The Secret Language of Intimacy

Releasing the Hidden Power in Couple Relationships

Robert G. Lee

• Publisher: Gestalt Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317709213
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicoanálisis

In The Secret Language of Intimacy, shame and its consequences are foregrounded as a major, if not the major, impediment to the healthy functioning inthe relationships of couples.

In the first part of the book, Robert Lee presents the "Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop, " developed and presented for the first time at the 1998 Annual Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy. Lee not only describes how the hidden forces of shame and belonging regulate couple dynamics, but also how the workshop itself has facilitated the acceptance of these forces and promoted therapeutic resolution, utilizing clinical vignettes.

The second half of the book is comprised of internationally contributed essays from leading names in the Gestalt perspective, each adding to and redefining the role of shame and belonging in the theory and practice of Gestalt couples therapy. Their conclusions, however, are just as insightful forpurveyors of other psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapies as well.

Part I

The Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop

Robert G. Lee

Editor’s Note:

The web of snarled, painful, debilitating dynamics, in which couples can become entwined, is often mysterious and difficult to understand. Chapters 1 through 5 present a workshop that has been successful in unraveling this web for couples, others who are single and who wish to be in a couple relationship, as well as clinicians who work with couples. It is based in a Gestalt field theory model of shame and belonging that opens avenues to transform couples’ experiences of difficulty into opportunities for greater intimacy and connection.

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The Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop

Introduction

Janet was excited when her business trip unexpectedly finished early. It was not yet noon on a Saturday morning in July, and she had managed to wrap up her 5-day consultation trip two days early. She could drive the three hours back home and surprise her husband, Henry, in plenty of time for them to get ready and celebrate with a good time at their favorite restaurant, a causal place with great food and a wonderful atmosphere in which they had enjoyed many tender moments.

Henry had been disappointed that she had had to make this business trip, particularly since she would be away over the weekend. So he would be happy to see her, she mused, and he would be as excited as she to do something fun on this warm summer night.

However, when she arrived home, Henry’s greeting was not warm and engaging, as she had expected. Instead he was distant, dismissive, even a bit harsh. When she proposed that they take in their favorite restaurant later that evening, he replied that he couldn’t because he didn’t have anything to wear. He became angry, saying that she had shrunk the pants that he liked to wear on such occasions. When she pursued, saying that he had other pants and any pair of pants would be fine, he became enraged, yelling that this wasn’t the first pair of pants of his that she had ruined and that she never listened or took responsibility for what she did. Janet was crushed. This wasn’t the first time that Henry had exploded in anger. His anger terrified her. As in previous such episodes, she didn’t know what to do. She pulled herself together and let him know, again, that he needed to do something about his anger, and she left the room. They didn’t talk for three days. Janet was very discouraged. It was at times like this that she wasn’t sure that her marriage would survive.

And Henry? Let’s replay this incident from his perspective. Not that his perspective is any more or less valid than Janet’s. Henry had been very disappointed that Janet had responded to her client’s rather sudden request for a consultation. He “knew” there were other qualified people in her organization who could have handled the trip. Henry felt that in general Janet let her organization take advantage of her. And this was just another example of that.

It was a summer weekend, and she had been away so much in the spring. The first couple of days that she was away this time he was a bit lost and not very productive. His heart just wasn’t into what he was doing. But Saturday morning, he had finally been able to pull himself together and focus on writing a grant proposal, which was always difficult for him to do. He had gotten beyond missing her and was making good progress when in she walked.

What was he supposed to do? He had already switched himself completely around and now he would have to do that again? This just felt like the way things often went—on her time schedule. Couldn’t she understand that he needed a consistent schedule to be productive? She just didn’t take responsibility for what she did.

He hadn’t really trusted her for about a year now, since the time at a dance when she had walked off the dance floor. She frequently would just up and leave when they would have even a minor disagreement, which was extremely frustrating. But that time on the dance floor was in public, and it left him feeling humiliated. Since then he had felt himself at times become distant from her. He wasn’t sure that they were going to make it.

What is happening here? How do we understand the knot in which Janet and Henry frequently find themselves? They are clearly very important to each other. And we can empathize with both of their perspectives. Is this just about differences in their perceptual attunement and personal styles? Certainly integrating individual perceptual frameworks and styles is part of the ongoing tasks necessary for success for every couple. And anyone who has been in a couple relationship knows that this is not always an easy endeavor. On the other hand there are couples who seem to manage these tasks, handling the most difficult of differences, involving religion, culture, or other potentially troubling issues as well as differences of personal makeup—again, not that this is easy. There must be more happening here than meets the eye at first glance.

In fact, much of what goes wrong in intimate relationships, from hurt feelings to entrenched defensiveness and stone-walling, has a secret companion with its own language: shame. This language is a secret language. Most people have a sense that it exists, but little sense that they or their partner might be fluent in their own dialect of this language. It is not only a secret language; it is also a language of secrets, not the kind of secrets that accompany conscious, deliberate attempts to mislead another so as to obtain some personal gain at the other’s expense. These secrets are much more subtle and most often form without awareness. They are about our yearnings, emanating from the very energy that draws us together. They are often secrets from our self as well. To become aware of these secrets is to risk experiencing shame.

Gestalt field theory gives us a lens that allows us to see this hidden element in relational dynamics and to understand in general the secret language of intimacy, with its component parts of shame and belonging. I have found that understanding this language, particularly the dialect that is spoken in couple member’s own relationship, offers an opportunity to transform the often heart-wrenching effects of this hidden companion—which if left unattended lead to disconnection and ultimate separation—into openings for greater connection and greater intimacy.

In the following chapters, Part I of this book, I share with you a workshop of mine that introduces these concepts and facilitates people becoming aware of how these concepts apply to their own lives, in a safe, supportive, even enjoyable/fun atmosphere. The last chapter in this part of the book focuses on demonstrations that I have conducted with volunteer couples, at the end of workshops. As they do in the workshops, the demos present an opportunity to see how this material plays out in actual couple relationships.

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The Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop

Shame & Belonging

The Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop, which I am about to share with you, has been very successful in opening new possibilities for couples, people interested in a couple relationship, as well as those who work with or would like to work with couples. I started my career in the helping professions as a couples therapist some 30 plus years ago, and this workshop is an integration of my experience, my research on couples and shame (Lee, 1994b), and my writings (e.g., Lee, 1994a, 1996, 2004b). It is influenced by the workshop designs that Gordon Wheeler and I created in working with shame and belonging¹. Moreover, the material in this workshop is not just theory to me or what helps me organize what I do in my work with clients. This material has been of utmost importance to me in the ongoing success of my own couple relationship. Over the last nine years, I have presented this workshop in a number of locations throughout the world (London, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Cleveland, Big Sur, Cleveland and other Australian and US locations) and in a variety of time formats from a couple of hours to several days. The form that I share with you here is what I have commonly used in a two day time frame.

A significant design question in constructing workshops for couples is how to help them explore the problems or difficulties in their relationship without becoming triggered and hopelessly lost in a maze of shame. This workshop does just that. It facilitates couples looking at their system and learning about what they do in a manner that is safe and non-threatening. They come away with a different sense of their relationship, with strategies and tools that fit with their new sense. It also allows people to attend who are single and not presently in a relationship or for one partner to attend without the other.

The Initial Exercise Sets the Tone

I open this workshop with an exercise that gives participants a felt sense of the hidden dynamics that can plague couples, mysteriously turning potentially heartfelt, loving, connective interactions into nightmares of frustration, pain and disconnection.

I ask people to pair off—with someone with whom they are not in an intimate relationship. Thus, for the people that come to the workshop as a couple to learn together about and to enrich their relationship, which of course many do, I still ask them to find someone other than their own partner for this exercise. This structure adds to participants’ experience of safety since the people in the resulting dyads will not have built up a history of difficult/unresolved interactions with each other. Such a history can lead to an underlying sense of unfairness, resentment and the like, which could be triggered in doing this exercise. Again, the purpose of this exercise is to give people a personal sense, from the inside out, of relationally difficult couple interactions while at the same time maintaining a safe, even fun, environment.

After participants pair off into dyads, I tell them to imagine that they are in a primary relationship with their dyadic partner. Optimally I would like them to imagine that this relationship is a primary love relationship—with a partner that matches their sexual preference. For those participants who have paired off with someone who is of opposite gender than their sexual preference, I extend the option of imagining this relationship to be a very close friendship.² Whatever it is, they are to imagine that this relationship is very important to them.

However, I tell them, there is something that is not right with this relationship. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps they don’t have sufficient time with their partner, or the quality of the time together is lacking in some manner, or something is wrong with the sex in the relationship (if it is a sexual relationship), or something regarding the care of the kids (if they imagine that they have kids) is not being appreciated by their partner. I ask them to take a few minutes by themselves to write about the problem that exists for them in this relationship. By choosing the problem, they are more likely to find something that they care about. This is important for the exercise to work as it is only when we care that we are susceptible to experiencing shame. At the same time, because this is an artificial situation, the design offers a buffer against people reaching the depth of caring and possible concomitant shame that can exist when we have developed a full interdependent relationship.

After they have had a few moments to become grounded in what they imagine is problematic with this relationship, 1 tell them they must turn to their partner and get this problem resolved. It is very important that they find resolution with their partner. Their satisfaction in this relationship is dependent on their finding resolution. However, there is one constraint. They can’t talk about the problem, itself, with their partner. They can talk, discuss, interact in any manner they wish with their dyadic partner; they just can not mention or refer to their problem in any way. But again, they must get this problem resolved.

As I share with participants a bit later in the workshop, a basic nature of shame is to hide. The experience of shame is the experience that our yearning is unacceptable—silly, shameful, too much, too little, inappropriate, unthinkable. And therefore we believe that it will be met with disgust, disdain, contempt, anger, or perhaps even worse merely disinterest. In short we will not be received. Thus we hide our yearning. As a result, we can’t talk about our yearning directly. This is why couples can have escalating, explosive arguments that seem to come out of nowhere, around such mundane things as on which side of the table the salt shaker should be placed. They have underlying yearnings which they do not feel safe to expose. To further complicate things, they may or may not be aware that they possess a deeper longing. If we have the sense that our yearning will not be received in our larger field, it is extremely difficult, at times impossible, to even be aware of our yearning.

My intent in designing and using this experiment is to duplicate the field conditions that exist when couples are having difficulties communicating. Invariably the workshop participants are thrown into a mini shame attack, into a (hopefully partial) sense that what they care about can not be received. The effect is usually almost immediate. As I walk around the room, I can see people’s amusement, on one hand, and their investment and frustration, on the other, in not being able to get their dyadic partner to hear what they feel needs to be heard.

After a bit of time I ask people to wind-up the exercise and return to the larger group. After I apologize for putting them in this position, I ask them to share their experience of doing this exercise, not the content of what happened but what they experienced. Together we create a list. As participants call out what they experienced, I repeat what they say as I write down their reports of their experience on a piece of newsprint. I make sure during this process that I don’t miss any offering from anyone in the group. I also never change or interpret what people say. I want to hear their voice, not as it “should be,” but as it is. This, of course, also models the process of fully receiving another which is an integral part of the secret language of intimacy.

Each workshop group has its own style of pace and energy with which people report out their experience in the exercise. Sometimes it comes out quickly, and I have to slow people down sufficiently so 1 can get everyone’s voice. Sometimes it starts out slow and then speeds up. This is all important information, indicating the degree to which people were stirred by the exercise, how much it tapped into a deeper shame (sense of not being received) they carry, how safe they feel (individually and as a group), how they hold their shame, and what kind of support I will need to attend to as the workshop proceeds. I continue with the list until there are no more offerings from the group. The following is a sample composite, drawn from the lists that various groups have generated:

List 1: Participant’s Experience During Initial Exercise

frustrated, fraudulent, blaming, sad, delicious, avoiding the issue, collusion, close, fantastic, self-blaming, deflated, gagged, impotent, misunderstood, evasive, angry, surprised, well-defended, familiar, wrong, unheard, meeting a dead end, intense, bored, withdrawn, self-righteous, guarded, judging, controlling, superficial, beaten, guilty, superior, exhausting, ignored, lonely, confused, giving in, invisible, distant, generous, vulnerable, hopeful, all roads lead to the same point

As seen, people commonly have a variety of experiences during this exercise, partially depending on the degree to which they were triggered into a mini shame experience. However, there is a dominant trend in these responses—experiences related to not being received.

Shame’s Relational Function

To lay the ground for gleaning additional meaning from this list, I ask participants to give me their associations to the word “shame.” Again, as participants voice out their associations, I repeat their offerings and write them on a separate sheet of newsprint. The following is a sample of participant’s associations:

List 2: Participant’s Associations to Shame

defended, unaware, not good enough, wrong, hot, recoil, defective, wanting to disappear, churning, pain, shunned, shut-down, embarrassed, naked, angry, child-like, scarred, loss of control, vigilant, bad, defiant, judgmental, debilitating, different, raw, withdrawn, trapped, insignificant, hiding, stuck, ostracized, losses, control...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• The Author
• The Contributors
• Part 1 - The Secret Language of Intimacy Workshop
• Part 2 - Contributors’ Essays
• Afterword
• Appendix