read" and away they go rising on the hot air of their self-justification and righteous recrimination at each other – back and forth with increasing volume, conviction and paralysing frustration morphing into rage, fuelled by unrequited injuries dating back to the beginning of the present conflicts which have brought them to you.

You've broken their cycle by insisting they "STOP !!". If you cannot do this, stop reading now because you cannot see or do what follows. You have been swallowed in their storm and are sinking in it with them. As you sink, ask 'Who's in charge here? Who should be in charge here?'


Their first agreement
If you have stopped them, you may say something like, "Is this what you usually do with this subject? … with these differences between you?" "Is this how this issue usually goes?" They usually say "Yes", often in unison – the first agreement they've had for the day, or sometimes for days; their first shared fact* about the relationship.

You may then ask them what happened, what did they see go on between them just then? If the heat was too high they will not be able to recall what happened because they did not hear /see it. They were in the grip of their feelings. This is also what happens to them every time about this subject, and others.

They can remember the heat of their conflict, and, depending on their approach to conflict (attracted or repulsed) move towards it or away. Both of these moves are automatic responses to conflict cued by their emotional DEW line** and anchored in their unrequited injuries***.
Usually a couple knows when conflict is coming and can name the most likely circumstances and issues which will provoke it. What they can't do is stop it once the process starts, once the triggers bite. Usually they have started biting before the participants are consciously aware, though the other may already be aware of their partner's feelings and launching their own defense…and so on it goes.

You should have some information to offer them about what happened, something like the following, which is a system for live exploration of the dynamics of conflict development. .. and their eventual reduction. But probably not in this session, or even the next few.

A systematic exploration approach

Having stopped the flash of conflict, ask 'What started the movement into conflict? Who said / did what?'

If neither can answer, ask this question of the person who first expressed a negative, defensive feeling. Usually the start of the conflict in the room is a glimpse of an expression, a shift of tone or pace of speech, a twitch of a shoulder or the whole posture of the other.

Ask whoever answered the first question, 'What did you feel at that moment?'

Often this is something like attacked, rejected, abandoned…not all of them but one with underlying/primary feelings like scared, sad, numb…

You may be able to point at physical indicators of feelings – movement, tone, intensity – if they cannot find them.

Then continue by asking, 'What did the other do that prompted your feeling…? '

What was the trigger for your response? This is likely to be some aspect of what started the conflict in the first place – a slight movement of body or tone or pace… What did you feel at that moment of your response?

And finally ask, 'Why did you each react to each other as you did?'

This is about what matters to them both; what gives meaning and what meanings are being threatened at that moment. This is what we really fight about of course.

Sometimes early in the work you may have to walk them through this sequence supplying the evidence for them to examine. You should be prepared to replay the events almost word for word if they've missed it because in the grip. You can't do this if caught yourself in their gripping drama.


Any conversation can be debriefed in this way. Practice at debriefing is important both to conceptual clarity (what feelings are., etc.) and technical grip on the dynamics of feelings – competence in handling high value subject matters . Competence supports confidence and thus lowers defensiveness. A shared framework for analysing is a framework for agreement which can be reached for at any time disagreement is threatening relationship progress.


Lead with a promise
It's a useful idea to have previewed this system before you start the substantive work with the couple. Then they will be ready for your stopping them when they fall into their habitual distress the first time. I include a sketch of the system in my opening speech to a couple in the first minutes of the session the first time we meet. It goes like this:

1. The responsibility for the current state and future of the couple is joint
2. This responsibility has varying levels with different issues because individuals value different issues differently
3. We can never fully meet all the needs of another person (goodbye white picket fence), hence our need for friends and family while coupled
4. We can never fully know our own needs at any time because:
   1. They are partly hidden in our unconscious
   2. They are emerging over time as we transit our life stages
5. Consequently, conflict is a necessary part of relationships (not just marriages)
6. This conflict usually takes a repeated form – the systemic communication dysfunction – which can be seen early in couples work, and which the couple immediately recognise as 'what we always do..' (see point 1 above)

Without such a system there's little way to shift the burden of habitual, mutually animated distress. That distress has two immediate sources: one, the perception of the unfair, inappropriate and, so, felt to be punishing behaviour by the partner; and two, the frustration of being unable to respond effectively to parry or contain the perceived threat of punishment. The frustration is the more dangerous and less discussable, hence often inaccessible while being the primary motivation of the moment. Not knowing what / how to do something is more threatening than doing something wrong, which at least is a doing!


Next article, some tools for working the feelings clashes – sharing issues inclusively, flagging hot items, and creating understanding of unshareable injury experiences. Also, some values blockages to effective communication




*a shared fact is one which both members of a couple (or larger grouping, too) give the same meaning to when asked what does this word or statement mean, or what an event looked like (what happened). A shared fact provides a point of agreement from which discussion can continue and come back to if disagreement reappears. It proves they can agree, and know how to do so. A shared fact is the start / heart of a shared world.


**the reptilian brain is tuned to non-verbal indicators of external threat or pleasure, operating at relative light speed; that brain's chief question of the environment is: am I its food or is it my food? Any possibility of getting this wrong tilts the decision equation in the first direction – a potentially terminal error. So the auto pilot for behaviour values higher risk potentials more than lower risk ones – pain over pleasure, that is and acts to prevent errors.


***unrequited injuries are deep historical relationship patterns which remain present to the view of oneself and others as how we normally behave under pressure, but they are often not acknowledged either to ourselves or by others because they are the kind of behaviours which elicit automatic defences; empathy helps us conduct this tacit defence.