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Dr E. Mansell Pattison (quoted in Bonding: Relationships in the image of God by Donald Joy Ph.D) completed research on "psycho-social kinship systems." To make it easier to understand, Dr Pattison is discussing an individual's support systems. "Here is an amazing way to test the health of your present connections with other people", according to Dr Pattison.
Write in names of individuals that would need to be notified if you were involved in a life threatening accident. Include individuals from these four groups:
Family - 1st degree: parents, siblings, children
Family - 2nd degree or further: Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc
Friends - Lifelong Collection and present confidantes
Associates - work, clubs, recreation and church.
Now that you have written down your current support system - will these individuals help you "sustain your mutual sanity and well being:"
Do both of you have a high investment in the relationship?
Is there frequent face to face contact?
If you aren't able to have face-to-face contact are you in contact via phone, mail (I know 'old school'), text or facebook when you miss seeing each other for a few weeks?
Would you invest time and/or money in order to help them in a time of need?
Is this relational investment mutually reciprocal?
(Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God Donald Joy, Ph.D.)
It is important that your support network is connected to each other, but for various reasons it is healthy that not everyone in a support system know each other. The primary reason, is that your mental health will be much stronger, if at least 40% aren't connected to all the other individuals in your support system. I have also observed individuals who are supporting emotionally, relationally, or financially many other individuals, but don't have anyone to turn to when their own world is falling apart and that is only slightly improved from being all alone. Support systems have a natural rhythm to them, there is give and take, as caring shifts from one person to the next. Thinking that you have to be strong, and that no one else can do things right, will lead to an obsession with control. An obsession with control, will only lead to an emotional, mental, or physical breakdown, and that breakdown will likely damage your support system in the process. Take some time to reflect on the people in your support system; God has brought them into your life for a reason, and vice versa. Through the process of learning more about creating healthy support systems, I am amazed at how important people are in helping me continue to be resilient, so that I may overcome life's challenges. How often it is, we don't even realize how much we need each other.
Always worth reading. It occurs to me that if more than 40% of your support group know each other, there is an increased likelihood of enmeshment or submergence.
ReplyDeleteEnmeshment = "Enmeshment refers to an extreme form of proximity and intensity in family interactions...In a highly enmeshed, overinvolved family, changes within one family member or in the relationship between two family members reverberate throughout the system... On an individual level, interpersonal differentiation in an enmeshed system is poor...in enmeshed families the individual gets lost in the system. The boundaries that define individual autonomy are so weak that functioning in individually differentiated ways is radically handicapped (Minuchin, et al, 1978, p.30)."
ReplyDeleteSubmergence = Emotion suppression in order to receive approval, affection, to fit in, etc.
ReplyDeleteStill working through this. Will post more later.