Relational Dialectics: A Research Report Essay

Relationship maintenance involves the actions and activities used to sustain the desired quality of a relationship. (Weiten et al., 2016, p. 257) These actions include being positive, open, assuring, and doing joint activities. Agnew and VanderDrift showed that these actions can be used to promote interdependence and stability or can protect a relationship from threat. (Weiten et al., 2016, p. 257)

A way in which this is easily recognizable which way your relationship is between autonomy and connectedness, Is whether the other person is saying ‘I’ or is saying ‘we’. This tension happens often in romantic relationships when one person wants to be with the other all the time, while the other feels ‘suffocated’ and has a need for individuality. “Thus, too much integration comes with the loss of autonomy and individuality, whereas extreme separation limits connection and can threaten the relationship.”(Sahlstein, E., & Dun, T. 2008, p.37). Therefore either Autonomy or connectedness in a relationship, too much of one or the either can issues emerge. A personal example of an experience that I’ve had is with my best friend and I. When we were in high school we both graduated early in December, I went to a community college to get some credits before transferring to a four year college, whereas he just took a break from everything. Every day when I got off of school we would hang out and do stuff.

Relationships are basically, what makes the world go round. All provide a sense of personal fulfillment, whether it'd be positive or negative. A good example are companies. Companies make strong relationships with their customers, in turn, customers spend more money buying their wares. Another example is the relationship between parents and children. Two texts that focus on these relationships are; “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. The texts heavily revolve around the familial connection between a parent and a daughter. Actually, it s so emphasized on that connection, you might say to yourself,”Why is this so important?” It's important because connections go hand in hand with personal fulfillment. Explanations

Incompatible goals are often perceived in dialectical tensions of relationships. Leslie Baxter formulated the Relationship Dialectical Theory. Usually it is opposing tensions that bring people into conflicts in relationships. The number one cause for break ups is the relational dialectic, integration/separation. The two opposing forces at war are the desire to bond (Amy) and the desire for autonomy (Robert).

Interpersonal conflicts are inevitable. Different texts suggest not how to avoid conflict, but rather how to effectively communicate when involved in one. However, the “rules” of constructive communication can completely change in conflicts between people in long-term, interdependent relationships. This paper will focus on analyzing a conversation between a mother and her adult son, while applying ideas from William Wilmot and Joyce Hocker’s Interpersonal Conflict, Deborah Tannen’s I Only Say This Because I Love You, and the “Conflict Styles” lecture.

It is the most central part of a relationship in adulthood. As adults, we select our partners using filter theory and exchange theory. It is the belief that people who are secure in their attachments will have longer, happier relationships than those who are insecure. What all these theories reveal to me is the need to belong, to be loved, and needed. My personal life agrees with the socioemotional theory of relationships. Along my adulthood journey, I’ve had to shed myself of relationships that were negative and dead weight. In my younger years, I had a lot of friends that appealed to different needs in my life at that time. As I’ve gotten older the most important relationships are with my family. That is what I care about mostly because they are meaningful and emotionally satisfying. I have an inner circle that is close, a middle circle not as close and an outer circle that is on the outside, so to speak. The way relationships are formed in childhood will have an effect on how we develop relationships later in life. We form an internal working model of attachment in relationships; these are our set of beliefs and assumptions, which are based on our childhood experiences of security or

The topic that I have chosen to discuss throughout this paper is Managing and Resolving Conflicts in a Relationship. This topic is very important to me simply because, I personally see a lot of relationships failing, including some of mines due to lack of resolving and managing conflicts correctly. By the end of this paper I hope that I have helped the reader understand and eliminate any conflicts that confront their everyday lives.

It is often said that all good things come to an end. Relationships come and go, and some mean more than others. In fact, there was even a relationship model developed by a communication researcher by the name of Mark Knapp. In his model, he goes through what seems to be presented as a smooth step transition from each stage in which a relationship eventually evolves into. As I studied this up then down ladder model, I began to realize that I ought to build up some strong calf muscles, because my relationship sure has climbed up and down a few flights of stairs. Mark Knapp believes that relationships go through multiple stages, the uphill stages being initiation, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding, then relational maintenance. On the flip side, Knapp believes the descending stages to be differentiating, circumscribing, avoiding, and eventually, termination.

Although many books have been written about communication and connection in relationships, there has been a book that addresses precisely this wonderful process as has James C. Petersen in his book: Why Don’t We Listen Better? And it is precisely the way in which the parts he divided the book that takes the reader to a better understanding of what the personal relationships connections through communications are concerned.

The core concept that stands out of relational dialectics theory is contradiction (Griffin, 2009). A contradiction happens whenever you have two interdependent forces that mutually work against each other (Griffin). This is continually happening in relationships because they are in a constant state of flux. Relationships are constantly changing and there is no complete certainty. Baxter and Montgomery give the example of contradiction as a game of tug-of-war created through interpersonal conversations. Moreover, these theorists believe that contradictions are inevitable and can be used to constructively enhance the quality of relationships (Griffin).

The second half of the relational model is called the “coming apart” stages, which consists of: differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and lastly terminating. During the differentiating stage the relationship will start to be more individual, it will start to fade and the bond will be broken. After that comes the circumscribing stage during which the individuals won’t communicate because of the fear of starting an argument. The stage where relationships never improve or continue is called stagnating. After this point the individuals enter the avoiding stage, where the avoid any physical contact

There has been some recent argument against the current understanding of the place of relationships in psychotherapy. While most theories argue that relationships are important or even essential to good mental health, other theorists claim that the way relationships are conceptualized in these theories is insufficient (Slife & Wiggins, 2009). Most of these theories conceptualize the individuals first, and then talk about the way these individuals relate. Relationships are often understood as two or more independent self-contained individuals interacting (Slife & Wiggins, 2009). An alternative way to look at relationships is offered by relational psychoanalysts and other theorists, though again it should be noted that

In conflict we often make the mistake of using our power to focus on the relationship or on the issue/  outcome we desire.  The result is that we often attain one at the expense of the other.  Our power may enable us to achieve our goal but damage or destroy the relationship.  Alternatively, we may sustain the relationship at the expense of our needs or desired outcome.  The ideal may be maintaining a healthy relationship while at the same time achieving our goal, but this requires a subtle and complex use of different kinds of power or perhaps not using the power at our disposal.  This requires wisdom, self control and self discipline as well as skilled interpersonal behavior.

The first relationship dialect I will discuss is autonomy/connection. This illustrates how in relationships that we value spending time together to connect in a more in depth way. I experienced this in many of my own and others relationships. There are times when we enjoy spending time with our significant other, however; we do not want to spend every waking second with them. Many people value their independence and prefer to find a middle ground so they can spend some time together and also spend time with other people or by themselves. One example with an ex-girlfriend was that we would spend every weekend together and eventually we did not continue to connect with each other. We did not have any deep conversations and it would mostly be small talk that was not meaningful. With the relationship ending up this way I tended to value time alone to just think if my needs were met and if I was just acting appropriate or immature. I enjoyed

Relational Dialectics theory is based on understanding the conflicts and tension in everyday communication. Also, this theory helps us to