The Relationship Between A Platonic Friendship

Objective – Explain basic sociological concepts of the family, marriage, and intimate relationships. (Pg. 365)

Excluding such information could lead to misrepresenting the factors by which the client experiences the world and bankrupt the influence of culture on development. Boszormenyi-Nagy stretches facts to include those details about world views that are a product of our own created reality that is culminated by choice and agency. While a child certainly does not have a choice into what family they are born into, the parents do have a choice into how they will interact with each other around that child, such that, inconsistencies or neglect of that healthy relationship could create for the child a fact that unhealthy conflict is normal or that they must choose sides of affection (Goldenthal, 2005). Since there is an underlying foundation of psychotherapy present, contextual therapy accounts for facts that may be present that the client may not be able to bring to their conscience or that they may be unwilling to acknowledge that were out of their control, but nevertheless, still occurred (Ruzgyte, 2011).

In A. L. Evangelista & D. Perlman, Cambridge handbook of personal relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-82617-9

Due to our behavioral aspect these new situations may be hard for us to handle. One person might be set in their ways and have a hard time coping with change. This leads to moments of stress, possible anger, as well as other emotions of the body. These negative experiences can lead to a change in genetics in the body. In order to help the relationship stay strong and survive these changes both partners must examine themselves and understand what forces of nature are in their control and how they can effectively combat the situation. When these problems arise it is the responsibility of the unaffected partner to be there with kindness, love, and support for the other person. When these positive reinforces are present the environment around them changes and can lead to a more interactive and happy partner. Although important to a relationship I believe that the biological perspective is one of the lesser forces that impact the relationship.

Patz attends a seminar about Ted Huston’s Process of Adaptation in the Intimate Relationships (PAIR) project. In 1981, he followed 168 couples from their wedding day to 13 years later. Huston claims

Pratz’s first main point is that marriages can be predicted to either succeed or end in divorce within the early stages of courtship or initial years of marriage. She offers that the early stages of distress are what determine a couple’s fate. Pratz includes Ted Huston, a professor of human ecology and psychology at the University of Texas, and his Process of Adaptation in Intimate Relationships Project as her main source throughout the article. Pratz states, “through multiple

Sampson, George, and Rameck could have easily followed their childhood friends into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. Like their peers, they came from poor, single parent homes in urban neighborhoods where survival, not scholastic success, has the priority. When the three boys met in a magnet high school in Newark they recognized each other as kindred spirits that wanted to overcome the incredible odds against them and reach for opportunity. They made a friendship pact, deciding together to take on the biggest challenge of their lives: attending college and then medical and dental schools. Along the way they made mistakes and faced disappointments.

Relationship is often considered private matter limited to the individuals directly involved in the development, but the contextual dialectical view concerns the "tensions between public and private and between the ideal and real". (Morgan & Olsen, 2012, p. 138) Olsen and Morgan identified this tension as external matter according to the modern day American culture. Modern day social norm considers the expression and the exposer of private matter of the relationship, largely through social media, as the proof of the relational

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, psychiatrist and family therapist, is most well-known for being the creator of Contextual Therapy. Contextual therapists emphasize the ways in which generations are inherently bound to each other, while also considering intrapsychic and interpersonal elements. Unlike many other treatment modalities, contextual therapists consider relational ethics, or fairness in relationships. Every relationship has a ledger of indebtedness and entitlements. The ledger is balanced when the relationship is fundamentally built on equitability. The ledger includes both legacy, acquired by family dynamics and experiences, and the record of an individual’s accumulated merit by contributing to someone else’s welfare (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner, 1986).

Contemporary Home, by Jack O. Balswick and Judith K. Balswick comprise of various approaches in biblical, theological, cultural, and sociological perspectives. The author focus is strictly to “integrated view of contemporary family life based on current social-science research, clinical insights, and biblical truth. The background of the author’s work is from a previous edition upgraded with current changes in our “modern society including a section on marriage, mate selection, cohabitation, expansion of family life, parenting, rearing children, adolescent, challenges of the later-life premarital cohabitation, recognition of the importance of biosocial influence, and the interactive effect of bio-psycho-socio-cultural factors to understand family dynamics. The audience of this book are for families and marriage in conflict, every life stage, maintaining balance through the joys, pains, ups, and downs,

Social context is the indirect and direct influence of individuals that are in constant communication. It is basically a social environment in which people of different type lives. This environment influences the life of an individual and tells us how these people are influenced by their society i-e. a group of people sharing a same culture, tradition, religion or territory. It is all about how people of different classification differ from each other.

The simplest and most basic foundation of a sociological civilization or group begins at the core center of sociology; which is marriage and the inner-fabric creation of a family. It is said that matches are made in heaven, however finding and defining your “soul mate” differs from one social group to the next. The social institution of marriage changes and adapts consistently through time, religious practice, and national beliefs. Many people believe they lead happy and satisfying lives without a marital partner, as others highly value and desire a life-long marital partner as the pinnacle achievement of their life.

The five factors that predict interpersonal relationships are: proximity, familiarity, similarity, physical appearance, and reciprocity. Proximity refers to the geographical location of persons. People are more likely to initiate, engage, or maintain relationships if someone’s geographical location is near or convenient to the person they are to pursue. Relationships, whether romantic or platonic, are not as likely to be initiated if the proximity does not allow individuals to cross paths or maintain a certain level of communication. As well, familiarity plays an important role in the fostering of relationships. People are said to have an increased attraction and fondness for individuals that they see more often than those they do not. In lay terms, similarity can be summed up by saying that people enjoy the presence of those like (or similar) to them. Individuals are more often drawn to and feel less intimidated by others that share their culture and belief systems; thus, are more likely to form relationships with them. Next, is physical attractiveness; which can be defined in two different ways. First off, people tend to believe that beautiful things equal good things and are more likely to seek out relationships with individuals they find beautiful. However, people are also likely to form relationships with people they believe to be on

Imagine your sole confidante, childhood playmate, personal comedian and physiologist disclosing your secrets to a stranger. Unfortunately, this stranger happens to be the person who enforce a form of punishment for the actions that were once a secret. Furthermore, this confidante is considered your friend. Does an instance of this friend disclosing your secret of immoral activities to a person of authority violate the success of the friendship? In fact, this act is not a violation of the laws of friendship. The ideas of friendship are subjective, and thus where you might think your friend’s actions are unjust, your friend is actually looking out for your best interest and security. Also, a good friend would not desire

When discussing love, people generally think about the love between a husband and wife, or the love between a couple in a romantic partnership, and that is one type of love that I will be discussing. In addition to romantic love, there are other types of love also. There is the love we have for our children, our families, and also the love that we have for our friends. All of these types of love share some of the same attributes, however, they have differences also. In reading and researching different types of love, I have found that romantic love and friendship seem to be the most similar in nature, although they have differences, they share a lot of the same attributes. I found that friendship and romantic love tend to have more similarities than differences. In this paper I will examine romantic love and friendship. I will discuss the definitions of the two, and what elements each of these have. I will discuss the different theories of love, and I will compare and contrast the similarities and differences between romantic love and friendship.