Have you ever noticed in times of stress, how some people manage to stay calm and together when others are angry, blaming, anxious, collapsing or running away? It’s a rare individual who is not exposed to stress. People are constantly being confronted with challenges to their equilibrium such as dealing with downsizing in a business, with a family member’s life-threatening illness, with a son’s or daughter’s deployment in the Middle East. Then there are the ‘daily’ stressors of life in metropolitan Washington – long commutes replete with road rage or gridlock, finding parking spaces at the Metro, racing to the daycare after work to pick up toddlers, or making dinner after a full day at the office while helping a child do their homework; trying to make ends meet on fixed or shrinking salaries.
Differentiation is Self-Regulation
How is it some folks can tolerate unstable or downright chaotic events in their personal lives, at work or within their communities without becoming reactive? Have you ever seen intimate partners negotiate difficult personal events with integrity and panache, wondering how you would hold up under such pressure or knowing you wouldn’t be able to manage yourself near as well? What you may be admiring in these people, some therapists describe as being well-differentiated. Differentiation has to do with an individual’s capacity to self-regulate rather than merely reacting to whatever their environment or lives throw at them. Many folks conclude that, for whatever reason, they just don’t ‘have their shit together’ like those people they admire – that it’s a matter of genetics, a nurturing upbringing or luck of the draw and there’s nothing they can do to beef up their deficits. While these factors certainly can impact an individual’s development, they are by no means determinant. We, human beings, have the capacity to increase our resilience to stress and regulate our functioning – our level of differentiation. We can learn to modulate our anxiety in times of stress and unpredictability rather than having only the limbic options of fight, flight, or freeze.
Relationships: Opportunities for Increasing Differentiation
Oddly enough, ongoing relationships often provide the individuals within them one of the best opportunities to increase their differentiation if they are interested. Longterm adult relationships provide individuals with a constant laboratory for developing resilience, handling uncertainty and ambiguity, and growing up. The higher a person’s differentiation, the greater his or her chance of using the structure of marriage or a committed relationship well. The lower a person’s differentiation, the greater the likelihood the relationship will be defined by bickering, blaming, and distancing. The good news is that even if your level of differentiation is low at the outset of an important relationship, you can increase your differentiation within it. In fact, there’s no finish line with differentiation, it’s an ongoing lifelong process. Let’s take a look at how two spouses’ differentiation impacts their marriage:
John & Mary
John and Mary are having one of their classic arguments. They’ve been married 12 years and have a couple of kids. John works full-time. Mary is a stay-at-home mom. Tonight, John wants to have sex, Mary’s less inclined.
John: “It’s one thing or another with you. You’re tired, the kids are awake, you don’t feel connected…”
Mary interrupts: “You’re right, I don’t feel connected. How do you expect me to want to have sex with you when you’re rarely home? And when you are home, you’re stomping around, pissed at being passed over for the promotion, your boss’ stupidity or at me for not being on top of the kids’ homework or whatever.”
John: “Hey, I’m doing what I need to provide for this family, you want me to jeopardize my job? If you got yourself some part time work, maybe I wouldn’t be so burdened with all the bills at the end of the month.”
Mary: “I thought we agreed I wouldn’t go back to work until the kids were in high school. I thought we both believed in the importance of having one parent at home.”
John sighs: “Yeah, yeah.”
Mary: “Mm-m.”
Okay, so what just happened? The conversation starts off with John blaming Mary for their lack of sex. Mary jumps in, deftly parries and throws the blame back on John. John becomes defensive and once again puts responsibility for their struggle back on Mary. Mary grabs the high ground of something they’d agreed on previously, effectively blocking John, and he gives up. Having sex has receded into the background. Both people are demonstrating their low level of differentiation. They are reactive from the get go, and as they continue, their anxiety increases, manifested as hostility and blame. Neither takes responsibility for his or her own actions or for calming him or herself down. The conversation goes nowhere, except to further disable both people – they’ll be more entrenched in their own perspective and will see their situation as hopeless and futile.
Anxiety is Contagious
One of the hallmarks of differentiation is the capacity to calm oneself down while in close proximity to an important other even if that person’s anxiety has gotten the better of him or her. Anxiety is like an infectious disease in low differentiated people – if one person gets anxious and the partner has a low level of differentiation, that partner’s likely to get anxious too. In the case of Mary and John, you can see how both people’s anxiety is going up, manifested in aggression towards the other, until Mary’s coup de grace which stymies John. He caves in and gives up. If John had some capacity to reflect on himself, he’d likely recognize that he felt shamed and wanted to get away; or that it was hard to sit with the knowledge that his wife was intent on blocking his desire for sex ; or that his wife was accurate about his recent behavior and he didn’t want to admit it and so he gave up.
Here are a few different run-throughs of this interaction, so you can see some different responses which would indicate a higher level of differentiation of at least one spouse:
Example #1
John, angry: “It’s one thing or another with you. You’re tired, the kids are awake, you don’t feel connected, I think you are avoiding me.”
Mary: “You’re right, I have been avoiding you. I got the impression you wanted me and the kids to stay clear of you.”
John, still angry but not more angry: “Where’d you get that idea?”
Mary: “Well, when you come home, you’ve been stomping around, short with me, irritated with the kids’ study habits. I know things are tough for you at work, so I’ve been giving you a wide berth, but as I say this, truth is, I just was worried that if I said anything, you’d get more pissed, so I guess I’ve been avoiding you to protect my flank.”
John, seeing his wife acknowledge her avoidance, cools down a tad: “Well, I wasn’t aware of being any different at home.”
Mary: “From my perspective, you’ve been pretty rough around the edges for a few weeks, and I’ve responded in kind.”
John, calming down: “I wish you’d told me but I probably would’ve done what you thought I would. Thing is I get so fed up with work, I come home, the place is a wreck, I start thinking I’d just like something to look forward to – sex would be nice and then you’re at arms length and I get pissed even more.”
They go on talking with less reactivity.
Discussion: So what’s happening in Example #1 that exemplifies higher differentiation? The first thing is that Mary hearing John out rather than giving in to her anxiety or getting angry in kind with John. She doesn’t avoid dealing directly with what he’s saying. She doesn’t change the subject or start blaming him. She finds something in what he’s saying that she can agree with. While John had meant his remark as a reproach and was getting ready for a return salvo from Mary, hearing his wife’s tone and words, he was brought up short internally even though Mary might not have noticed any external evidence. Once again, Mary opts for being straight, she knows how these conversations usually go, she does want something different, and so she takes his question seriously whether he means it or not (“Where’d you get that idea?”). John sees his wife operating differently and simultaneously finds it disorienting (is she pulling a fast one?) and having possibilities (maybe she really does want something different since she’s not attacking me right now). John’s far less reactive and as he calms down, he finds he can admit that he probably would’ve given her a hard time if she’d said something to him earlier. Mary demonstrates in this vignette the beginnings of greater differentiation. She’s operating in a less reactive way towards John and is pushing herself to do something different from her old pattern with him. John, in turn, sees his wife do something different and decides to tolerate the uncertainty of the moment and to join her in the hopes of creating a better way of relating with one another.
Example #2
John: “I know things have been rough between us for awhile, but it would be great if we could carve out some time just for us, are you up for it?”
Mary, hackles going up: “Are you nuts? Where are we going to find any time? We’re up at 6 and the kids don’t go to sleep before 9:30, what I want is to be left alone for an hour.”
John: “Ok, so if I got home and took up the slack, so you could have an hour – you could go out if you wanted for a run or a walk – how about carving out an hour for us later or some other time?”
Mary: “I can’t just go from nothing to sex.”
John: “Is that a no?”
Mary: “I didn’t say that.”
John: “OK, so what are you saying?”
Mary: “I don’t know.”
John: “Mary, are you worried about how I’ll react if you answer my question?”
Mary: “I don’t know, I’m too tired to continue this now.”
John: “OK, we can stop now, but I’d like to pick this up again at another time.”
Discussion: John’s the one who’s got a better grip on himself and we watch how Mary doesn’t budge from her reactive stance. John is demonstrating an increased capacity to be responsive to his wife’s concerns. He refuses to descend into his past bullying stance and he’s generating ideas of how to ameliorate her fatigue and wish to be alone. When she slips away from his questions, he stays engaged and nonreactive and also lets her know that while he’s letting it go for now, he will come back and pick up the discussion if she doesn’t.
Example #3
John: “It’s one thing or another with you. You’re tired, the kids are awake, you don’t feel connected…”
Mary interrupts: “You’re right I don’t feel connected. How do you expect me to want to have sex with you when you’re rarely home? And when you are home, you’re stomping around, pissed at being passed over for the promotion, your boss’ stupidity or at me for not being on top of the kids’ studies or whatever.”
John: “Hey, I’m doing what I need to provide for this family, you want me to jeopardize my job? If you got yourself some part time work, maybe I wouldn’t be so burdened with all the bills at the end of the month.”
Mary: “I thought we agreed I wouldn’t go back to work until the kids were in high school. I thought we both believed in the importance of having one parent at home.”
John: “God, this is going nowhere fast.”
Mary: “That’s true.”
They look at one another.
John: “Is it too late for me to do this differently?”
Mary: “I don’t know, but I do know that if we stop here, we’ll go to our respective corners and could be there for days. Thing is I don’t know how much energy I have to get through this discussion without doing what I did a minute ago. How about we take a ten minute walk and then get naked and see what happens, no guarantees…”
John: “That’s an excellent idea.”
Discussion: Example #3 demonstrates how people can actually turn a messy escalation around. These folks are more differentiated than in the original vignette. And #3 also demonstrates how higher differentiated people are not immune from regression or reactivity, but they can recover and sometimes in midstream. Lower differentiated individuals would be less able to slow or stop such an escalation and are more likely to feel as though their evening’s been ruined. Furthermore, at lower levels of differentiation, #3 looks totally improbable and fake. Less differentiated women would view Mary as a doormat or Stepford wife. At higher levels of differentiation, people smile ruefully, remembering ugly occasions that they co-created and were able to get some benefit from.
How do I become more differentiated?
This is a good question and worth asking multiple times as you work on yourself. Ultimately, you are the one to answer the question because the answer depends on what you want for yourself and what kind of person you want to see yourself become. Differentiation tends to be a non-linear process of self-development and can look different among individuals. But here are a few ideas to set you on your way:
First, low differentiated people tend to be other-validated. These people can look one of two ways: On the one hand, there are those who are very dependent on others to tell them who they are and how they are doing. They try to get others to make decisions for them or scan other people’s responses to figure out how they themselves should respond. On the flip side are those people who tightly guard their ‘independence’. Actually, they’re just as dependent but in a different way – they are counter-dependent. These are the folks who must keep others – family, friends, co-workers at arms’ distance to prevent themselves from getting anxious or rattled. This style of interaction is prized in our culture and is often viewed as someone demonstrating their autonomy or individuality. In fact, they have to distance to stay intact. When they are in closer proximity to others or when demands are put on them, they begin to come apart.
So, one thing you can begin to do is to pay attention to which form of dependency you tend to gravitate towards. Do you cling to your partner or keep her at arms length? As you observe your degree of dependency or fusion, think about how you would like to change this part of yourself. Begin experimenting with doing something different and observe closely what happens when you do so.
Two, monitor how you handle anxiety. You may see that you respond to it differently depending on the importance of the person, situation or interaction to you. Do you see yourself mostly as trying to avoid anxiety by distancing, withdrawing or hiding? Do you see yourself as caving into someone else in order to ‘keep the peace’? Do you become domineering and threatening? Do you dissolve into self-pity? Do you freeze up? These are all common responses to anxiety in people with low differentiation. For most people, confronting themselves about their own responses to anxiety is the most important step to becoming more differentiated.
Three, focus on calming yourself, rather than expecting someone else to behave in a way so you won’t feel uncomfortable. Rather than caving in prematurely to smooth over differences, experiment with holding yourself together. Breathe! Give yourself a couple of extra moments before responding. When you hear your voice rising, ask yourself what’s activating you at the moment? Do you feel attacked? Are you trying to back your spouse off? Are you getting worried that you won’t be heard? Breathe! Calm down and remember what you are trying to create.
Four, experiment with taking responsibility for yourself rather than blaming your partner for the problem. If you find yourself getting defensive and tempted to blame your partner, be willing to stop and ask yourself what your part is in the situation. Challenge yourself to decide what you will do rather than focusing on what your partner should do.
Five, when interacting with someone, consider how to make room for both you and the other. In interactions, does it typically have to be your way or you’ll be hurt, offended or feel un-loved? Experiment with handling the tension that’s inevitable when both people have a voice and a vote.
Six, in the event that you think you are more differentiated than your partner, chances are you aren’t. We all tend to pick partners at the same level of emotional development as ourselves. If you find yourselves cycling in the same arguments or ruts, then you and your partner are at the same level of differentiation, so you can save yourselves the time and energy of one upmanship.
The benefit of increased differentiation is not that things in your life will go more smoothly but that you will have a shot at making more out of the relationships in your life. When people are operating at higher levels of differentiation, they have more resilience in the face of life’s inevitable challenges – aging, illness, death, family and career disappointments. Similarly, higher differentiated people have a greater capacity to absorb, savor, enjoy and build upon their successes in life and love.
Further readings related to the discussion of differentiation are listed below:
Real, Terrence, How Can I Get Through to You? Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women. Simon and Schuster 2002.
Real, Terrence, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression.
Schnarch, David, Passionate Marriage.