3.4 Disicipline 2 - differentiate
That’s an odd word…
Differentiate.
And maybe you’re wondering what it has to do with activism, so let me explain.
In our early days, in our hunter-gatherer societies, self-development meant fostering the ability to fit into our small band within our tribe and to become a loyal, stable, contributing member.
Fitting in was critical to survival.
Since we humans are fundamentally competitive and self-centered, it took serious effort to learn the discipline of cooperation and internalize it.
This effort included the…
Suppression of individual impulses and desires.
We had to submit to the authority of the group instead of pursing our personal self-interest no holds barred.
Of course…
The better our group did the better we did.
So contributing to our group was actually the best way for us to take care of ourselves.
In hunter-gather bands you drew attention to yourself by the quality of the positive contributions you made to the life of the community.
Now we live in mass societies, though, and things have changed. Look how many people call attention to themselves by how much they take instead of how much they give. Look at how many of our corporate and political leaders are self-serving. They can never have enough power. They always want more.
And look at those with extreme wealth. They can never have enough money.
Of course, the majority of people are still concerned with fitting in. They find security in conforming and belonging.
But there are those who are driven…
To stand out.
To claim high status. They hope this will bring them fame and fortune.
I’m talking now about people who want to stand out in the sense of standing above, dominating, taking power over others, being in charge of the society…
In order to reap far more than their fair share of the benefits.
These particular stand-outs, these elites, do not want to overthrow society…
They want to exploit it.
What about activists? Should it be our goal to turn ourselves into high-status stand-outs as well?
Not if we stay within the conventional realm of society, an exploitive society.
We need to engage in self-development in order…
To stand apart.
And…
Stand in opposition to a society that runs on exploitation.
And…
Stand with mutual nurturance and mutual advocacy.
Individuation vs. differentiation
Carl Jung was a fan of standing out. He called this individuation. Over the course of your life, instead of becoming a better fit for your society, you become more and more an individual. But that didn’t necessarily mean you opposed your society.
I’m thankful to live in a time when individuation is possible. I grew up in a community where fitting in was the order of the day. It was the highest value. And you would be the target of immediate criticism, really unkind criticism, if you deviated.
I’m so happy that I’ve been able to follow the path of individuation and become my own version of myself. I love being able to make my own decisions based on my own personal core values.
But though I like individuation, I don’t use that Jungian term anymore. Not since I came across the work of Murray Bowen.
He was a founder of family therapy, starting with work he did in the 1950s. He made extensive use of the term differentiation to talk about family systems.
If you want read what he has to say about it for yourself, you can check out the book he wrote with Michael Kerr called Family Evaluation. The writing is restrained, but the concepts are revelatory.
What I like best about Bowen’s concept of differentiation is that, while it’s a lot like individuation, it’s not individualistic. Quite the contrary…
It’s relational.
As you grow up, if things are going well, you separate from your family of origin. You go out in the world and discover who you are apart your family. You become your own person with your own inner life…
You develop your own moral core which guides your decision-making.
When you were a child you were a part of your family by the accident of your birth. But as a differentiated adult, you get to choose to be close to your family. Or not. Mature closeness is not forced on you, it’s not a default.
So…
Differentiation is the opposite of merging.
Merging means you sacrifice your values, your desires, your very soul to fit into the family system. It means you can’t tell where you end and your family begins, so you get swept up in their moods, especially their anxieties and distress.
Merged relationships stay shallow because when everyone homogenizes to fit in, or when everyone submits to a domineering parent, no one gets to be a whole and complex person, so there’s no way for relationships to go deep.
But imagine a family where everyone embraces differentiation, where each person is so strong in and of themselves that significant differences with the people they love don’t threaten them.
And more importantly, they’re not threatened by intense closeness. Each person is so well-developed and so well-grounded, they’re pretty much ready for anything.
One of the hardest concepts to understand in the study of human relationship is the…
Paradox of differentiation.
And it goes like this…
You separate to get closer.
First…
You step apart from the people in your life.
It’s not like you stop talking to them and stop spending time with them. This is an emotional and psychological separation which allows you to do your own self-development work.
And then, second, as your inner strength blossoms…
You step back deeper into your relationships with them.
In other words, the best kind of closeness comes from the best kind of separateness.
This means…
You’re coming to your relationships from strength instead of neediness.
What’s that look like? There are myriad ways differentiation shows up in the lives of individuals, couples, and families, but I’m going to pick just one simple example to give you a feel for it, or to remind you of experiences you’ve had yourself with the benefits of differentiation.
Here’s Dennis…
When Jeannette went back to school to become a therapist, I was scared. She was breaking the deal we had. We were supposed to stick together and not be ambitious and not go off and do stuff on our own.
My first thought was, “I can’t be with her anymore.” I missed the easy predictability of our days and nights together.
Suddenly she was putting in long hours studying instead of giving me her full attention. But there was something worse. She was studying psychology. And it started changing her. She’d come home from a class and look at me, and I could tell she was dissatisfied with what she saw.
Which scared me even more. But then it made me mad and I decided, “I’ll show her, I’ll go back to school, too.” So I did. I enrolled in a graphic design program. Something I’d always wanted to do, but had not found the resolve to actually do it.
Now the surprises started to happen. We were each making new friends. We were each discovering new things about ourselves. So when we came home at night we had stories to tell and lots to talk about.
The more she surprised me, the more attractive she became to me, and the deeper I was willing to go with our relationship. She said the same thing was true for her about me.
Our relationship wasn’t “safe” anymore, meaning it wasn’t boxed, it wasn’t routine. It was open-ended. We had to put a new kind of work into it.
Then one night I was feeling down, and she said she’d skip her study group to keep me company. I shouted, “No! Don’t you do that!” We were both shocked.
I took a quiet breath and heard myself say, “I like the new you. I love the new you. I love our new relationship. Let’s make a deal that neither of us will slip back into our old patterns. I’ll be okay tonight. I’ve learned how to take care of myself.”
The upshot? We’re both a lot more challenging to be with, but we’re both a hell of a lot more fun.
Co-dependent relationships are based on neediness. People merge because they don’t feel like a complete person in and of themselves. They believe they need to suck off someone else to be okay. They believe they need someone to dump their anxieties on, instead of learning how to work through their anxieties on their own.
Merging means you’re trying to get your relationships on the cheap.
And merged, co-dependent relationships are not just shallow, they’re dangerous, because …
Dependency sooner or later leads to resentment and then rage.
But when you’re committed to the complete journey of self-development and you take it all the way through to differentiation, that means you’ve now got….
A self-determined self.
And…
You’ve become independent.
You’re rooted solidly in your moral core. You’re not triggered by inner fears. You’re not reactive to other people. You’re consistently proactive. Which is a good thing for any activist to be.
And once you’ve got your independence, you get to choose what you want to do with it. You can use it to become individualistic and self-centered.
Or you can use it to connect deeply with others and…
Become interdependent.
Which is the deep-nurturance way to live.
Bowen said…
“The more differentiated a self, the more a person can be an individual while in emotional contact with the group. The human appears to be a unique species in the degree to which he can simultaneously be an individual and a team player.”
Or an activist might put it this way…
The stronger the stand we can each take for ourselves, the stronger the stand we can take together.
Compare this to the doctrine of selflessness, which is part of sacrificial-savior activism.
If you’re…
A selfless self,
That means you have no self, so you’re…
A nobody.
And if you’re a nobody, how are you supposed to have a rich, intimate relationship? Or what about two nobodies trying to make love work? Now there’s a sad story.
The you who you create when you take the journey of self-development is not a selfish self or a selfless self.
It’s a…
A relational self.
It’s…
A social self.
It’s all about…
Mutual nurturance and mutual advocacy.
Which means it’s aligned with an activist life. Meanwhile both selfishness and selflessness sabotage activism.
And notice too, that because we’re talking about relationships, the three disciplines that are the core of the Deep-Nurturance OS are moral disciplines. We’re talking about moral self-development and moral differentiation. And we’re talking about living into dilemma as a moral enterprise.
Our society
Why is differentiation essential for deep-nurturance activism?
Well, we live in a society that runs on exploitation and oppression, so…
Why would we want to fit in?
Why would we want to merge into our national tribe? Why would we want to swear allegiance to a country that hurts people and causes mass suffering? Not only at home but around the world.
You know those books about the decline of empires? They can now add a chapter about our country.
That decline is not in and of itself a bad thing, because empires cause mass suffering, and the world would be better off without empires.
But the problem for America is that, in the process, we’re not transforming to a better way of life, but in our distress we’re destroying ourselves, economically, politically, and socially.
And given that our society is destroying itself…
Why wouldn’t we want to stand apart and oppose that destruction?
What we internalize as kids in an exploitive society we need to externalize as adults…
The bad stuff we took in under duress we need to push back out.
This is a key part of differentiating ourselves from our society.
And this means that deep-nurturance activism calls us to be radicals, radically and deeply opposing human evil, eager to transcend the status quo.
And if it were possible to revolutionize the human genome, we would be genomic revolutionaries.
But since that’s not possible, let’s at least step outside the boundaries of our society and offer leadership in the direction of something better—a better way to treat each other.
Let’s break the spell of the status quo in hopes that others might decide to join us in our activism.
Throughout history that word patriot has most often meant uncritical loyalty: “My country right or wrong.”
And a patriot is supposed to stay loyal no matter what…
Even if his society is hurting the people in it.
Even if that means tens of millions of people. And even if it is hurting the patriot himself and his family.
Of course there are activists who say…
“Being a patriot means you throw yourself into fixing what’s wrong with your country.”
And…
“I’m not a patriot of my country if that means surrendering to the power structure that runs it. Instead I’m a patriot of the people in my country.”
For me personally though, the word patriot is so ruined I’d rather say that activists are “advocates for the people.” Starting with those who are being hurt the most. But including, too, the people who are causing the hurting, because it’s bad for anyone to be an exploiter, an oppressor, or a tyrant of any kind.
And this is where differentiation comes into play as an essential part of activism. This is where we need to call on the paradox and make it work for us.
We need to separate ourselves from our society so we can find an independent place to stand, a moral place, a nurturing place. And then come back into relationship with our society, because if you really love your country, you don’t want it to be exploitive and oppressive.
There are those people who have made out like bandits under an abusive system who say, “I love this country.” What they mean is they’re really happy they’re able to get away with exploitation. They love their power, they love their privilege.
The don’t want to see the people they’re taking advantage of get serious about organizing to make changes. They don’t want these people to differentiate from the exploitive system and fight to make their country one they can genuinely love.
The way most people think about patriotism…
It’s a tribal strategy.
And that means it’s…
Exclusive.
So it sounds like this, “I want the people in my group to do well, and to hell with everyone else.”
Instead, we need…
To make our society fundamentally and happily inclusive.
We need a society where everyone is pulling together toward the common goal of everyone doing well. Everyone.
Our species
Here’s another reason we need to differentiate. Because…
We’re members of a species that’s killing itself.
Which is reason enough to stand apart, because why would we want to merge ourselves into the death culture of a dying species?
Again, it’s time to call on the paradox of differentiation.
There are people who say they love humanity. I wonder if they mean they love the idealized version of us rather than the as-is version. Or do they just love the idea of loving us.
I wonder this, because personally I find it very hard to love a species that does so much evil and causes so much suffering.
And this is why I’m so thankful for the paradox…
Yes, I am a human, I have the human OS inside me running me. There’s no way I can replace it.
But…
I don’t have to identify with it.
I don’t have to submit to it. I’m not helpless. I can call on the twist of grace that’s also inside me. And I can dedicate myself to opposing the fundamentals of human evil. I can work to upgrade human love.
Stepping apart like this allows me to come back to my species with a fierce, heartfelt advocacy, and…
Fight against human nature,
While…
Fighting for human beings.
I get to identify as fully human while dis-identifying from the human operating system. And I want to do that because I hate that evil is so easy for us and love is so hard.
The other day a friend said to me, “I’m not like you. I don’t care about the extinction of humans.”
I was shocked for about two seconds until I realized that I have days like that where I don’t care, or wish I didn’t care because I find it painful to care. And yet I can’t join my friend in his freedom.
I know too much about how evolution has set us up, how it made us such that evil, especially tribal evil, is built into us. And how this is not something we’ve chosen.
And so even on days when I find it very, very hard to care, I know that tomorrow I will come back to compassion. And I will again be a human partisan. And I will choose to hate evolution instead of humanity.
Applying the paradox to the deciding challenge
The one most important thing we need to do if we were going to have chance to save ourselves as a species would be to…
Transform our tribal past into a trans-tribal future.
Of course, post-hope people like me don’t believe this is possible.
At the same time, post-hope activists like me believe this is worth working for anyway, just for its own sake. It’s worth going as far as we can in that direction, because that’s a good way to live. And besides, if we’re going to do activism, why not do the most ambitious kind?
It’s interesting to me how people assume that just because they’re in a relationship with someone very much like themselves, someone who’s demographically similar, someone who’s a member of the same tribe, that there’s no bridging work to do. That any difference between them is inconsequential.
But there’s always that most fundamental human difference of…
Me versus you.
There’s always that key moral question…
How much do I give, how much do I take?
If you settle into a merged relationship, those questions disappear into the background. And the point of merging is to pretend there’s no difference between the two of you and so you don’t have to put serious, differentiated work into your relationship.
Instead…
You get to pretend that together you’ve found a refuge from humanness.
But if you and your partner get real about the core human dilemma, if you take the journey of self-development all the way through to differentiation, then you will have to negotiate the natural division that’s there between you.
And this is a good thing, because, in working with the paradox of differentiation, you will be deepening and strengthening your relationship.
And then there’s another benefit…
You’ll be prepping yourself to do trans-tribal activism.
As you step apart from your personal relationships and then step back in deeper, this experience will prepare you to reach across bigger and bigger divisions. And more fraught divisions.
Because the more differentiated you are, the better able you’ll be to relate to someone who’s very different from you, and…
The more you engage in differentiation, the less difference will scare you.
Say you’re at a community event and you meet two people…
Alyssa has a completely different background than you in terms of race, religion, and class.
Zachary and you are like peas in a pod. Demographically you’re very much the same.
Who will it be easier to become friends with?
That depends, doesn’t it?
Let’s say you are very well differentiated and very much at home dealing with difference.
And now let’s say that like you, Alyssa is highly differentiated.
But Zachary is not. He doesn’t have a strong sense of himself. He hasn’t developed his moral core. He’s looking for opportunities to merge. He’s seeking co-dependency.
Now who will it be easier to be friends with?
Next let’s translate this to the group level. Say you want your group to form an alliance with another very different group. What do you do?
First, you’re going to need to dis-identify from the tribalism of your group. You have to differentiate from the exclusive stance of the typical group and move into the inclusive stance you need for a genuine alliance.
Second, you’re going to need to be an advocate for your group—that is, for them to commit themselves to trans-tribalism.
And there we have the paradox. You’re asking your group to do the self-development work it would need to do to become…
A trans-tribal tribe.
Is that a contradiction in terms? I hope not. It feels paradoxical, but it’s possible to pull off if your group commits to inclusivity. And not just because they think they should, but because they sincerely want to and understand the value of doing so.
When we take the differentiation approach to personal relationships, this will prepare us to do better at reaching across other boundaries as we pursue our activist work.
And there’s no way to organize movements for the purpose of transforming a community or society as a whole if we can’t bridge divisions.
As you move on to other pages on this site, you’ll see I focus a lot on the relationships between individuals and within small groups. I do that because the better you are at those relationships the happier you will be.
And because getting good at those relationships will help you do better at guiding the development of relationships between larger and larger groups.
Keeping it real
Carl Jung, while promoting individuation, warned against the inflation of the self.
Differentiation, especially moral differentiation, does not mean that you get a swelled head or start thinking too much of yourself. You don’t let yourself adopt an unreal self-image, something puffed up, or inflated.
In many cases, self-inflation is a pretense of high self-esteem someone uses to cover up feelings of low self-esteem. It’s a public sparkle that’s used to cover up private despair.
The work you do to differentiate yourself is real. The rewards are real.
In the process, if you have any inflationary air in your self-image, you let it out. You come back down to earth.
The differentiation discipline of the DNOS keeps us grounded. Sacrificial-savior activism does the opposite. When you play savior, what is that but an inflated self-image?
And tribalism, too, is an inflation. Because tribalism is exceptionalism which means it’s full of hot air.
Here’s how it sounds…
Me and my tribe are so much better than you and your tribe. We’re far beyond the ordinary average human. We’re the best there’s ever been.
And…
Because we’re exceptional we deserve special treatment. Exceptional treatment. We deserve privileges and advantages that you don’t. Because we are the best and smartest, we have every right to control you. We have every right to hurt you if we think that’s necessary for our success.
Exceptionalism is a way that humans set themselves apart. But they are not stepping apart in order to come back into a deeper relationship. They are setting themselves apart to take advantage of everyone else, anyone not in their tribal group.
Differentiation couldn’t be more different. It’s not self-centered, it’s heart-centered. It doesn’t allow for any of the arrogance of exceptionalism.
Self-defense
I want to be clear that self-defense is always on the table.
Nothing I’m saying about bridging divisions precludes that. We’re not talking pretty platitudes here, we’re talking about real people in the real world.
And some of those people are going to be fiercely committed to exploiting others. That’s how they make their living. That’s how they hold onto their position of power. That’s their very identity.
So when you choose who you’re going to reach out to, you have to make a clear-eyed decision. You can only do bridging with people who are willing to do that with you. And they can only do bridging with you if you’re willing to do that with them. It takes two to tango.
When you’re looking at connecting with a hard-core exploiter, you’re not really talking about bridging. You’re talking about him reforming, and transforming, and coming to join you on your side of the divide. And you get to ask for that unapologetically, because, again, the stance of deep-nurturance activism is that that exploitation is bad for people…
It’s bad for the people who suffer it.
It’s bad for the people who do it.
Fortunately, it’s quite possible to offer an exploiter a sincere invitation to cross over and join you in your activism while at the same time organizing against him. And practicing self-defense against him.
And this brings us back to the basics. It matters that we do our own differentiation work and then find others who are doing theirs. It matters that we find others, no matter how different their background might be from ours…
Who are committed to mutual nurturance and mutual advocacy.
And then we do what it takes…
To make this common ground matter more than backgrounds.
And in this way more and more people can come together to do more and more powerful activism.
The drive to belong
I want to insert a reminder here, that the drive to belong to a family, a band, a tribe, a group, a nation, is one of the very strongest of human drives. So when I’m talking about stepping apart from your group, please keep remembering how very hard that is to do.
In fact…
Stepping apart can feel like an existential threat.
Even if you know that you’re only stepping apart in order to then step back in a deeper way.
And it’s especially true that…
When we get scared we want to regress deeper into our tribal past,
Because since we first became human, our tribe has been our place of security and our sense of home.
But what we need to do now, in our current era, when we are in such danger, is to respond to our fears differently…
Instead of taking regressive action, we need to take progressive action.
We need to move beyond our past. And perhaps the most fundamental definition of progressive political action is that we work to transform our tribal past into a trans-tribal future.
So, in sum, as we activists do our differentiation work, let’s honor ourselves and each other every step of the way. And let’s take the best possible care of ourselves and each other. Because we’re doing something risky.
Replacing shoulds with desire
I’ve been saying lots of positive things about differentiation, but I have one worry I want to address. If you’re like me and grew up on shoulds, lots and lots of them, you might attach a should to differentiation, and I want to urge you not to do that.
If at any moment, you find yourself working on differentiation because you feel you should, please stop until you can reach deep and find your true desire to differentiate.
And what’s tricky here is that differentiation seems like such a noble thing, and actually it is, and when you attach a should to it, that should feels like a noble should, and those are the hardest kind to disarm. But the most important ones to disarm.
The way I see it…
Shoulds are morally ugly.
If you’re living by shoulds, that means…
You’re forcing yourself, you’re policing yourself.
Not fun.
Instead, I hope you will reach down to the deepest place in your heart and…
Get to know your deepest moral desires intimately because those are beautiful.
And definitely fun. Not always, not in every minute, because as I’ve made clear, there’s a lot of hard work involved in differentiating. But even when it’s hard, even then, because of where you’re heading, because you’ve made the decision to put yourself on this journey, because you’re engaged in something ultimately so rewarding, there’s an undercurrent of delight that accompanies you.
And we can call that…
Delight in the fight.
A forthright, nurturing relationship conversation
Let’s say that Mitchell hasn’t done much self-development and is therefore at a low level of differentiation. He doesn’t have a solid sense of himself. So he gets scared easily. And let’s say he thinks he has the best strategy for his organization’s upcoming organizing campaign. But Viviana has a very different, actually opposite strategy, that she’s promoting.
Murray Bowen explains that for an undifferentiated guy like Mitchell, even small disagreements or conflicts can trigger anxiety. And here’s Mitchell facing a big conflict. So his anxiety ramps way up. And what does he do?
Bowen says the two typical responses in such a situation are for Mitchell to…
1. Cut off.
He refuses to deal directly with the conflict. He stops talking to Viviana, ignores her, treats her like a nobody. He denies there’s a problem and just keeps pushing to get his own way.
2. Attack.
He criticizes Viviana, puts her down, calls her stupid, says she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He destroys the relationship and creates a battleground in its place.
The following conversation is altogether different. It succeeds because both Abby and Noah are so well differentiated that they’re secure within themselves.
Despite having a fundamental difference in perspectives about hope, they don’t get so anxious that they cut off or attack.
Instead…
They engage with each other.
They do some serious relationship work in order to create a strong working relationship. But during the course of the conversation they stay open and vulnerable with each other. They speak forthrightly. They talk things through. They hang in there with each other and get to a good place that makes both of them happy.
Noah: I can’t stand it when you say you don’t believe in hope. What’s wrong with you, Abby? You’ve got to believe in hope. And if you don’t you should keep it to yourself because otherwise you’ll be a bad influence on people.
Abby: Don’t you want nonbelievers to be activists? Don’t you want us working hard to make things better?
Noah: Only hope can make things better.
Abby: We could debate the pros and cons of hope, but what if instead we take a minute and look for common ground? For example, I’m scared about the future, really, really scared. How about you?
Noah: Sure, I’m scared.
Abby: Does that count as common ground?
Noah: But we handle our fears so very differently.
Abby: We do, but let me ask you this. You believe in hope and you do everything you can to make things better, is that correct?
Noah: Yes.
Abby: I don’t believe in hope, but I do everything I can to make things better.
Noah: You really do?
Abby: Yes, I do. And which is more important to you, hope or action?
Noah: How can you have action without hope?
Abby: What if I volunteered with your organization and you got to see for yourself that someone who does not believe in hope can still be a dedicated activist? Would that be helpful to you in any way?
Noah: We need all the people we can get. Especially people with the kind of experience you’ve got.
Abby: How strong is your belief in hope?
Noah: Strong. Really strong.
Abby: It’s not like you have to talk yourself into believing in hope when you get up every morning?
Noah: No, I really believe in it. I don’t waver.
Abby: Last week I offered to volunteer at your sister organization, but the director told me she didn’t want me around. I asked her why and she said, “Because my belief in hope is shaky and you’re so clear about not believing that I couldn’t handle having you here.” I appreciated her honesty, so I honored her wishes and left. That’s why I’m coming over here to see if I can work with you. You’re the only other group in our region recruiting people to run for office.
Noah: I can handle you as long as you don’t try to evangelize me.
Abby: I’m not an evangelist. How about you?
Noah: Oh, I guess I am a bit.
Abby: How about if I promise not to evangelize you but I give you permission to evangelize me all you want?
Noah: That doesn’t seem fair.
Abby: It’s not, because you’d be wasting your breath. I’ve been a nonbeliever for many years. It goes deep for me. I really believe in it.
Noah: You believe in nonbelief?
Abby: Yes. But if you want to try to convert me, go for it. I won’t even argue back. I’ll just ask you questions.
Noah: What kind of questions?
Abby: Questions about you. Like, what does hope give you?
Noah: That’s easy. It gives me energy. It keeps me going.
Abby: When I believed in hope, it drove me hard. It burned me out. Does that ever happen with you?
Noah: Sometimes. I have to keep an eye on that.
Abby: Do you believe it’s okay for hope to drive someone so hard they have no time for their loved ones and they end up losing their family?
Noah: Nothing could make that okay.
Abby: It sounds like you have very strong feelings about this.
Noah: I do.
Abby: Me too. I hate it when activism destroys an activist or the activist’s family. That just feels so wrong. Here’s another question. Do you want hope to be real?
Noah: I already believe it is, but to answer your question, yes, I do want it to be real.
Abby: Well, I want hope to be real, too. I wish it were. It’s just that I don’t believe it is or can be. Another question. How do you feel about me not believing in hope?
Noah: I feel sad for you.
Abby: Well, I feel sad for me, too. I miss feeling hopeful. I miss the energy of it. Not believing is not an ideological thing for me. It’s personal. It’s simply who I am now. I don’t really care to engage in debates about hope. What I love is doing good work with kindred spirits. And I don’t need everyone in my life to be a nonbeliever. Not at all.
Noah: I feel sad for myself sometimes.
Abby: What makes you sad?
Noah: We work so hard and so often we lose.
Abby: Do you ever find it hard believing in hope?
Noah: Not so much believing. It’s just that some days it’s really hard to keep my spirits up.
Abby: Well, I have days when I find it hard to be a nonbeliever.
Noah: More common ground?
Abby: I think so.
Noah: Okay, come work with us. Let’s try this out.
Abby: How about if we make an agreement? If you’re ever feeling down on a particular day come find me and I’ll do everything I can to help you reclaim your hopeful spirit.
Noah: Okay, and I’ll do the same for you. Meaning I’ll help you find peace with being a nonbeliever.
Abby: I’d like that.
Noah: And if you ever decide you want to return to hope, if you want to get it back, come talk to me. I’ll be your go-to guy. I’ll put you on the fast track back into the fold.
Abby: And if you ever wake up one morning and find you’ve lost hope, really lost it, come talk with me and I’ll show you the ropes. I’ll show you how to live over here on the far side. I’ll do everything I can to make sure despair doesn’t get you.
Noah: But, hey, what about this? What if fate messes with us? What if you come back to hope but on exactly the same day I lose it?
Abby: Okay, funny guy, well then we’ll already have had this conversation, and all we need to do is reverse it, which will save us time, and we’ll still be okay with each other. So, are we ready to get me started on my first assignment?
Noah: You bet.
PS: My favorite books on differentiation are:
Murray Bowen and Michael Kerr
Family Evaluation
David Schnarch
Passionate Marriage
and
Intimacy and Desire
You’ve seen how self-help gurus present snippets of case studies where the main point seems to be to show off how smart they are, while the people featured seem fundamentally helpless.
David Schnarch doesn’t do that. He gives you lots of stories, complex and in depth, to illustrate differentiation. But he makes his clients the heroes. He offers guidance, but the clients do the work and make the progress and so when they win, that victory is deeply and profoundly theirs.
So you could say he’s a well differentiated therapist. He doesn’t depend on his clients for his sense of self.
