We want to feel we belong to ourselves and have profound connection with our partners. The mark of a solid flexible self is being able to do both.
--- David Schnarch
The separation of the lover and the beloved is the most conspicuous and painful expression of the subject-object cleavage of finitude.
--- Paul Tillich
The ability to be autonomous and connected [are] two sides of the same coin, not two different ends of a continuum.
--- Sue Johnson
Somewhere Arizona, US in August, 2021, by Xiaodi Wu.
Previously, in my book review of Siegel and Hartzell’s “Parenting from the Inside Out,” I explored the polarizations of parent-child relationship—the needs between connection and separation are one of the prominent polarities for both parents and children. I continue to ponder the relationship between autonomy and connection, and what Siegel & Hartzell consider as “conflict.” The above three authors, to my surprise, all alluded concerns towards one’s ability to be autonomous and connected.
While Schnarch, Tillich and Johnson all acknowledge the tension between autonomy and connection, they differ in meaning-making around the relationships of the two. In his book “Intimacy and Desire,” David Schnarch attributes a preference for the work of the Self. Schnarch normalizes couples’ intimacy and desire problems and argues that they are inevitable precisely due to the nature of love relationships and one’s growing attachment to the partner. For Schnarch, the way to resolve this inevitable emotional gridlock in partnership is through differentiation and a solid flexible self. Schnarch regards “holding on to oneself” highly— “the only security you can really count on is your relationship with yourself.”[1] Schnarch argues that a solid flexible self allows self-validation (in contrast to other-validate), self-confrontation (other than other-confrontation), conscious choices and facilitates authentic intimacy and free desire. It seems that for Schnarch, belonging to ourselves is the foundation of and precedes the profound connection with our partners. Being able to do both is possible, but a solid flexible self should be achieved first.
Enmeshment and fusion have been significant in my personal history. Schnarch’s work appeals greatly, considering the complete opposite philosophy to what I was used to, the timing and where I am at in my development. A part of me reads Schnarch’s solid flexible self as an invitation to reverse outward-focused tendency to inward-focused and wants to trust the only work needs to be done is my relationship with myself. However, another part of me wonders if I am moving from an extreme (enmeshment) to another (complete autonomy). This may not be Schnarch’s intention, but I fail to see the importance of connection from his work. While I could benefit much from Schnarch and differentiation, I am concerned if the tension between the Self and the Other is oversimplified by emphasizing only on the Self predominately.
Philosophical Theologian Paul Tillich joins Schnarch and captures the human desire to be fully united with and fulfilled by one’s partner (connection), and an essential need for one’s freedom and agency to be oneself. Unlike Schnarch’s divide between the Self and the Other, for Tillich the other person can be considered an estranged part of oneself. Reunion with the other is decisive for realization of one’s humanity. However, Tillich struggles with how such reunion may be achieved. Attempting to surrender oneself to the other or take the other into oneself can never be adequate or successful because they destroy the person they seek to unite. Therefore, love remains unfulfilled in the subject-object split, and neither surrender nor subjection are adequate means of reaching the other one, for if love were ever fulfilled it would eliminate the lover as well as the loved.[2] Therefore for Tillich, both sides in the encounter belong to some third thing that transcends them both. The struggle between autonomous independence and heteronomous reaction, for Tillich, leads to the quest for “theonomy.” Theonomy precedes and follows the competing forces of heteronomy and autonomy, it gives meaning to all forms, affirm autonomy, and is not suppressive.[3] While I continue to ponder what theonomy looks like in Tillichian Theology, I appreciate him introducing a “third thing” into the autonomy and connection binary and naming the desire for reunion (connection) as an embodied quest due to human finitude.
Thus far is the lens I brought to my reading of Susan Johnson’s “Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy” and why I found it timing and helpful. EFT integrates experiential and system approaches and is significantly influenced by attachment theory. While working with the frame of system theory, Johnson joins attachment theorists and view emotions as vital in creating new patterns of relating. For Johnson, “a healthy relationship, in EFT terms, is a secure attachment bond.”[4] Unlike Schnarch, Johnson values dependency, security, and thus attachment. She argues that “the ability to be autonomous and connected are two sides of the same coin, not as two different ends of a continuum.”[5] This is, what I believe, a fundamental difference between Johnson’s work and those of Schnarch and Tillich. For Johnson, the Self and the Other, autonomy and connection are not in polar, and thus not in conflict. It is not a question of either…or…, autonomy and connection are given equal importance. In my perspective, attachment theory is that “third thing” for Johnson in the EFT system that bridges the self, the other, and the work between and among people. I am not sure how (and I continue to make sense of the difference between a coin and a continuum), but this seems like a new perspective that I should investigate more in my understanding of the relationship between the Self and the Other and the autonomy and connection.
[1] “Intimacy & Desire : Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship,” 237. [2] “Systematic Theology. . Vol. 3, Life and the Spirit History and the Kingdom of God,” 253. [3] “Systematic Theology. . Vol. 3, Life and the Spirit History and the Kingdom of God,” 251. [4] Susan M Johnson, “Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy,” n.d., 102. [5] Johnson, 103.