Relational Theory---more please.

• Relational theory - complementary? by Suzanne Moran-Johnson, 7/2/96
  
  

In the 1986 paper in which I introduced the concept, and the section of Shame & Pride in which I went into it at greater length, I suggested that innate afect broadcasts so powerfully that society requires us to take two actions in order that we are not taken over by the affect of those around us. Firstly, all societies seem to require that by age 3, the child mute the display of affect so it is not so raw. Secondly, we learn to stiffen the face so that we do not allow ourselves to replicate the affect going on in the other person; also, we learn to defocus, to concentrate on something other than the obvious source of affect in order to remain aloof to what is coming from the other person. It is these latter techniques, and a host of others each of us has learned, that allow us to build a wall within which we are able to remain ourselves rather than experience the affect of that other. You might check out S&P to read that short chapter.

But please, do tell all of us more about Relational Therapy and the Stone Center.

• More Relational Theory by Suzanne Moran-Johnson, 7/3/96