Healthy Relationships, Objectives, chapter 5

1. Healthy Relationships, Objectives, chapter 5 • Be able to describe ways to improve communication. • Define social • wellness

2. Objectives continued: • Be able to describe characteristics of healthy relationships and how to effectively maintain them. • Describe barriers to intimate relationships. • Describe factors that are important in determining the success of an intimate relationship. • Describe when to get help for relational problems.

3. Brett’s story: • Having his mom be worried about…..could have affected how she raised him. • What other issues did Brett discuss? • Violence and its influence on social circles • Being grateful to have his father, a male role model in his last four years of life. • Do men-boys need male role models? • Do women-girls need male role models?

4. Healthy relationships • Humans are social animals and need to belong, feel loved, appreciated and wanted. • All relationships involve some degree of risk. • By taking some risks, we grow. • By looking at how we relate to others, we learn about how to be better human-beings.

5. Communication, is a major key: • We communicate uniquely according to family influences, gender, culture, race and personality. • Communication is “a shared process of symbolic meaning”: every action, word, facial expression, gesture, body posture becomes a part of a shared history.

6. Improving communication: • There is no “right way”. • Sometimes silence is the best way. • Some pointers include: learning how much, when and who you can trust to share information, thoughts, feelings and frustrations. • Sometimes the real message is not in what is said, but in the non-verbal message, and what is not said.

7. Learning to listen: • Focus on the speaker, maintain eye contact, ask questions. • Avoid interruptions, try not to be thinking about your response. • Avoid focusing on speaker quirks. • Paraphrase • Use non-verbal cues to demonstrate understanding.

8. Listening well: • Ask for clarification • Avoid snap judgments and “trying to set the other person straight”. • Try to stay focused on the subject, even if the speaker tends to wander. • Sometimes a person just needs to feel heard before they can listen to another opinion or change their position.

9. Assertive Communication: • Get your point across, while being respectful of the other person. • It involves verbal and nonverbal skills (showing body language that is confident). • Speaking calmly directly, using “I” statements. • Formula: I feel…when….because would like….. Or DEAR…..

10. Non-assertive communication * being shy, doormat * passive-aggressive * aggressive

11. Characteristics of intimate relationships: • Behavioral interdependence-daily activities intertwine. One may feel a great void when the other is gone. • Needs fulfillment: • Emotional attachment • Emotional availability-give and receive without fear of being hurt or rejected. • Each of these can be related to family, close friends and romantic partners.

12. What is a family?: • Is it who you live with? • What is the family of origin? • What are characteristics of a healthy family?

13. Establishing friendships: • “A friend is one who knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts who you’ve been and still gently invites you to grow”. Author unknown • You like people who like you. • Similarity in attitudes, opinions, and background. • A sense of equity, that allows the sharing of confidences and actions to maintain the friendship.

14. Characteristics of healthy relationships: • Enjoyment, most of the time • Acceptance • Mutual trust • Respect • Mutual assistance • Confiding • Understanding-not puzzled by actions • Spontaneity-feel free to be themselves • Group: Please do exercise on page 110 What do you think?

15. What is love? • Many social scientists say that there are two kinds: passionate and companionship (compassionate). • Companionship: secure, trusting, feel for family and friends. • Passionate, high arousal, ecstasy, agony of being rejected.

16. Researchers: Hatfield + Walsterpassionate love will not occur unless: • Person must live in a culture where “falling in love” is idealized. • A “suitable” love object must be present; what we have learned about partner’s appearance, socioeconomic status, racial background… • Physiological arousal, sexual excitement

17. Triangle theory of love, Sternberg: • Intimacy, feelings of closeness • Passion- romantic sexual attraction • Decision/commitment- the cognitive component, decisions about the degree of commitment. • The higher degrees of the above, the more likely that the person is involved in a healthy, positive, love relationship.

18. Attraction, falling in love,Anthropologist: Helen Fisher: • Imprinting- our evolutionary patterns, genetic predispositions, and past experience trigger romantic reactions. • Attractions-neurochemicals produce feelings of euphoria and elation. • Attachment-endorphins cause lovers to feel peaceful, secure and calm. • Cuddle chemical-oxytocin, feelings of satisfaction.

19. Love chemicals: • Produce – flushed skin, sweaty palms, heavy breathing (similar to a stress response). Due to: • Dopamine • Nor epinephrine • Phenyl ethylamine or PEA • All these are chemical cousins of amphetamines.

20. Gender Issues in communication: • Tannen’s work has described women as being more “expressive, relationship oriented, concerned with creating and maintaining intimacy”. • Men are more concerned with “tasks, concerned with gathering information or with establishing or maintaining social status or power”. Rapport vs. Report

21. Barriers to communication/intimacy: • Differences in background, age, culture, education, social status, political beliefs, and many other variables. • Remember the goal of good communication is not to have everyone agree, it is to have everyone understand each other.

22. “Jealousy: is not a barometer by Which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the depth of the lover’s insecurity” Margaret Mead Do you agree or disagree? What factors play a role in jealousy?

23. When to get help for relational problems: • Problems with feeling secure in the relationship, lots of mistrust. • Problems with passion. • Problems with commitment.

24. Summary: • One of our biggest challenges in life are relationships and if we haven’t experienced “role-modeling” of healthy relationships it is extremely difficult to have one ourselves. • Finding excellent role-models and communication is KEY! • Take classes in communication!!