Unspoken Rules

Every system has rules. In most cases, the rules are verbalized, written or communicated in some clear fashion. However, every system has rules that are more obscure, making them hard to clearly identify. I refer to these as “unspoken rules”.

In most cases, everyone in the system knows there is some kind of a force acting on them but they may struggle to identify the force when they are dealing with unspoken rules.

Example:
Amy and Ben have been married for 20 years. Ben openly verbalizes his disapproval when he doesn’t agree with something. Amy is much more discrete. They have three children in the home. The oldest is a 14 year old boy. There is also a 12 year old boy and an 8 year old girl. Ben has never been abusive to any of the children or to Amy, but all the children are careful not to “make dad mad”. Ben and Amy both know the sentiment of the children and have different views about it. Ben and Amy recently decided to see a counselor because they can’t agree on how to raise the children anymore. Amy struggles to get compliance and Ben gets compliance without difficulty, often without even having to ask for it. Ben feels like Amy should be sterner with the children and Amy feels like Ben is too tough on the children.


There are an infinite number of things going on this family. You may think Ben is emotionally abusive or that Amy is a passive, weak mom. As a counselor, I’m not looking for right and wrong. Instead, I’m looking for incongruence. Where actions don’t match up with desires, there are often “unspoken rules”. Will there be things I agree with and disagree with in family systems like this? Sure. However, I don’t believe it’s my place to point out my beliefs because it would make me part of the system. The only exceptions are areas of legality. In some areas we have legal definitions of wrong, such as physical abuse. I’m always assessing legal situations throughout the counseling relationship.

In the example above, it’s pretty likely that Ben views his response from his children as a mutual understanding. Amy’s view might be that Ben uses fear based leadership to get the children to do things that make him comfortable. Somewhere in the gap is a rule that may or may not be fully understood by Ben and Amy. For the purpose of changing the focus of what may be viewed as the blame game, I would like to suggest that the 14 year old boy may have figured out the Mom and Dad don’t talk to each other about the children enough. This might suggest the possibility that Ben and Amy can be manipulated if they are pitted against each other. This isn’t to say the 14 year old is a bad kid. The system allows for him to get what he wants in this way. The unspoken rule may be “blame someone else”, or “don’t make Ben mad”. It could also be “Amy is a softy when Ben is pointed to as a mean man”, or “it’s us against the parents”. The list of unspoken rules could go on and on.

You may be wondering how to identify which rule it is. The truth is, it doesn’t really matter at the beginning. I take a guess and ask if it sounds like something that is going on in the home. The clients will assess whether it is one of their rules or not. An interesting thing happens when an unspoken rule is identified. Usually, one or more members of the family have a feeling that it makes sense and they hold on to the rule for a while and, possibly, test it out. Over time, they are usually able to verbalize the, previously, unspoken rule. Once the rule is verbalized, the family can decide how much power the rule holds in the home. Essentially, my goal is still the same as you may have seen on my web page. I am here to help create insightful opportunities. You can look at the blog about Johari’s Window for a clear perspective on what I’m trying to achieve as a counselor.

This blog, however, is intended to help us remember that we have unspoken rules in our systems and that those rules impact everyone in the system, whether it’s in a good way or a way that complicates things. What are the unspoken rules in your family? What about your family of origin (where you were raised)? What are the unspoken rules between you and your spouse or girlfriend? Ask yourself some of theses questions. They won’t be easy to answer. You’ll have to think about them and possibly talk to others about them. You may reflect on old journal entries and notice that there was a rule you always followed but never knew. Whatever the case might be, identifying the rules we conform to is a valuable piece to taking control of our lives. Once we know the rules our systems adhere to, we can decide to use them purposefully rather than having them “happen to us”.

Frequency, Intensity & Duration

For those of you keeping up with me each week, you'll notice I didn't post last week. I was doing some self care by doing some camping. My supervisor at Fairview Clinical Services recently drew my attention to a process this week described by Ray S. Anderson in his book “Self Care”. The process was described like this:


Beginning at the bottom with any event that comes to mind, it is explained that we experience a trigger which gives us an internal sensation that becomes a feeling. From the feeling state, we have the option of going down the thinking path or the emotion path to the application phase. For the purpose of this blog, I’m not going to go into much more detail than that. Instead, I would like to take a moment to focus a little bit on the part in the middle that is bold and in red. I added this piece based on what I learned in Research Methods and Statistics a couple years ago. I’ve found it very helpful.

Frequency-Intensity-Duration

As part of our design, we are intended to measure subtleties. It helps us survive and thrive in our world. When we encounter a trigger that leads us to “thinking” or “emotion” it is sometimes helpful to slow the process down. Slowing down the process gives us the opportunity to more clearly identify the trigger before we get too far away from the trigger. Ultimately, growth or healing is easiest when we can identify what causes us to respond in certain and sometimes unhealthy ways. Could we wait for the behavior (Application Phase)? Sure we could. What I’m suggesting is that when we find ourselves moving from the observation phase to the application phase, we consider three things.

1) Frequency
2) Intensity
3) Duration

These three things provide us great insight. With insightfulness, we can be more purposeful in our decisions and actions. The truth is, people are often hurting others or helping others without even knowing it. Through insight, I believe people can maximize how much good they do for themselves and others.

When I find the right person, I always seem to screw it up.

For those who have read my blog before, welcome back. For those who are new, I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to click on the archives to the right if you are interested in seeing previous posts. I welcome comments and followers but it’s important to read the disclaimer prior to doing either.

Why do couples work so well together only to irritate the heck out of each other shortly into the relationship? How is it that people lose patience so quickly with the one they love so much? Have you ever seen behavior from yourself that shocks you? Maybe you broke something or threw something in anger because you were mad at your relationship? Maybe you’ve even been physical with your partner out of anger and you never thought you would be like that. Are these problems solvable?

Whether these questions are solvable is up to the couple. The key factors that I look for in a couple who wants to be together is 1) the couples approach to communication and 2) the amount of individual work each person is willing to put into the relationship. I find four subjects very useful in revealing a couples style of communication and how much work each person is willing to do. I have also never yet met any couple who line up identically about religion, sex, politics and money. These subjects can bring out authentic individuality and through individuality within the relationship, I can most easily identify a couples motivations.

Before proceeding further, I must confess I don’t subscribe to the definitive labeling processes often used in therapeutic settings. It’s my opinion that labeling people with disorders or highlighting only the less functional parts of a person can be cruel and inappropriate. Who wants someone to point out all their flaws? However, I learned from a professor by the name of Rand Michael, Ph.D. that identification and classification are important in the process of identifying differences and therefore critical to helping us decide who we are. For this reason and only this reason, I will explain some identification and classification provided by the book titled “In the Quest of the Mythical Mate” by Ellyn Bader, Ph.D. and Peter T. Pearson, Ph.D. The insight gained is not to label anyone as superior or inferior but to identify differences that will strengthen understanding of yourself and those you care deeply about.

Bader and Pearson offer us four phases of a couple’s relationship. They call them symbiosis, differentiation, practicing and rapprochement. A couple can be in different phases at the same time or they can be in the same phase together. Each scenario presents different kinds of struggles and excitement.

Symbiosis – The early phase of a relationship is described as the joining phase. It is natural to highlight similarities and minimize differences.

Differentiation – The second phase of a relationship highlights differences. The identity of each person in the relationship is no longer defined by the other person, which is typical in the symbiotic phase.

Practicing – This phase is where an individual has differentiated enough to remember their own dreams and aspirations and is devoting themselves to agendas that are outside the relationship. It requires a lot of practice to manage the needs of the relationship, one’s self and aspirations. Trust is essential at this point because time apart is more common as goals require time and energy. This stage is often very scary for many people because their past often influences their ability to trust in a healthy way.

Rapprochement – In this phase, an individual would be learning how to manage closeness and independent distance within the relationship. It’s more a matter of learning to shift in and out of the relationship without feeling guilt, anxiety, etc.

So, what does all of this mean? It means what most things in the mental health arena mean, it depends. That’s right, “it depends”. What I have found very useful about these categories is that they provide some normalizing to the complexity of relationships. For example, a couple in symbiosis is often referred to as “fake”. They may even refer to each other as fake if they break up in or near this phase. The reality is they are acting perfectly natural to highlight similarities and minimize differences. We would all look a little fake if we responded in this way all the time but it doesn’t mean that we are. It also means we all have the potential within us to have a long term relationship if we choose to do the individual work and put in the work as a couple.

What I would hope for all of my readers is that they may gain a little perspective about themselves that would allow them to look at their partner with a bit more patience and empathy. If any of this is new knowledge for you and it is used to point out superiority or inferiority of one individual in the relationship, my words have been in vain. The descriptions, as I provide them, are intended to create improved empathy for where you and your partner are in life as a couple and in life as unique individuals.

Have you ever wondered how others see you?

In the 1950’s Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham created a model of mapping personality awareness called the Johari Window. The idea was to create opportunities for improved awareness and therefore opportunities for personal growth. Like Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, I believe personal insight is a key piece to becoming who we want to be.

So, what is Johari’s window? The first image below is for all of you who are more visual and the second image will tie it all together. Johari’s Window takes into account the perspective from an individual and from people around that individual. You’ll see it described as “self” and “others”. The second image describes the visibility from the self and from the other. You’ll see that each person can only see part way across the box. For example, we have “blind spots” that others can see but we can’t and we have an “unknown” section that no one can see, including ourselves. The “façade” section is the section that we choose to keep from others and I will refer to it as secrets.

Now it gets interesting. Through insight, I believe we can gain control over the impacts of our blind spots, the unknown, the façade (secrets) and the things we project in the open arena. For example, there are times in our lives when we keep secrets and it’s healthy. There are also times when we keep secrets and it’s unhealthy. Knowing the difference between when it is healthy and when it is unhealthy is very important. I was recently asked what kind of things would fall in the “façade” box that would be healthy. I responded by discussing importance of openly sharing details of previous relationships with a current partner. You may have dated someone in the past that shared too many details about other relationships. It can be annoying, hurtful, or just a waste of time to have all that detail. What matters most is who you are now and therefore some of the details are not necessary and can be kept secret. It’s often best to weigh the benefits and risks of each specific situation. As you might quickly see, there are many risks to keeping secrets. For example, if a man or woman cheats on their partner should they keep it secret? People who cheat on their partners have many things going on that need to be dealt with and it quickly becomes very complex. Therefore, each situation should be dealt with on an individual basis. Your counselor would become a great asset in discussing how and when disclosure should happen or if it shouldn’t happen. Through insight, possibly by use of the Johari’s Window, our actions become more intentional which makes mistakes less likely.

On a side note, I’ve modified Johari’s Window below to show an example of what I think happens as we learn about ourselves and consider other’s perspectives along with our own in making personal changes. Though the process of getting to this point can be long and difficult, notice the reduced risks associated with the long term work. The blind spots shrink, the secrets diminish and the unknown becomes discoverable.