wchap9a1
8/21/01
A
NEW FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION, by Arthur M. Jackson: Promotes the importance
of ethics
CHAPTER IX -- A.1
BEYOND ROMANTIC LOVE
By
Arthur M. Jackson
Copyright
2001, 2006
.
“YOU’RE NOT WHAT I EXPECTED: Love After the Romance Has Ended,” Polly Young-Eisendrath, Fromm, New York, 1997.
p. 23 – CHAPTER 1 – Doing What’s Natural
“By strange gender I mean the way we imagine the opposite sex.”
RESPONSE: Is strange gender exactly equivalent to dream lover? (No. Dream lover evolves out of strange gender. Focuses on images we fear and desire.) And Other? (Pretty much equal.)
p. 24: “Strange gender acquires a sharper focus in childhood when we realize that the two sexes are exclusive clubs and we can belong to only one. Forever we must look in at members of the other club as outsiders. We can never join them. With this realization, the strange gender begins to transform into ‘dream lovers’: the specific images of those Others we fear and desire because we imagine they are different from us. (I capitalize Other to indicate a subjective image rather than another person.)…. As adults, we have a store of dream lovers and project one or several onto people of the opposite sex for a variety of reasons – to defend ourselves, to fall in love, to blame another. No matter what our sexual preference is, these dream lovers prowl through our nights and catch us unawares during the day. They are evoked by others of the opposite sex around us, but they carry no real knowledge about those others.”
RESPONSE: I have no doubt about the validity of Young-Eisendrath’s key ideas. However, I do wonder about how valid are some of her assumptions such as that children actually think there might be a choice between being male and female. Nevertheless, to me that has little bearing on the issues Young-Eisendrath raise which do seem valid, and of great importance.
Realizing that we have a number of different dream lovers that we project at different times and under different circumstances makes the process of catching ourselves in the act of doing this more difficult. Also, trying to sort them all out becomes more problematical.
p. 25: “The strange gender in each of us eventually emerges as particular dream lovers that fill us with emotion, often outside of our awareness. By the time we are adults, our dream lovers are powerful aspects of our personalities. We are ‘driven’ by them as we project them onto the opposite sex. This is unavoidable and it makes heterosexual intimacy a hard-to-reach goal. No wonder we feel ‘different’ from opposite-sex friends and less comfortable with them than with same-sex friends. Dream lovers and their cultural counterparts, stereotypes, do not usually disrupt same-sex relating and may even enhance our friendships as we indulge in stories about the Others.”
RESPONSE: How is it possible to be filled with emotion outside of our awareness? I can understand that we might not be aware of the source of the emotions, but if we are not aware of the emotions, how does that play out?
However, more to the point I want to explore the Other in me. What does this mean for me? One thing that, particularly in my earlier years, kept me from committing to a long-term relationship with a woman was the fear around the idea of “being responsible” for her. The thought of such responsibility was too overwhelming since it had no limits. When a woman or even a friend would make some kind of a “demand” on me that seemed to be excessive, I would pull back into myself and begin to dissolve the bonds of connection. As I ponder this it seems to come out of the Terrible Mother/Victim Child complex, and equally involves the Great Mother/ Golden Child (Hero), complex.
As long as I could give whatever I perceived as being needed, helpful, desired, fair, etc. freely, I felt very good about doing it regardless of the expense or time involved. I was the Hero. When I perceived it as a “demand,” which thereby made me a victim, I resented it and took it as a reason to break off the relationship. As long as I could be the Hero things were fine for me.
However, it doesn’t seem to me that these projections are as restricted to the other sex as Young-Eisendrath discusses. As I examine my own behaviors I seem to use these projections just as much with other men as with women.
When I better understand this projection, this complex with its strange genders, and see what it involves so I can bring this into my active self this should be very empowering. The foregoing is true since it usually becomes an issue in every relationship including with my Son, because I do indeed place this projection totally within the other. I see it as an unfixable deficiency in them. So the person is irreparably flawed, and I must either accept them with this terrible flaw, or reject them and totally put them out of my life, depending on the specifics of the relationship.
Why have I seen this as an irreparable deficiency in the other person rather than a problem in communication? Presumably this is the explanation I needed to adopt since whenever I attempted to discuss a particular issue this was impossible since it was my projection, and the other person could not respond as I expected. As a result the matter could not be examined, explored, dealt with in a useful way. Therefore, I had no way to examine the triggering behavior in an appropriate way that allowed it to be dealt with satisfactorily. Rather it became an insurmountable barrier between me and the other person. So with these basic insights in hand hopefully the next steps will be possible.
p. 25-26: “This book is about the difficulty of heterosexual intimacy. Our strange gender – in the form of dream lovers and stereotypes – can interfere with trust of the opposite sex. At the same time, relating to the opposite sex can bring us face-to-face with our own Otherness. Confronting the Others in ourselves and learning to distinguish them from actual others is a task of mature development. Not only fears and fantasies, but also ideals and admiration are the stuff of dream lovers. As we reclaim both our own aggression and our own ideals, we become fuller individuals with expanded identities – often including characteristics that we previously thought to be beyond us. Encountering our dream lovers opens us to truths about ourselves and to empathy with the others.”
RESPONSE: I would say that for me personally this is the primary current challenge of my life. I have rejected “being a leader.” Although I have gravitated to leadership positions all my life I have failed to accept ownership of being the leader and helping others to follow my goals.
A place where what I take to be the underlying mechanism is most clearly shown is when I am confronted by anyone, but especially a child who wants something that is not my responsibility or is in some other way questionable. I try to get clear in my mind whether or not this is an unreasonable request for me. When I observe others in similar situations it seems to me that they immediately “know” and respond. I don’t “know.” Whatever they are drawing from is missing in me. I don’t know if I should do it or not. On the one hand it seems like something the other person doesn’t have the “right” to expect. On the other hand I recognize it is something they desire and I have the power to grant. Why do some seem to find it so easy to deal with this issue and I find it so difficult?
I compensate by automatically saying no to many requests (when there isn’t a personal connection). I say no, not because I think this is the right answer, but because I don’t know how to judge what the right answer is. If I can’t think of a rational reason why not, often because my brain is “frozen,” I have a tendency to go along with the request. A similar thing happens in many situations. For example take the more relevant situation where I have a plan for doing something that to me seems important. This is something I have carefully considered and feel sure it is right. I mention it to someone, and they begin to criticize it and point out what they see as shortcomings. I have a tendency to “cave in” and go along with their ideas. And later resent having done so.
When I present a plan and the other person begins to criticize it rather than praise it, I tend to see them in a negative light. Although at a rational level I can recognize that criticism is more valuable than praise, at the emotional level it doesn’t come across as a positive. This is particularly true when they suggest an alternative which totally discards my plan. In those circumstances I tend to be stymied. And as I think of this it seems to me that often at this point I throw in the towel and give up my effort to influence the decision. This is because when I attempt to argue the merits of my point I find that frequently the other person’s ideas seem more attractive to others. So, this sounds like I believe that my ideas should always prevail. Do I have a problem seeing the other person’s ideas as having equal merit with mine?
Hmmm. Maybe I’m starting to get a picture. Two different issues come to mind here, one is the Victim Child, and the other is the Hero.
I sometimes think the other person is only suggesting alternatives because they think I’m too committed to my ideas, or something similar. So I get caught in a “Victim Child” mind-set. In addition there may be a “Golden Child” image where I think my ideas should be honored because they are mine and therefore must be right. Neither of these provides a good basis for cooperative efforts. In both cases I fail to react as an adult to an adult. Therefore, the other person is likely to respond in some similar way, or merely discount my words as irrelevant.
As a result of the foregoing I have had a tendency to act “secretly” so no one can thwart my plans. This plays into my “loner” style. Obviously, this is hardly the way to build a revolutionary movement! So, these are key issues that deserve my serious attention.
p. 26: “I question the widespread belief that heterosexual couples who are seeking intimate love are ‘doing what’s natural.’ Natural implies instinct or preprogramming. I don’t find either of these playing any role in providing a basis for trust between women and men. Intimacy is the product of trust, and trust does not come naturally between people of unequal power, people who are labeled as opposite by the culture in which they live. Intimacy between the sexes is an achievement of hard work and understanding another from that person’s point of view, while maintaining one’s own. Ultimately this means accepting the other person fully with his or her flaws and doing the same for yourself. In my experience this is ‘unnatural’ between men and women.”
RESPONSE: To say that trust does not come “naturally” between people of unequal power seems like an example of getting mis-led by one's own rhetoric. All people are unequal in power. Yet sometimes they establish trust. So I think the issue is not quite as Young-Eisendrath interprets it. Trust ties into honesty, consistency, fairness. When power differences are brought in I think it only confuses the issue. Certainly power differences have their importance, but not in the trust area.
I think power differences do prevent intimacy. Intimacy requires equal vulnerability and the person with more power appears not to be as vulnerable. But I would agree completely that allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to our marriage partner does not come easily, so certainly is not “natural.” It comes out of our "wisdom" potential so depends on how far it has been able to overcome out raw "tribal" propensities.
p. 27: “In order for heterosexual intimacy to succeed in adulthood, we eventually have to engage in an ‘unnatural’ examination of ourselves and our dream lovers. Inequality between the sexes, the unconscious complexity of the strange gender, and the ongoing constraints of gender stereotypes give new meaning to ‘love.’”
p. 27-28: “In my view, the search for the right partner has little to do with having a good relationship. Our society is rife with ‘commitment phobia,’ especially in regard to marriage. Many people are searching for the ‘right’ partner and are afraid to commit to the current one in case another might be more ideal (ideal in terms of matching an ideal dream lover). Romance is the method we use to find a partner. We call it falling in love. This search may eventually bind us to someone who represents something from our earliest family relationships that we want to match or avoid. Romance itself is a projection, transference of an aspect of oneself to the would-be partner. It usually ends abruptly when commitment sets in.”
RESPONSE:Our models of the “right partner” (Mr. or Ms. Right) are almost total fantasy. As a result the idea that we will find them is absurd. Since they don’t exist, how could we find them? It seems to me Young-Eisendrath hits the nail squarely on the head here. So the idea of the perfect partner is definitely at the core of this matter. Instead of looking for a “good relationship,” one expects to find the “ideal mate.” Since we don’t have a clue what the ideal partner would be like, we focus on all the images we have been shown in fairy tales and such, not to mention the effects of our “tribal” propensities. So the most beautiful/handsome person our talents and resources make available to us is at the top of the list. And all of these things fall within what we refer to as “romance” which is used to divert our attention away from what is critical; i.e., a “good relationship,” to what is peripheral: physical attraction, lust, prestige, etc.
Therefore, it seems to me that there is an essential need to present a new image of marriage for which romance would be only tangentially involved. “Good relationship” would be the goal. But to clarify what “good relationship” really means and what it requires from each member of the couple, it would be necessary to do the research in the spirit of Young-Eisendrath’s work. As long as we use projections in order to connect with the other -- and therefore see our own self in the other, and then fall in love with this projection -- we will continue to have a shaky foundation for a modern marriage.
It seems to me there must be a teaching, training, therapeutic process during which one gets in touch with who they are and what they need in order to love another person in a way that would make work to develop a mature dependence possible. This would include understanding their dream lovers, integrating them into oneself, and learning what this means in terms of being able to love another person and to make an unreserved commitment to share one’s life with them and do everything reasonable to make that possible.
However, in my model of male-female relationships a period of experimentation with others would be encouraged. During this period, normally in early youth, the person would date, widely and often, in order to have experiences with as many persons as possible. And normally this would include sexual intimacy (with appropriate safe sex practices). Computer assistance would be available to aid in this process.
Once the foregoing things have been accomplished only then is one ready to meet possible marriage partners. For me that means meeting persons made available primarily by computer introductions after in-depth analysis of relevant data provided by each person. And these tools of analysis would continue to be refined by feedback from the results of contacts. However, part of this process would require that couples receive guidance and teaching so interactions are not just a superficial search to find a reason or reasons to reject the other because of some perceived deficiencies. When there does seem to be a fatal incompatibility there would be processes to examine this in-depth in order to determine if it is actually due to faulty thinking in the individual. This process would also provide a way to refine the programs for matching persons and continue to increase their accuracy. As indicated elsewhere Science of Ethics needs to provide the tools to achieve the foregoing. Once a couple has committed to each other then it seems to me they need to go through a process like Young-Eisendrath’s to get them onto a firm foundation. Science of Ethics must work with and provide assistance in this whole process to help individuals deal effectively with issues as they come up.
p. 28: “The experience of being identified with another person shakes everyone to the foundation. Something as subtle as being called ‘a couple’ or as clear as having a child or getting married will interrupt the romance and throw a couple into disillusionment. Disillusionment is experienced as grave disappointment in the partner or the relationship. Some people stay and live in a ‘cold war’ atmosphere of unresolved resentments and hurts for many years. Still others are able to develop shared goals and common ground, but they may find that intimacy is always a distant prospect. A few couples are able to develop the trust and shared horizon of meaning of true partnership without going into psychotherapy. It’s grace or good luck, but a few do seem to recognize the disillusionment as a stage in a process. On their own, they learn to reclaim dream lovers and stop blaming their partners. Most people, however, do not know that disillusionment is a necessary step in developing heterosexual intimacy. They just know that something is wrong with them, and so they may seek psychotherapy at this point.”
RESPONSE: It seems to me that Young-Eisendrath’s model provides a way to open up this whole process and change it in the ways indicated previously.
In this approach “disillusionment” might be dealt with as part of an initial process in which the person would give up their unrealistic romantic notions and start a relationship based on reality, and sustainable goals. Where the person lacked the maturity to do this they might be helped to take these steps after profiting from whatever life experiences were necessary for them. If this could be done a key element of the good life would be provided and the path made available to help these persons master the other elements necessary to become Enlightened Persons. This process might provide one way to lay the foundation for the growth and development of Science of Ethics.
p. 28: “As a feminist psychotherapist and a Jungian psychoanalyst, I have the privilege of looking deeply into the private lives of couples and working with them through disillusionment into partnership and intimacy. This process is a transformation of the partners as individuals and the couple as a unit. This book describes the transformation.”
RESPONSE: And, these transformations provide a model that in my mind has fantastic implications. As indicated above it might also provide a key element for one way to start using Science of Ethics.
p. 29-30: “Together with my husband, Ed Epstein, I use a method of couple therapy that we originated and developed. We first called it ‘dyadic-dialogical therapy,’ but recently shortened that to ‘dialogue therapy.’ This method is presented in detail in a book that I published in 1984 called HAGS AND HEROES: A Feminist Approach to Jungian Psychotherapy with Couples. The method is designed to work intensively and quickly (six sessions, one per month over six months, and a seventh session six months later). My husband and I work as a dyadic team in emotionally intense encounters with couples. Each session is two hours long, during which the couple, facing each other, are directed into conversation while we, the therapists, sit slightly behind and out of the view of each partner. I sit behind the right shoulder of the woman, and my husband behind the left shoulder of the man. We are out of their fields of vision but fully attentive to what is going on. While the couple attempt to talk together, we act as ‘doubles’ or ‘alter egos’ and speak out of the feelings and meanings that are implied but not clarified in what is being said. I try to empathize with the felt predicament of the woman, and my husband with the man. This method is designed to teach and encourage dialogue.”
RESPONSE: This modeling process combined with the clear image provided by her well-grounded goal and leading to personal fulfillment seems very important to me. I would hope that this would appeal to many couples who would find this a life-transforming experience.
However, this project demonstrates a measure of the difficulty of moving humanity forward. By now one might reasonably have expected that Young-Eisendrath’s model would have generated a worldwide movement with other therapists who realize the importance of this approach. The fact that this hasn’t happened is a clear evidence of the challenge Science of Ethics faces.
p. 30: “Dialogue is a particular form of conversation that involves having and maintaining one’s own point of view, while being able to understand another’s. On the road from disillusionment to trust, partners need dialogue. They learn how to maintain separateness (of their own thoughts and feelings) and openness (really listening to another). In this way, both partners come to claim and understand their own strange gender, and to disclaim but tolerate the strange gender of the other. By disclaim, I mean refuse to identify with or be labeled by a partner’s dream lovers. Increasingly, the two people gain a fundamental acceptance of their own subjective states. With this comes a new respect and curiosity about the partner. They feel confidence in being able to talk about their differences. They come to believe that they can really understand each other even though that understanding sometimes leads to disappointment – the knowledge of limitation in a partner or oneself, a limitation in the capacity to change or grow.”
RESPONSE: Such results seem almost miraculous!
p. 31: “In heterosexual couples over the last decade and a half, women have been asking for greater openness and more access to the inner lives of men. By and large, men have obliged. The irony is how angry and even depressed women are about what they have found. Looking into the hearts of men has produced despair in women. It seems that women had hoped to find the motives of women in the hearts of men.”
RESPONSE: To me this points out the limitations of what we are taught as children and led to believe the opposite sex is like. In my mind this is a process Science of Ethics must attack directly by promoting new stories especially for children with better messages, new songs, new movies, new novels, etc. All of these need to be focused on healthy goals for real people, not illusionary goals that move one into a dream world populated by fantasy people. To correct our models and be able to function in the world of reality rather than fantasy is a required step if we are to move directly rather than circuitously toward the light at the end of the tunnel wherein humanity achieves a new stability based on our "wisdom" potential.
p. 31: “Men feel insulted and alienated when their female partners disparage their ideas and activities…. Men feel depreciated in the modern couple.”
RESPONSE: On the path leading to mature dependence, clearly there are many road blocks to overcome.
p. 36: “The belief that men are innately or naturally more powerful than women carries a range of consequences for men. Some men, perhaps even most, simply assume this attitude and feel strengthened by it. Especially in adolescence, when athletic and other competitions prepare young men for eventual leadership, they may revel in the presumed opportunities ahead. In adulthood, many men move into positions of being ‘culture makers’ and believe themselves fully capable of meeting their responsibilities. Other men – especially nontraditional (for example, feminist), gay, less educated, or minority men – are unable or unwilling to compete for success. They tend to be burdened by this belief. They may feel allied or similar to women and oppressed by our cultural standards. Their predicament is different from women’s, however. Because they are members of the ‘powerful’ gender club, and cannot escape it (even transvestism and so-called sex change operations do not permit actual escape from one’s embodiment), men suffer in the male hierarchy differently than women suffer.”
RESPONSE: I am one burdened by whatever beliefs it takes to move a male to be unwilling or unable to compete for success. The only image about all this that sticks in my mind is a novel read in late elementary school about a young coal miner who did everything possible to avoid a fight, or direct confrontation with the usual bullies. But when pushed by them to the wall fought fiercely to win and did (at least in the story). Somehow that description connected directly with my heart and I said, yes that is me.
At a different level as a child it never crossed my mind that I was powerful and born to rule. My life was ruled by women – Mother, teachers, Sister – and it never occurred to me that men were the natural rulers. My experience with men such as my absent Father who provided no child support to Mother didn't produce feelings of envy and identification, but rather left me critical of them. Whether because of the foregoing or for other reasons I never had a desire to rule over others. For me the team effort seemed the best way. Working together seemed able to accomplish the best possible results. The leader was merely the coordinator. Even in relating to my younger brother (2 and 1/2 years younger) I had no desire to be his boss and/or leader. Basically, I just didn’t want him to keep me from doing my thing.
That attitude never changed when I became a Marine Corps officer, teacher, executive in various jobs, and parent. At the same time, however, I was committed to doing anything necessary within reason in order to succeed when I accepted the value of the goals.
As a parent one of my worst moments occurred when my five-year old son violated some safety rules involving cleaning chemicals and my wife (now ex-wife) insisted I take responsibility to control such things. Out of frustration I reverted to behavior used by my own Mother in such situations and beat his ass as hard with my hand as I was able. For me that represents one of my biggest failures in child raising and something that haunts me to this day, mainly because of fear it provided him an unconscious model for how to handle difficult problems.
But probably of greater importance for him was my inability to set boundaries and limits. I apparently expected that he would to the “right” things (the things I would want him to do) without the necessity for me to tell him what I wanted, or much of any discussion or rules. I seemed to have thought that what should be done would be done because I had thought it, or would think it. This is apparently what I took from my own childhood experiences and accepted as the way to raise kids.
p. 37: “Most junior high and high school males tend to overestimate their abilities and inflate their dreams of what they will become. They feel a great loss when they are unable to meet these goals. In midlife especially, many men endure a painful parting with the dreams of youth. Whether or not a man consciously identified with male dominance, he is inevitably shaped by the expectation that he should be heroic, successful, or uniquely powerful in some way.”
RESPONSE: I guess there were two conflicting aspects of this issue for me. On one hand at junior high age I tended to underestimate my abilities in group situations. I was a pretty good softball pitcher. I remember a game with some visiting kids and one of them claimed to be a good pitcher. So I gave him the ball. I was surprised to find that he wasn’t as good a pitcher as me. But I did remember that incident though I don’t recall ever having the opportunity to use it as the basis for a decision. But my goal was always to be aware of my actual strengths and shortcomings, and not attempt to exaggerate or diminish either.
However, on the other hand I did fantasize about being heroic. At one point I had fantasies of great wealth, later about creating a way to chemically produce milk without cows, and later still revolutionizing the world with a science-based religion.
p. 37: “Midlife men are often sadly disappointed in themselves and fear that they are a disappointment to everyone, especially to their wives, lovers, and children. They have not attained the special status, power, money, creativity, courage, or insight that they somehow assumed they were destined to have. (And they are recognizing this at about the same time their wives or partners, if the latter are also in midlife, are beginning to feel good about achievements.) This is a kind of grief over manhood that is, I believe, connected especially with the dreams of heroism and privilege openly promoted in men, who supposedly are free to pursue their own desires in life.”
RESPONSE: Although I accept fully the merit of my Science of Ethics project I do sometimes question giving it my life because I don’t see it being taken seriously by others. So, I am sometimes disappointed that I haven’t been able to present the material in such a way that others could see its value. And somewhere in all this is the desire for recognition, believing this would prove to my family and friends that my ideas are more than delusional states in my own brain.
p. 38: “By the time we get to adulthood, we have developed and defended within ourselves a strong case of strange gender. Our strange gender, the way we imagine the opposite sex and all that goes with it, becomes emotionally powerful only after we know that we cannot escape our own gender. At this point, sometime around the beginning of the school years, fantasies, fears, and envy mix with the strange gender as we become more and more convinced that ‘they’ are different, even ‘opposite’ from us. As we begin to identify more fully with our same-sex peers, we share stories with them about the Others. Cultural stereotypes mix with these stories as we become media consumers. Eventually within each of us the strange gender becomes almost another gender category. By the time we reach puberty, each of us has both a conscious gender identity and a less conscious Otherness. Four gender categories are operative in male-female relating: male and male strange gender; female and female strange gender. The more removed we are from the opposite sex (for example going to a samesex school), the more exotic the Others become. Even without such distance, all of us are eventually swept up into beliefs and expectations that derive from our fantasies about the opposite sex.”
p. 38-39: “Dream lovers are the specific meanings and images that are powerful and particular fantasies within each of us. They begin to develop prior to our understanding of gender and its exclusivity. By age five or six, when children master the idea of gender exclusivity, they have already spent a long time relating to parents, siblings, other caregivers, and friends. In the first two or three years of life we are relatively helpless, without language to assist us. During that time, our experiences are sorted into categories or meanings based on repeated interactions with caregivers, the physical environment, and emotional states (sad, angry, joyful, curious, afraid, and so on).”
p. 39: “Dream lovers begin as emotion-based images. They develop from the emotional forces that shape our ability to love and trust even before they are associated in any way with the same or the opposite gender. In our years of greatest helplessness, parents and siblings or other caregivers engage us through care. Their voices, faces, ability (or inability) to be tender and available will mark us forever. Emotional image traces from early life collect around our needs and how they are met. These are the first building blocks of personality. They eventually become psychological complexes organized by core states of emotional arousal. A complex is a set of unconscious impulses that strongly influence our personal style, behavior, and beliefs. Every complex is grounded in a particular set of images and meanings marked by emotion. For example, most of us have a ‘great mother complex’ that is known to us through comfort and ease from nurturance and sustenance connected with the sounds, smells, voice, and handling of a woman. Initially we did not know of ‘woman,’ but later, when we understood that category, we assigned the term and perceived Mama as woman. The early emotional image traces of a complex are not rational and fall outside of language. The image traces originated in actual experiences but those experiences were mostly non-verbal. They are hard to reach and understand later in life when they have infused our dream lovers with meanings that seem to ‘stem from the gut.’ They escape our ability to explain them. ‘I just know that you hate me because I feel it in my body’ can be so convincing to the person who feels these emotions and yet so wrong about the partner. A ‘perception’ like this is usually rooted in a negative, critical, aggressive dream lover whose image or meaning has been evoked by a gesture, manner, voice, or other stimulus coming from the partner.”
p. 39-40: “As adults, our dream lovers can come between us and our best efforts to be fair with a spouse or friend of the opposite sex. It is not that dream lovers are specifically negative images of the opposite sex – not at all. Often they are idealized and inflated beliefs in the magical powers of the others. Dream lovers are simply ‘wrong’ categories for understanding actual others because they are based on our own experiences, sex, and gender. Dream lovers are spoken of and felt through the particular categories of oneself and not another. They are assumptions based on our own subjective states and not on the experiences of the other. It may turn out that aspects of one’s own dream lovers match very well with characteristics of one’s partner or friend, but that is rare.”
RESPONSE:
Assumptions are critical problems since it is difficult to find a place to stand so we can even realize we are making them. This is where we need an outside voice to help us realize what we’ve done and possibly show us a way to escape our box.
p. 40: “Dream lovers are reinforced by our same-sex friends in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. When we get together with friends and talk about the others, to figure them out and bring them under control, we frequently use stereotypes of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Stereotypes are themselves products of dream lovers reinforced by culture and society. The cultural meanings of stereotypes (used to sort people into ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups according to dominance hierarchies) blend into images of dream lovers. Because dream lovers are based on the emotional image traces of early life they are ‘powerful’ and so can be easily drafted into blame – ideas that ‘women are manipulative’ or ‘men are aggressive.’”
“Ordinary social conversations of adulthood are bathed in stereotypes about these sexes that are hard to oppose because they are used to gauge ‘normalcy.’ If you don’t go along with them, you’re not normal…. Stereotypes reinforce dream lovers and dream lovers feed stereotypes.”
RESPONSE:
So just those whose help would be necessary to overcome our assumptions -- parents and other adult leaders -- are the very ones who help to maintain them. This is part of the reason why Science of Ethics is so necessary. Such outside assistance is needed to help the motivated person to recognize and receive assistance to combat those assumptions that divert them from taking the steps necessary to achieve their full positive potential, which for most persons include the kind of relationships Young-Eisendrath discusses.
p. 40: “Dream lovers can be positive or negative figures.”
p. 41: “[Often] a Terrible Mother is related to a common image of an emotionally powerful negative woman, the witch. We find her throughout the history of male-dominated societies, in folktales, fantasy, and fiction of the stepmother, mother-in-law, and intrusive wife, and in everyday accounts of the ‘nagging bitch.’”
“Images of the Terrible Father are also legion. In myths and fairytales, he is well known as the devil, rapist, killer, demon male who intrudes on and captures women and children.”
p. 41-42: “Even without abuse or trauma in childhood, we are all haunted by negatively powerful images of Mother and Father. Without traumatic abuse, these images are related to the aggressive and enraged feelings that colored our experiences of our caregivers when our own needs went unmet during our early helpless dependence. All of us suffered periods (longer of shorter) when our needs were not met because the caregiver was distracted, unavailable, or providing for someone else. Actual childhood abuse produces a specific kind of malignant and overwhelming Terrible Parent complex that is destructive of basic trust for years to come. Ordinary failures in caregiving produce Terrible Mother and Father dream lovers that are less disruptive and overwhelming, but are alive in our psyches all the same.”
RESPONSE: I realize this is true for me as the Victim Child of the Terrible Mother dream lover. It has been a lurking mischief all my life up to this point. But as I’ve become aware of this situation through reading Young-Eisendrath’s book, I feel that already there has been some progress in moving out of that complex. Specifically, that involves recognizing that in situations where I feel immobilized by what others are doing, that it comes out of my complex that I am helpless, a “victim” and unable to alter what is happening -- not out of what the other is doing. Hopefully, this will free me to pursue my interests more naturally rather than thinking the other is the enemy.
p. 42: “Similarly, most of us have powerfully nurturant or possible dream lovers organized around emotional image traces of comfort and satisfaction – fulfillment. These contribute to idealized dream lovers such as the Hero or the Great Mother about which we will learn much more. These idealized dream lovers are filled with emotional meanings of completion and satisfaction that far surpass anything real persons might be able to do. They emanate from experiences of complete care and utter comfort in infancy – or from a magical belief in the power and goodness of our caregivers. ‘Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen’ is the fairytale testimony to these figures.”
RESPONSE: This is true for me. I realize that the Victim Child pole of the Terrible Mother alternates with the Golden Child tied into the Great Mother. I see this relating to my own Mother alternating between theses patterns. The Terrible Mother probably when I was an uncooperative infant, and the Great Mother after I was terrorized into submission and behaved as she desired.
So, I experience the Hero complex. I am the person willing and able to save humanity. Therefore, I project onto others the Great Mother image, and give them great power to judge my adequacies or inadequacies in any give situation. As a result I only feel successful if others proclaim my success. I am not empowered to make that determination because I have moved the source of evaluation into the other. So until I get feedback that I am succeeding my own opinions are unimportant.
To absorb this Other into myself would allow me to take responsibility for deciding whether my efforts are a success or failure. Although many persons have praised my efforts and critiqued my writings my feeling is that essentially no one sees the importance of what I’m trying to do, and how I’m trying to do it. However, since only a constant drum beat of cheers and adulation would apparently be recognized by me as success, I’ve tended to interpret my efforts thus far as a failure. So I need to take back the Hero Other and recognize that what I am doing has value because it has value to me. These efforts define for me the meaning of my own life. Even if no one else does in fact see merit in my project or benefit from it, it has sustained me. It has kept me mentally active and working to understand this world in which I was born, and from which I will at some point die. I have not put energy and effort into those things opposed to what seems important to me. So what I am doing helps me and doesn’t intentionally harm others. If my efforts help even one person that is additional justification for what I’m doing. And, there is always some chance that my efforts might make a positive difference in the world at some point in the future. Though I won’t know about it, at least my efforts will have made a difference.
So, if I take that projection back into myself and take responsibility for it how does that enrich my life and expand my opportunities? In my mind it changes the criteria for judging and that makes a great difference. It simplifies how I decide to tackle this project and when to make the critical steps needed. So it’s less important how others respond to the project and more important how I respond to them.
But when I take back the Victim Child projection, I am no longer the victim. No more: Poor me, Nobody encourages me, My stuff must be no good. I project success not failure. I make it work, not those out there. When they talk of failure, I laugh in their face, or I look elsewhere. When they question the value I make it clear we are talking about life and death. This is vital to increasing human well-being, to perpetuate and advance humanity, to provide the possibility for people to achieve their full positive potential. Any person, including me, is capable of dramatic change at any moment. When I make myself known, others will have the opportunity to do the same!
p. 42: “A love relationship in adulthood is the ground for projections from our earliest attachment relationships. A couple carries all the tendencies of both partners to experience each other as powerful dream lovers. Projection is a defense mechanism that allows me to experience an unlikable, alien, or ideal aspect of myself as though it existed in someone else. Paradoxically, when I’m projecting a feeling or characteristic image, I will feel as though the other person (the target) has control of me and is ‘making me feel this way.’ This is the effect of putting a part of oneself – a feeling or image – into another. But wouldn’t I want to acknowledge my own ideals or ideal aspects?… If I see my ideals in someone else, then I don’t have the responsibility for them. Similarly, if I see my darker aspects as existing in someone else, I am free of responsibility – and I can even imagine myself as the victim of another’s motives.”
RESPONSE: And the above has helped me to clarify the previous response. If I am only a success when others say so I don't have to work my ass off to be recognized. I can relax in obscurity because the people have spoken.
p. 42-43: “The sender of the projection believes that he or she can see and know another’s inner state or deepest motives with or without the other’s confirmation. Even confirmation by the other person does not exclude the possibility that a projection is occurring, because people will confirm that they fit others’ scripts for them…. In projection, the sender unconsciously wants to get rid of feared or idealized aspects of the self because they seem too overwhelming, more than one could be responsible for. The sender of the projection actually feels as though he or she were under the control of the other person.”
RESPONSE: Of course this projection process can cause great tragedy. When a person has diabolical, fiendish, hateful, perverted, sinister, vile, and/or wicked thoughts and then projects them onto someone else after which they feel that they are under the control of the other person that surely must present a very scary situation. And, as we know, this situation is responsible for much murder and mayhem as well as just agonizing pain in the world as in the case of those who felt the "power" over them of "witches," sexually desirable women, etc.
p. 43: “Whether the projected dream lover is feared or idealized, the recipient may identify with the projection and in some way confirm its meaning to the sender…. This sets up a delusional belief system within the couple that is called projective identification by therapists…. Usually these meanings are implied, not openly confirmed.”
RESPONSE: To me it seems that “projective identification” makes good sense. In most cases the partner is doing something that triggers the projection in the other. With the proper feedback and ambiguity of their own motives it seems that projection identification could easily happen. In fact I would think the only times it wouldn’t happen is when the other is totally insensitive, or when it triggers something in them that would make accepting the projection undesirable in some way.
On a different level, does my conviction that I cannot proceed with my Science of Ethics project until I find at least one other person who understands and accepts the message tie into some projection and dream lover? By giving this power to someone else I lose control of it and remain disempowered by the failure of others to act. This is not a very good situation to place oneself in, especially if one is presenting a major paradigm shift in thinking.
p. 43: “All of us have shameful, aggressive, and idealized dream lovers that are hard to claim because we would have to become either more responsible or more vulnerable. We prefer to see them in other people, the best candidates being those people with whom we feel ‘stuck.’ Projection is difficult to pinpoint (outside of therapy) because it happens unconsciously and is a reliving of the emotional image traces that reach back to earliest childhood.”
RESPONSE: Certainly, this is a very worrisome phenomenon that can cause much mischief in human relationships. Even in mild cases the effects can be tragic because one’s own problem is not seen, but is interpreted to be in the other person. So the other is blamed for one’s own problems. Therefore, any attempt at dealing with the matter is likely to initiate behavior that makes things worse. And because one is attacking or focusing on fantasy rather than reality there is little hope of being able to tackle the matter effectively.
p. 43: “If a partner identifies with a projection and then acts out the expected image or meaning, the couple becomes engaged in a fixed and harmful belief system. The partners are confused about who is causing the pain and lack of trust between them.”
RESPONSE: I assume that this is a common phenomenon in the U.S. and figures prominently as part of the reason for our high divorce rate and dissatisfactions in marriage.
p. 47: “The beginning of disillusionment is experienced as feared, devaluing, and aggressive feelings about the partner or the relationship. This is the first opportunity for the individuals to encounter their strange gender. Most people have a hard time sorting out what is self from what is other, and only successful dialogue can help them develop a reflective attitude of self-awareness. Many midlife couples, lacking the capacity for dialogue, have lived for years in disillusionment, blaming each other for their unhappiness.”
RESPONSE:To me the key insight to be mastered is the fact that without outside input we cannot recognize our assumptions and our projections. Young-Eisendrath provides models that allow us to start to see these things and understand their effects on us. Dialogue has got to be a powerful tool for exposing ever broader aspects of these two hidden elements of our behavior.
I interpret the above to mean that many Americans practice projection in all parts of their life. However, marriage provides the place where it is possible to become aware that something is amiss. And, then under the proper circumstances to get the psychological assistance necessary to understand and change these patterns.
So it looks as though marriage may be the key necessary to help individuals understand their own life as well as the life of others. This understanding might make it possible to recognize the value of Science of Ethics. Of course unmarried persons have even greater need to master this understanding since they also need to deal with the issues that prevent them from getting into such a relationship, do hopefully alternative keys can be found for single people.
Beyond that the phenomenon of projection is certainly troubling. We all are so convinced we know who we are, to realize that we cannot even accept some of our core parts as self, but think they exist in those upon whom we project these elements, is very humbling. Knowing ourself, thereby, becomes much more difficult than Socrates thought!
p. 48: “When women are attempting to trust men (in order to sustain dialogue that would permit intimacy), they have to learn to differentiate between dream lovers or stereotypes and their actual partners. They must come to see and know what is truly self and truly other. In some cases, this means claiming the strengths and resources in themselves… and no longer just looking for them in men. In other cases, this means becoming responsible for the dreaded and alien inner states that are parts of one’s personality… especially when they are the products of an abusive childhood. To recognize fear as arising in oneself when there is little to fear in one’s partner (except perhaps an ordinary complaint or expression of anger) is enormously liberating to the self. Concurrently it frees one’s partner of blame.”
RESPONSE: And achieving this promise of knowing what is truly self and what is truly other should move one in the direction of achieving good mental health. Since achieving good mental health is the primary objective in Science of Ethics it would be very important for anyone desiring to become an Enlightened Person to master the foregoing.
p. 48-49: “For most men, a central dream lover at the beginning of adulthood is the Terrible Mother who is imagined as demanding and controlling, or the Great Mother who is seen as generous with life-sustaining love. Men must resist using dream lovers and stereotypes to describe women – especially as the nag, hag, bitch, or witch, the controlling deadly power broker. Such projections prevent men from feeling their own emotional power… and their capacity to induce fear, intimidation, or admiration in their loved ones. When men imagine that women are powerful bitches, the men feel like wimps or victims.”
p. 49: “Many men assume they have little emotional power. Instead they experience themselves as ‘trying to offer a solution’ or just expressing their thoughts. They may feel adrift in a sea of feelings they believe are being generated by women. Taking back the power of the Mother complex, recognizing that its effects are being generated by oneself (and that other people feel them), can return to men a recognition of their powerful emotional statements, usually ignored when women are assumed to be ‘the emotional ones.’”
RESPONSE: As mentioned in other places Young-Eisendrath has helped to show me how my images of the Great Mother and Terrible Mother have shaped my images of myself and limited my behavior. I trust as I continue to explore this terrain I will become ever more integrated in my being. Taking back my emotional power and learning how to apply it appropriately is one of the important challenges of this integration.
p. 50: “The greatest challenge in establishing the basis for intimacy between the sexes is relating with respect, acceptance, and empathy…. Accepting and honoring a partner’s self (that is, not wanting primarily to change it) certainly means honoring a partner’s sexuality and erotic connections. When we are faced with someone whose eroticism is profoundly different from our own, we may feel confronted with our darkest fears….”
RESPONSE: And, our wildest hopes!
But tell me more about this "darkest fears." What does that mean?
p. 50: “Most painful perhaps is the ‘separation threat’ that is aroused when things go wrong with a couple. Most of us fault our partners when we begin to feel disillusionment.”
RESPONSE: But this is where – it seems to me – Dr. Young-Eisendrath’s model of mature dependence and the process for achieving it is so exciting. She presents a new option beyond the traditional two: 1) divorce/separation. 2) believing that disillusionment is a permanent state with no way out and as a reult deciding to live in a state of disenchantment because that seems better than divorce/separation.
p. 53: “In fights, often the first symptom of disillusionment, the partners exchange emotionally charged speeches. Each person either makes actively aggressive statements or does passively aggressive things – leaves the room, makes a distracting or sarcastic comment, stops talking. In a fight both partners get hurt. Hurt may turn into bitterness and resentment with repeated fights, and the partners soon tire of ‘trying to communicate.’ Each person wants to be right and feels deeply offended by any disagreement.”
RESPONSE: These ideas fit with my own model of communication in marriage, but don’t jibe with Dr. John Gottman's studies discussed in VOLUME II, Chapter IX. B, “WHY MARRIAGES SUCCEED OR FAIL”[1].
There Gottman says: p. 15: "In pursuit of the truth about what tears a marriage apart or binds it together, I have found that much of the conventional wisdom -- even among many marital therapists -- is misguided or dead wrong. For example, some marital patterns that even professionals often take as a sign of a problem -- such as having intense fights, or avoiding conflict altogether -- I have found can signify highly successful adjustments that will keep a couple together. And fighting -- when it airs grievances and complaints -- can be one of the healthiest things a couple can do for their relationship (indeed, how you fight is one of the most telling ways to diagnose the health of your marriage). You will see more clearly why such conventional assumptions are dead wrong as you read my explanation of the often elusive emotional dynamics of marriage, dynamics I have mapped in a simple model that can serve as a template for seeing your own marriage with new eyes."
p. 56: “Dialogue is fundamentally different from monologue, fighting, and repetitive exchange. All of these dangerous conversational styles are based on the assumption that each partner ‘already knows’ what is going on with the other one. Both have typed each other with dream lovers and are using conversation to demonstrate the ‘truth’ of their typing. Many disillusioned heterosexual couples dread ‘trying to talk’ because they come away from these attempts hurt, resentful, afraid, and hopeless. Many older couples have secretly declared a cold war and they don’t attempt to talk at all.”
RESPONSE: Being able to master dialogue sounds to me like the first step in achieving the good life. To be able to work together with one's partner in marriage in a cooperative, supportive way should provide a foundation for joyful living.
p. 59-60: “By and large, the research on women’s lives is now showing that staying at home (with or without children) throughout adulthood does not lead to a healthy outcome over a lifetime. In our modern era, vital involvement with the world takes place away from home. For both men and women, the combination of family and work seems to fare better than either one separately.”
RESPONSE: Certainly employment has been one of the primary ways traditionally available to take one into the world and involve them in it in all kinds of different and important ways, and to varying degrees. Such involvement also seems essential in order to do one’s share to support human well being. And also to have experiences that broaden one as a human being.
In the context of Science of Ethics “vital involvement with the world” would be defined in terms of the pursuit of the Ways of Wisdom and achieving a sustainable feeling that one’s life has meaning. And all of this would require components involving one deeply in employment and important undertakings involving others.
p. 60: “The greater privilege and power associated with being male in a male-dominated society contributes importantly to the dreams men have for themselves and the dream lovers women seek through marriage. Although men’s greater privileges tend to result in early overestimation of themselves, women’s lesser privileges have usually resulted in under-estimation. Educated and cultured women have too often feared the risk of claiming their own authority and taking on paid work. Vicarious authority or creativity does not substitute for one’s own contribution to society or culture. Although mothering contributes to society and culture, it cannot be connected with personal identity and control in the way work is, or it will be harmful to children.”
RESPONSE: Harmful to children? That is an astounding claim! Is it really true? What specific harm is being discussed here? Is it limiting their role models, and that kind of stuff, or something totally different?
However, I’d like to look closely at the first sentence of this paragraph specifically, “the dream lovers women seek through marriage.” In my mind this is a key issue that Young-Eisendrath fails to adequately explore. It is my assumption that a primary dream lover women are seeking is the alpha male, the powerful, dominating figure. I take this to come out of the dominance/submission “tribal” propensity. However, in order for a couple to achieve mature dependence and having equal power the foregoing must be overcome. In my mind this issue resides at the core of the “my husband is a little boy" problem. When a male opens himself up to his partner before a foundation of understanding has been achieved, his partner must be disappointed. Independent of projection an important part of her will be expecting to find a strong, dominating alpha male. When she doesn’t find this she will be disappointed. Of course if she finds a strong, dominating alpha male she will be doubly disappointed. So it is a no-win situation until they are able to get to honesty, trust, and expectations that are consistent with having equal power in the relationship. Some women will probably not be able to accept this reality, just as some men will not be able to do so.
p. 61: “Envy, as I will use the term throughout this book, is the desire to destroy another’s resources and strengths, to spoil and devalue them. Believing that one cannot possess them for oneself, one can only diminish the worth of another’s strength, contributions, or resources. Envy eats away at respect and destroys gratitude and appreciation. When one is envious of another, one cannot be appreciative. Instead, one becomes intent on ‘cutting down’ the value of the other.”
RESPONSE: That sounds really sick. How could this be possible in a normal person? To me this grossly distorts what we normally call envy.
I have serious problems with acceptinnng this definition of envy. I find it difficult to believe that normal people are hateful in the way Young-Eisendrath requires in her definition of envy. Based on my current understanding, I see this definition as a distortion of most person’s motivations and actions. It does not seem to be a useful definition for understanding the behaviors involved.
I think it is true that envy “eats away at respect and destroys gratitude and appreciation.” But I see this as an effort to avoid incurring a debt. When there is no equal exchange in a transaction one can either feel indebted, or say there is no debt because what the other gave had no value. I don’t see this as focused on destroying the other’s resources, only as interpreting them as of no significant value. They may eagerly continue to absorb and revel in those resources and do whatever they must to ensure that they are maintained, not destroyed.
p. 61: “Jealousy, again as I use it here, is less destructive than envy. Jealously is the desire to possess what the other has. In jealousy, one feels capable of possessing the strengths, resources, or talents of the other, so one can concentrate on developing oneself (competing, for instance) instead of diminishing the other. When people are competitive with each other, they will tend to feel jealous if they feel able to compete and envious if they do not.”
RESPONSE: In jealousy, I would say the person recognizes that the other has something they want. And, this something is possessed by the other, not because of their merit or hard work, but only through good luck. Maybe it is the feeling that with similar luck they could do the thing, or have the thing. They may feel that they were unfairly deprived of the thing, or the skill, ability, knowledge, etc. They may think that the other didn’t deserve the thing, that they got it unfairly or without any effort so it isn’t really theirs.
p. 61: “Dream lovers contribute enormously to envy between the sexes. The fantasies I sustain about the other sex – what powers and privileges and possibilities I see men as having exclusively – will strongly color my dream lovers.”
RESPONSE: And, my take is that this carping focus on power differences between men and women is tied to one of Dr. Young-Eisendrath's dream lovers.
p. 61-62: “Our four couples, struggling as they are to renew their relationships, are suffering in large measure because they are women and men trying to live together and be intimate. Their problems do not primarily arise from psychopathology, although some of the partners might be classified as having pathological symptoms. They are similar to most other heterosexual couples who sit in my consulting room in one way: Their problems arise primarily from the projection of dream lovers, misunderstanding of gender differences, and unequal power between the sexes.”
p. 62: “The ‘sex’ we are born as and the ‘gender’ we are assigned at birth are not the same thing, although one flows from the other. Sex is the difference of embodiment, the structural and functional properties of the human body, which includes both possibilities and constraints on who we can be. Sex is definite and inflexible in most cases. It provides for certain biological possibilities in male and female bodies. Breasts, a vagina, a vulva, smaller body size, menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, menopause, and greater longevity are expected of the female body. A penis, greater body size, greater physical strength, impregnation, and lesser longevity are expected of the male body. These and other biological differences (such as brain structure and chemistry) limit us in terms of both our biological-sexual-reproductive life and the gender club to which we belong. Although we may struggle with these differences (for example, by dressing like the other sex or attempting to change the body surgically) we cannot escape our embodiment. It will limit us forever.”
p. 62-63: “In all male-dominated societies – all large industrialized societies that now exist – women have less power than men. This is a fact. No matter what work women do or what characteristics are expected of them, they have less voice in decision making and fewer privileges and rewards than their male counterparts. I must take this fact into account in understanding dream lovers and the envy between the sexes. In my work with couples, I know that the desire for intimacy means building a foundation of equality and mutuality between the sexes.”
RESPONSE: It is my belief that in essentially all human societies males have more power than women. This is in our genes, and can only be overcome with great effort through our memes. And this is one of the great tasks that lie before our species as we re-invent ourselves to go from a gene-based stability that existed 30-60,000 years ago, to a meme-based stability which is essential if our species is to endure.
My assumption is that the only way a culture could avoid this inequality of power in favor of men in the absence of achieving dialogue and all that goes with it per Young-Eisendrath, would be to cast males as “little boys.” That is the only other evolutionary model that seems to apply in this situation. And in that situation the male would be under the power of the Mother. Any sharing of power would be narrowly proscribed and as inadequate as the male superior model.
p. 63: “Each of our couples has come to therapy through the powerful intuition of an angry woman. Women are insisting on being respected and being treated with dignity. Perhaps ironically, these angry women opened the door to intimacy between men and women for the first time in recorded history. They want to be equals with their male partners. Intimacy depends on trust and trust depends on equality and mutuality. The women of our couples want mutual respect and open exchange between the sexes.”
“Having asked for this, these women are painfully disappointed with what they have found. All four of them disdain what they see in their male partners. When they ask their partners to open up, the women are unable to accept what they are shown. They state or imply that their partners show primitive development, bullying, stupidity, or just plain ‘little-boyness.’ I believe that women must look again and listen better. We need to become conscious of our own ideal and dreaded dream lovers and distinguish them (as aspects of ourselves) from the men we are trying to reach.”
p. 63: “Men must do the same. If we speak only to a dream lover and silence a partner, then we will fail to have a dialogue. It is not enough to ask for openness, from either men or women; we must be able to understand, respect, and ultimately accept the persons we find. I find this is possible through understanding the larger perspective of gender, power, envy, and the world of dream lovers.”
RESPONSE: The above seems like an important caveat. Not all couples will be willing or able to accept the model of mature dependence as a goal to work for. Many couples are stuck in their “tribal” propensities and lack the social support necessary to escape these behaviors. At least in her four example couples they all come willing to give up the dominance/ submission propensity and achieve patterns that ensure equal power. If a couple were not willing or able to do this dialogue therapy would have limited success. If one member of the pair is not “able to understand, respect, and ultimately accept the person” they find, then dialogue therapy will also not work for them. So unless one can accept their partner as an equal it seems to me they do not have the basis for mature dependence. So moving society as a whole in this direction will not come easily any more than will the growth and adoption of Science of Ethics.
p. 63-64: “This book is about staying together and turning disillusionment and power struggles into acceptance and deeper commitment. I believe that heterosexual intimacy can become the ideal foundation for development in adulthood if we can reclaim our dream lovers.”
RESPONSE: As I’ve said before I heartily agree with Young-Eisendrath on this issue. Beyond that I would hope part of that foundation for development in adulthood would make the person open to being interested in Science of Ethics. In my mind Science of Ethics is an important source of wisdom to promote well-being for any adequately interested person.
p. 64: “Dream lovers provide the scripts for the dramas that will ensue. Partners previously thought they had found something that would work, but now they encounter the fears, resentments, reexperienced traumas, shame, and rage they had thought to escape. Instead of anticipating this swamp of confusion and mixed identities, most people are horrified by it. They believe that intimacy should naturally follow from finding a suitable partner.”
p. 65: “When partnerships are deeply committed, adult love relationships provide the ‘mirrors,’ the reflections of ourselves, that challenge us to accept the most dreaded and ideal aspects of our being. In order to accept ourselves, we must also accept our partners. Intimacy is the product of trust, and trust depends on acceptance. Heterosexual intimacy could bring new meaning to love as women and men seek to resolve their conflicts in an atmosphere of trust rather than power struggles and stereotypes. This book is dedicated to couples who are engaged in this experiment with the deepest hope that we will succeed.”
RESPONSE: So, it all comes down to accepting the partner. And, we must accept the person, not our projection of who that person is. Therefore, clarifying what is essential for one person to accept another to form an adult love relationship would be necessary research to lay the basis for helping individuals meet a person with whom they can develop a mature dependence.
p. 65: “Most of all, this book is dedicated to those couples who have lost their romance. These pages say more about staying together than getting together. Staying together can bring a state of mature dependence with an intimate partner, the psychological condition for development in adult life. The psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that a committed love relationship in adulthood could promote individuation for both partners. By this term he meant the gradual unpacking of the mysteries of our own being, coming to see both conscious and unconscious meanings and motives. Reclaiming our dream lovers is the first step in this process.”
RESPONSE: Although Young-Eisendrath doesn’t directly focus on the getting together issue, this matter seems like a very important one to me. And, I believe her ideas and experiences do provide a place to start in this research as I indicated in my previous response.
As for the staying together it seems to me Young-Eisendrath’s ideas not only lead to mature dependence, but provide the essential components to help one see the value of becoming an Enlightened Person. As a result, from my perspective, the ideas and suggestions Young-Eisendrath shares here are of seminal importance.
