"There is no organization or institution of any kind that can substitute for personal, feelingful, and consistent close relating to children."-- Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett, Fear of Intimacy, p. 117
"Q. How would you advise couples to cope with the problems that cause relationships to fail?""A. People can attempt to face the pain and sadness involved in trying to restore intimacy ... develop a nondefensive posture toward feedback and an open and honest style of communication ... move away from isolated couple interactions and toward an extended circle of family and friends."
-- Dr. Robert Firestone, Salon interview, 11/16/99 (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/11/16/guru/index.html)
Today's divisive national debate on whether parents should stay married "for the sake of the kids" - recently accelerated by Judith Wallerstein's highly-publicized book suggesting that divorce harms children and growing state legislative action to discourage divorce - misses the point. The issue is not marriage vs. divorce but how to improve the quality of the relationships parents have with each other, and with their children. A parent's decision to develop his or her own capacity to give and receive love will do far more for children than either a loveless marriage or friendly divorce.
One out of two marriages end in divorce, despite the fact that the vast majority of baby-boomers' parents remained in "intact marriages" throughout their lives. If remaining married "for the sake of the children" were the solution, marriage would not be in such trouble today. Marriage can be saved only if people are willing to go deeper, to undertake the challenging but achievable work necessary to become open, available and emotionally responsive to each other and their children.
In Fear of Intimacy, Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett describe how partners can develop the kind of relationship that provides an environment to enhance children's growth and emotional development. An American Psychology Association book which has just gone into its fourth printing and is available in paperback, Fear of Intimacy (please see excerpts in the conclusion below) offers an in-depth explanation of why relationships fail, and what can be done to make them succeed.
What children need above all is to see their parents modeling honest and compassionate relationships for them, so that they will know how to relate intimately with their own partners and children when they are grown. Parents need to live as if their behavior will be imitated by their children, because in fact it will be. Children who grow up with parents living in a loveless marriage will tend to recreate similar marriages in their adult lives. Children living with a single parent who does not have emotionally close relationships will also have problems creating such relationships later on.
Modeling emotional closeness, and achieving it with one's children requires that parents seek above all to develop their own capacity to give and receive love. Parents can learn to better their communication skills, improve their personal relating, and achieve a greater sense of individuality that will allow them to give their children the love and direction they need - if they have the courage to challenge negative parental prescriptions for living and distorted views of themselves and their mate. These prescriptions and distortions are learned early in childhood. They tend to be manifested in the form of negative thoughts, an internal dialogue or "voice," that controls each partner's distancing behavior and creates conflict in the relationship.
What we really need to do for our children's sake is to encourage parents to challenge these distortions and other defenses and develop personally to the point where they have more tolerance for love and intimacy.
In contrast to this process of personal development on the part of parents that is so crucial to producing healthy children, the present national debate on marriage vs. divorce is both superficial and misdirected. The misinterpretation of a recent highly-publicized book on divorce illustrates the problem. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis and Sandra Blakeslee, was featured on the cover of Time magazine, occupied two Oprah programs, and has received extensive national publicity elsewhere.
The book itself makes an important contribution to our understanding of marriage and divorce. It is true that children suffer from divorce, and that society and parents can and should do more to counter its negative effects. It is misused, however, when it diverts our attention from the information and understanding parents need to raise healthy children.
Wallerstein herself says, "I am not against divorce ... I don't know of any research, including mine, that says divorce is universally detrimental to children. People who espouse this view speak earnestly from their own lofty values, but I suspect they have not spent time with families facing intractable problems that can lead to divorce." (p. xxxiii.)
The national debate on marriage vs. divorce is not only misdirected, but squanders a great opportunity. Relationships can be strengthened. The marriage satisfaction rate can be increased. We can raise healthier children. But to do so we need to focus more on the internal dynamics within relationships, not their institutional form.
In an article in the February 2001 issue of Psychology Today, Dr. Lisa Firestone and Joyce Catlett described the sources of couple problems, and how people can work to improve their intimacy skills.
They explained that a core defense that often leads to the downfall of a partnership is `the fantasy bond,' which is an illusion of a connection to another person. It first develops with the mother or primary parent figure, and people then often seek to reestablish it in their adult relationships.
They may choose a person they can relate to as they related to their parent or other family member. They may then distort their partner and see him or her as being more like their parent than they really are. Third, if this fails to reestablish their childhood situation, they will often provoke their partner into behaving the way their parent did.
Each of these processes - selection, distortion and provocation - curtail their ability to relate and make it less likely that they will succeed in achieving true intimacy in their relationships.
The "voice" is a secondary defense meant to help preserve the fantasy bond. All people tend to conduct some form of internal dialogue within themselves as though another person were reprimanding them, denouncing them, criticizing them and so on.
In a relationship both partners may be listening to the dictates of their respective voices, which promotes more defensiveness and creates conflict. Both partners often use rationalizations derived from "the voice" to deflect loving responses and justify their distancing behavior from each other.
Robert Firestone, Ph.D., has developed a technique called "voice therapy" to reverse this destructive process and allow great er intimacy. This therapy brings into consciousness these internalized negative thoughts, which are usually barely noticed. Voice therapy with couples seeks to help each individual identify the "voice attacks" that are creating conflict and distance. Each partner is able to relate more openly as they identify both self-criticisms and judgmental, hostile thoughts about the other.
Couples not in therapy can also work on their relationships by becoming aware of the times when they think negatively about themselves or their partner. They could record their self-critical thoughts and hostile attitudes in a journal, and reveal the contents of their destructive thoughts to a trusted friend or their mate. They might assess how close to reality these thoughts are - they usually are not. And they could then set objectives for what each wants out of the relationship, and track how closely each one's actions match these goals.
Conclusion
Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett have explained in Fear of Intimacy the nature of the true intimacy that children need to observe in their parents if they are to develop the capacity for intimate relationships when they themselves become adults.
"The major threats to intimacy within couple relationships can be traced to the developmental history of each partner. Psychological defenses operating within the parents of the respective partners are transmitted to them as children on an unconscious level. They develop attitudes similar to those of their parents, both toward themselves and toward the opposite sex (sexual stereotypes), and imitate their parents' inward behavior patterns and lifestyle. Our therapeutic goal is to help people move toward more constructive and healthy forms of interaction in their intimate associations. By helping individuals develop better mental health and relinquish powerful defenses that interfere with intimacy, we help them move on to a better life with mates and family members.
"There are a number of attitudes that we attempt to inspire: an understanding of a tender, loving way to treat one another that would extend outward from the couple relationship to their children, other family members, and friends. This style of relating consists of a noncritical, accepting attitude, a recognition of each person as a separate individual, and a concern and respect for boundaries and priorities.
"It manifests itself in simple ways, in a thousand small acts of kindness and consideration and in behaviors that lead to a deep sharing of life experiences and a sense of kinship and companionship.
"Maintaining a satisfying relationship presupposes a nonintrusive posture in relation to the other's values, interests, or behaviors. In behavioral terms, this can mean a simple courtesy such as allowing the other person to finish speaking without interrupting, to more inclusive patterns and styles of relating such as the willingness to bear one's own pain without implicating the other in one's internal conflicts, and giving up efforts to 'fix' or change the other.
"It is important, however, that in being sensitive to the other's wants and needs, one does not compromise one's own integrity or personal freedom in an effort to maintain harmony. Both need to be wary of making fundamental concessions, because these compromises predispose resentment, disharmony, and conflict in the future.
"We try to teach couples that genuine love implies finding enjoyment in observing the personal evolution of one's partner, watching him or her grow and flourish in areas even beyond one's personal world. Recognizing that it is gratifying to simply love another, rather than to expect to receive a benefit or reward for one's love, is a vital component in a good relationship."
A capacity for such emotional intimacy or closeness is the key variable in raising healthy children, not marriage or divorce. A diminished tolerance for intimacy often leads to divorce. In fact, it may be one of its key causes. If people learn to overcome their fear of intimacy they can have healthier relationships with each other and with their children, be less likely to divorce or, should they do so, be more able to create a loving environment for their children.
About The Glendon Association
The Glendon Association is a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit organization which conducts research, education and training in different areas of psychology, including intimate relationships, child-rearing, Voice Therapy, and suicide and violence prevention. Its resources include seven books and several dozen articles, and more than 40 video documentaries dealing with these issues. Glendon's staff also conducts workshops for professionals and the public in all of its areas of concern.
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., Glendon's Education and Program Director, conducts professional trainings, workshops, and public presentations around the nation, as well as counseling couples in her private practice. She also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of California at Santa Barbara Graduate School of Education. She has developed a curriculum for youth at risk, and conducts research in the areas of suicide, violence and couple relationships.
Joyce Catlett, M.A., is an author, lecturer and staff member of the Glendon Association. She is the co-author of Fear of Intimacy with Dr. Robert Firestone. Since 1979 she has collaborated with him in writing seven books and numerous articles and has co-produced Glendon videos with Geoff Parr. She has trained instructors in the Compassionate Child-Rearing Parent Education Program and conducts continuing education workshops in mental health facilities throughout the United States and Canada.
The work of the Glendon Association is based upon the theoretical contributions of Dr. Robert Firestone. Dr. Firestone remains a consultant to the Glendon Association, and is presently writing several books and developing a series of videos on "The Good Life." Dr. Firestone was engaged in the private practice of psychotherapy as a clinical psychologist from 1957-1979. He left his private practice at this time to devote himself full-time to writing and research. His major works include Fear of Intimacy, Compassionate Child-Rearing: An In-Depth Approach to Optimal Parenting, The Fantasy Bond: Structure of Psychological Defenses, Voice Therapy, Combating Destructive Thought-Processes, The Fantasy Bond, Suicide and the Inner Voice and Psychological Defenses In Every Day Life. He and Lisa Firestone have applied his concepts to developing the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST), a scale that assesses suicide potential.
The books listed above, articles, research papers and more than 40 videos are available from the Glendon Association. (Please see The Glendon Catalog of Resources for a full listing of resources available.)
The Glendon Association5383 Hollister Ave.Ste. 230Santa Barbara, CA 931111-805-681-0415www.glendon.org
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