Fishbane, Mona DeKoven Relational Narratives of the Self. Family Process, Fall 2001, Vol.

40 Issue 3, p273, 19p Abstract: Focuses on the relational narratives of the self. Exploration of the relational formulations of autonomy, power and connection; Consideration of therapeutic approaches grounded in a relational narrative; Emphasis of individual potential to enter a relationship. RELATIONAL NARRATIVES OF THE SELF The prevailing view of the self in contemporary Western culture is of the autonomous, separate individual. This article considers shifts toward a more relational view in thinking about the self, in developmental psychology and in therapy, especially family therapy. From diverse perspectives this relational narrative of the self is explored, highlighting relational formulations about autonomy, power, and connection/disconnection. Therapeutic approaches that are grounded in a relational narrative are considered. Finally, this article explores, through clinical vignettes, the impact on individuals and their significant others when they shift to a more relational view of the self in their own lives. Faro Proc 40:273-291, 2001 A story is not simply a story.... It acts to create, sustain, or alter worlds of social relationships. K. J. Gergen (1994,p. 247) THE dominant narrative of the self in Western culture is of the autonomous individual. This narrative has deep roots in the Western philosophical tradition. In classical developmental theory, the mature autonomous self is characterized by independence and separation-individuation. This construct of the autonomous person intersects with and is often confused with the American values of individualism and competition the notion of the self-made man. Indeed, autonomy as an American ideal is quintessentially about self-creation and self-determination. By contrast with such individualistic notions, a more relational view of the self has emerged in different fields in recent years. In psychology, human development, and family therapy a relational narrative is being formulated about the nature of the person and of development. The first half of this article examines this theoretical shift, integrating relational theory from disparate fields. In the process, autonomy itself is redefined in relational terms. The second half of the article explores, through clinical vignettes, the implications for persons and their relationships when they move from a traditional autonomy-based narrative of their own sense of self to a more relational narrative. We will look at the lived practical and ethical consequences for individuals when their own self-story becomes more relational. This article is offered in an attempt to thicken our language for relational processes in persons' lives. It builds on established systemic family theory and practice, integrating them with relational developmental theory. STORIES OF THE SELF Myths often condense deep cultural narratives, conveying ethical implications and expectations of personhood in a culture. In a preface to a book on the work of Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, van Kilsdonk (1987) invites us to consider two different myths: the myth of Oedipus the foundation myth of the Freudian story; and the myth of Aeneas a kind of foundation myth for a multigenerational family therapist. The myth of Oedipus is well-known, as is its re-mythification by psychoanalysis. It is (at least in the Freudian reworking), a myth of intergenerational competition and conquest, of passion and loss. By contrast, the myth of Aeneas who flees burning Troy with his wife and young son while carrying his crippled, blind father Anchises on his shoulders can be read as a myth of intergenerational care and loyalty. These two notions of the person pose radically different challenges for the individual, with different expectations of what constitutes normal development. The myth of the separate self is not shared in many other cultures, nor is it the prevailing view in various ethnic sub-cultures in the United States (Falicov, 1998; McGoldrick & Carter, 1999). However, it carries great weight as the dominant narrative in this country, often clashing with or overriding such values as intergenerational loyalty, obligation, or interdependence (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, et al., 1985; Falicov, 1998; Fishbane, 1999; Mirkin, 1998b). Furthermore, it has been the dominant narrative of psychological

experts who have formulated standards of mental health, and influenced approaches to marriage, childrearing, and educational policy. Women and minorities who don't fit the myth of the autonomous separate self have been seen as deficient or pathological (Gilligan, 1982; McGoldrick & Carter, 1999). The traditional narrative of the separate self emphasizes autonomy, independence, separation, power, and competition. Boundaries are seen as crucial in protecting the self from outside intrusions. Mature intimacy and connection can occur in this model only after separation and autonomy have been achieved (Erikson, 1950; Jordan, 1997b). More recently, new narratives of human development have emerged that challenged the separate-self narrative. This more relational view is being applied across the life cycle. The story of the human infant and its trajectory of development has been significantly altered by close observation and research with infants from the first days of life. The work of Daniel Stern (1985) and his colleagues suggests that the traditional model of development from symbiosis to separation/individuation is inaccurate in representing the data. Stem's infant is both more differentiated and more relationally sensitive than the infant of traditional theories. The implications for development are profound. Rather than seeing maturity as a process of moving from total dependence and fusion to independence, Stern and others see maturing as developing greater differentiation within the context of interdependence throughout the life cycle. This more relational view with an emphasis on interdependence at all ages is echoed throughout the human development literature, from Stem's work with infants to studies of adolescents and their families (Mirkin, 1994; Offer & Sabshin, 1984; Weingarten, 1994), to work with adults in intergenerational relationships (Galatzer-Levy & Cohler, 1993; Grunebaum, 1987; McGoldrick, 1995). The contextual theory of Boszormeny-Nagy and colleagues describes a relational self (Boszormenyi-Nagy, Grunebaum, & Ulrich, 1991). In the contextual view, self-delineation is a dialogic process (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991, p. 203). Relational models of women's development (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Jordan, 1997b; and the Stone Center writings in Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, et al., 1991) offer a cogent critique of the separate self tradition. Surrey's (1991) notion of the self-in-relation points to the inherently relational nature of the person. Authenticity (Miller & Stiver, 1997) and clarity in connection (Jordan, 1997a) are emphasized. Authenticity is seen relationally as not only articulating one's own truth, but also as having voice in relationship. The Stone Center authors focus on the dynamics of connection and disconnection in relationships. They address the challenge of balancing connection with self through selfempathy, authenticity, clarity, voice and connection with other. Being true to one's self in this model does not come at the expense of relationship but, rather, occurs in the context of relationship. The Stone Center has been criticized for focusing on individual therapy, and for not being systemic (Lerner, 1988). The approach offered here integrates the Stone Center relational model with family systems and intergenerational theories, in what can be called a relational/systemic orientation. Social constructionists, based in a postmodern perspective, are also challenging the story of the autonomous self. Rather than locating identity and meaning-making within the mind of the individual, they see identity as socially constructed: We live in and through the narrative identities that we develop in conversation with one another (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992, p. 28). Gergen poses a relational view of self-conception, one that views self-conception not as an individual's personal and private cognitive structure but as discourse about the self (Gergen, 1994, p. 185). This discourse takes place between people; the self in this view is a relational self (Gergen, 1991). Freedman and Combs note, we think of a self not as a thing inside an individual, but as a process or activity that occurs in the space between people (1996,p. 34). These articulations of social constructionism echo earlier theorists such as Mead (1964) and Berger and Luckmann (1966), and the dialogical philosophy of Martin Buber (1965), all of whom pose a relational self, socially constructed in conversation and in the between (Buber, 1965) of human interaction. The narrative of the separate self valorizes independence and emphasizes boundaries as self-protective mechanisms. By contrast, the narrative of the relational self emphasizes authenticity and voice in relationship, and sees boundaries as points of meeting or communicating (Jordan, 1997b, p. 16). Stolorow and Atwood, intersubjective psychoanalysts, suggest that the myth of the autonomous self may be an attempt to disavow the exquisite vulnerability of acknowledging our embeddedness with others (1992,p. 22). McGoldrick and Carter (1999) posit that maturity depends on seeing past myths of autonomy and self-

determination (p. 29), and define maturity as self in context (p. 27). Some relational theorists move in a more radical direction, toward giving up on the notion of self altogether. Miller and Stiver (1997) consider self too reified and static a concept, preferring movement or being language. Gergen (1991) critiques self language from a postmodern perspective. These attempts to move beyond self call to mind some early family therapists' disavowal of the individual in favor of the system. In my view, giving up on self language is problematic. I find the language of the relational self which acknowledges an individual's own experience and history, while highlighting relational embeddedness (Gergen, 1991, p. 254) to be more productive. The relational self construct acknowledges a person's distinct identity, while grounding that identity in its relational context. The relational narratives of the self presented here challenge the notion of a separate, autonomous individual. I do not believe, however, that we should discard autonomy altogether. Rather, we can redefine it from a relational perspective or, as Boszormenyi-Nagy, and Spark (1973) suggest, we can use the term relational autonomy. In this view, the clarity (Jordan, 1997a) of one's own perspective is maintained, and a relational emphasis is included as well. Boszormenyi-Nagy and Krasner (1986) offer their own redefinition: The individual's goal of autonomy is inextricably linked to his capacity for relational accountability. In fact, responsibility for the consequences of one's actions on his relational partners may be the true test of autonomy (p. 62). This view of autonomy incorporates a person's ability to be responsible to others, and to take into account relational consequences of one's own actions. As J. Grunebaum puts it, autonomy is measured by the capacity to engage in the give and take of relationships and not by increasing `separation' from family members (1987,p. 650). Relational autonomy includes both clarity about one's own needs and desires, and a readiness for the relational. By readiness for the relational, I mean a willingness to be moved by the other, to see and be seen, to stay connected even through conflict, to hear the other's narrative even while articulating one's own, and to negotiate differences without resorting to power over tactics. Readiness for the relational also entails relational accountability to the other, and an openness to being affected by the other's response (Mirkin, 1998a). The competitive, power over, and zero-sum values traditionally associated with autonomy, are not consonant with this relational definition. This shift to relational autonomy has significant consequences, especially in intimate relationships, as we will consider in the clinical vignettes below. It also has merit in nonintimate contexts, in which one allows for relational moments to emerge in more ordinary transactions with others, and in which a concern for the welfare of the other is maintained. THERAPY: SHIFTS TOWARD THE RELATIONAL Family therapy from its beginnings offered a relational challenge to psychoanalysis, identifying the family system as the focus of interest rather than just the individual. The self in family therapy was considered in its context of relationships. Nevertheless, many systemic thinkers maintained the notion of a separate self, emphasizing separation/individuation and independence. Furthermore, as Hoffman (1985) and others have noted, many early family therapists were highly strategic and manipulative in their work, separating themselves from the families they were treating, and maintaining a hierarchical position of power with the family. Concurrent with a more relational view of human development, and with the advent of postmodernism and feminism, psychotherapy in general and family therapy in particular have become more collaborative and less hierarchical. In the shift toward second-order cybernetics, the notion of objective, distanced knowledge was questioned. In its place, a philosophy of respect, curiosity, and co-creation of therapeutic realities between therapist and family has evolved. Therapy is seen as collaborative rather than hierarchical, and change as co-evolution between client/s and therapist. This shift in the field draws upon those schools of family systems therapy which have emphasized relational resources and potential competence and care within the family (Doherty, 1995; Grunebaum, 1987, 1990; Johnson, 1996; Karpel, 1986; McGoldrick, 1995; Rolland, 1994; Schwartz, 1995; Walsh, 1998). Narrative family therapy approaches, informed by postmodernism, focus on opening a dialogue with and within the family rather than fixing the problematic family (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992; Freedman & Combs, 1996; White, 1995). A demystification of both the therapist and the process of therapy is encouraged (White, 1995). Multigenerational family therapists have developed a highly relational view of the self. These theorists (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991; Bowen, 1978; Framo, 1981; Grunebaum, 1987; Lerner, 1985; McGoldrick, 1995; Walsh, 1998; among others) consider the individual within his or her multigenerational relational context. The contextual approach of Boszormenyi-Nagy and colleagues focuses on issues of

loyalty between the generations, and on the ethical balance of give and take between persons in a family. This theory contends that persons are not free to create themselves by rejecting their roots or their parents. In this view, there is no self-made man; the self is co-constructed in a context, especially the family of origin, within the larger context of the culture. One cannot escape or deny these contexts. According to contextual theory, if one attempts to create the self at the expense of loyalty to family of origin, for example, by disconnecting or cutting off from parents, this may result in a false autonomy; the person might then become mired in invisible loyalty (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973). Invisible loyalty entails an unacknowledged tie to parents, manifested in self-defeating or destructive behavior in one's own life, which replicates a negative aspect of the original parent-child relationship. A tenet of contextual therapy is that growth or transformation of self entails growth in relationship to family of origin. Seeking and developing resources of trustworthiness (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Ulrich, 1981) in the family are central to this process. Therapists working with Bowen's model highlight the development of the differentiated individual, who is able to reconnect with family of origin in a nonreactive mode. Bowen has been critiqued by some feminists for overemphasizing autonomy, rationality, and independence traits traditionally associated with males (Hare-Mustin, 1978; Luepnitz, 1988). Some of the clinical and personal anecdotes that focus on detriangling especially in the early literature seem to privilege autonomy and separation from the family morass. More recent Bowen theory, especially reformulated by women therapists (Carter & McGoldrick, 1999; Lerner, 1985; McGoldrick, 1995; Walsh, 1998) uses the language of connection and interdependence, suggesting a more relational view of differentiation. Indeed, McGoldrick and Carter (1999) emphasize that differentiation should not be confused with disconnection. In the telling of differentiation-of-self journeys, the I is often highlighted; the self makes forays into the family of origin, attempting to be nonreactive, to reconnect, and to challenge old rules. However, in fact this work often takes place in a relational context, of coaching with a therapist or a family-of-origin consultation or training group. The differentiation process is inherently relational; this is not a solo journey. As we have noted, the relational discourse about one's identity is a crucial factor in that identity. In the differentiation process, the individual is frequently consulting with his or her chorus of advisors (Fishbane, 1998). This may include friends, spouse or partner, therapist, or a family-of-origin consultation group. It may also include siblings, parents, and other relatives. In a relational intergenerational approach, the renegotiating with family of origin is accomplished collaboratively, with a focus on mutuality of care and respect. The emphasis is on finding and nurturing resources within the family. Developing an authentic way to connect with family of origin is key. In this view, to borrow from Goodrich's depiction of women's development, differentiation is seen to be an aspect of connectedness, not an opposing force (1991,p. 21). I would suggest that we use the language of differentiation with rather than differentiation from family of origin. This formulation combines a relational with a Bowen perspective, and implies a more collaborative approach between the individual and family. This integration is based on the relational definition of autonomy discussed above. This more relational view of differentiation is consonant with more recent Bowen theory. Differentiation with one's family of origin is perhaps never finally achieved or finished. It is a continually evolving process, changing with the different demands of life stages throughout the family life cycle. Change in therapy is itself a relational process. Psychotherapy research has shown that a key factor in therapeutic change across all modalities and schools is the relationship between therapist and client (Orlinsky, Grawe, & Parks, 1994). Intersubjective processes of knowing and being known are central in relational therapy. As a client comments to Jordan (1997a, p. 53), I connect with myself through connecting with you. I know myself partly through your knowing reef The witnessing of the therapist is an important factor in the change process. This witnessing is complex, and includes the readiness of the therapist to be moved by the client, at times in ways that may challenge the therapist deeply (Buber, 1957; Fishbane, 1998; Miller & Stiver, 1994). The witnessing of the client by the therapist, and the witnessing by significant others in the client's life, are crucial factors in the change process (Fishbane, 1998). White and Epston (1992) suggest that clients [recruit] audiences for the authentication of change (p. 16). The relational narrative of change addresses the intersubjective nature of the process both between client and therapist, and between client and significant others in his or her world. A RELATIONAL VIEW OF POWER Competition and power over another are frequently intertwined with the narrative of the autonomous

self. In a relational view of persons, power is reconsidered as well. Power differences do indeed exist in our power over culture, often at the expense of women, minorities, and the poor. Naming and challenging these power imbalances and abuses of power is crucial in counteracting patriarchal and other violative practices (Hare-Mustin, 1978; Jenkins, 1990; Luepnitz, 1988; Walsh & Scheinkman, 1989). While acknowledging and working to change these power differences and abuses of power, relational and feminist theorists are also challenging the power over model with a power to (Goodrich, 1991; Surrey, 1991) or power with/mutual empowerment (Surrey, 1991) model, especially in interpersonal relationships. The power over model is based in a competitive, zero-sum game worldview, in which another's gain is my loss. Many individuals bring this approach to their intimate relationships, often with disastrous results. Bergman (1991) points out that this focus on competition and self-over-other is particularly characteristic of men socialized in Western culture. By contrast with the power over model, the power to model focuses on the personal authorship of the individual in his or her own life (White, 1989). This process is more accurately described as coauthorship (Freedman & Combs, 1996) or co-construction by the individual, and his or her context of embeddedness, particularly family of origin, spouse or partner, friends and culture. The power to view emphasizes personal empowerment, not necessarily at the expense of other. We will consider below the lived implications in intimate relationships when one holds the power over or the power to position with another. In the power to view of the relational narrative, autonomy and power rest on one being responsible and responsive rather than reactive or defensive (Jordan, 1995a). Individuals coming to therapy often complain that they are victims in their own lives, and perceive others as having power over them. Some yield power to the other, becoming overcompliant or exploited. Others assert a kind of false autonomy by rejecting and blaming significant others in their world, seeking to carve out a sense of empowerment for themselves. Autonomy as we are defining it here, however, entails a readiness for the relational, an ability to hold one's ground non-reactively while being open to the claim of the other. It also involves a concern for the relationship itself (Mirkin, 1998a). In therapy, clients have the opportunity to explore and develop their own relational autonomy, their own ability to make a claim while being open to the other's claim. These experiments in relational autonomy are only safe, however, if at the same time power over interactions are named and challenged. A power over reaction may be triggered in the face of conflict with another. As J. Grunebaum puts it, power tactics are viewed [in the contextual approach] as a statement of despair about the possibilities of trust and trustworthiness (1987,p. 654). Conflict often provokes power over moves as well as a tendency to disconnect or withdraw. Both of these responses arise from a sense of conflict as threat, and both responses interfere with the flow of relational connection. One of the challenges in the relational model is to find ways to stay connected in the face of conflict (Bergman & Surrey, 1992), to face differences respectfully. Frequently at the heart of a conflictual moment is a need or desire to have an impact on another, to speak and be heard, to make a difference to the other. The ability to have voice in relationships (Olson, 1995) is a key aspect of power. Relational power also includes the ability to move the relationship out of a state of disconnection and back into connection (Stiver, 1995), to be able to have an impact on the flow of the relationship itself. Struggles over meaning in interpersonal relationships may become power over interactions. The ability to name one's experience is a central aspect of personal empowerment. Couples in conflict often fight over competing narratives, each trying to assert the right to define and describe the couple's reality. A mutual empowerment or power with model encourages the couple to hold multiple realities, and to make space for each partner's experience in the relationship. Proposing a shift from power over to power to or power with in relationships is not simple. In marriage, such a move could ignore the reality of the husband's comparative power vis-a-vis the wife his greater physical and economic power, for example, or the danger of physical violence. Mutual empowerment must take fully into account real power differences, based in our patriarchal culture. Otherwise, power with simply replicates women placating men, and power differences are rendered invisible. Indeed, a move to power with requires a shift to greater reciprocity and equality in a relationship. Power over interactions are apparent both in high conflict relationships where each battles for control, and in asymmetrical, nonconflictual relationships in which one partner dominates the other. Committing to a power with perspective necessitates sharing power and control equitably. It also entails

acknowledging and dealing with power differences and power over interactions as they arise. The therapist has a crucial role in naming these power over dynamics, and helping clients address them in a safe therapeutic context. CLINICAL APPLICATIONS The theoretical shift to a more relational view of the self described above provides rich potential in the clinical realm. Clients, raised in a culture that prizes autonomy and competition, may bring these values and assumptions to their own personal relationships. The myth of rugged individualism is often confused with healthy autonomy. Family conflicts between spouses, siblings, or parent and child tend to be viewed by those involved in terms of competing interests or power struggles. The win/lose mentality so pervasive in the dominant culture affects the most intimate of family relationships as well. The therapy context provides an opportunity to rethink these cultural assumptions. Relationally oriented therapy encourages clients to identify their own narrative of self and others, and to take responsibility for that narrative. As clients describe difficulties in their relationships with significant others, the therapist can facilitate empathy and curiosity about the other's experience as well as the client's. Openness to the other and to the other's narrative is reframed as a healthy relational skill rather than as a sign of weakness. The relational therapist can consider with clients the impact that competition and zero-sum game thinking have on their relational lives. Clients are often responsive to discussions that highlight relational potential in their connections with others, a process similar to looking for resources of trustworthiness in families (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Ulrich, 1981). An interaction that might have been perceived in win/lose terms, or as an infringement on personal autonomy, may be refrained in more relational terms. For example, an adult male client experiences his mother's worry about him as infantilizing, an infringement on his autonomy and his boundaries. When we consider together specific interactions with his mother from a relational perspective including an appreciation of his mother's history he begins to see her worry as a loving, albeit extreme expression of her care for him. Our work helps him articulate his concerns to his mother and set limits with her respectfully, in a way that honors the relational resources between mother and son. The shift to a relational perspective affords the adult son more flexibility and creative options with his mother; he is no longer trapped in the bind that either she wins or he wins. Furthermore, the son, in acknowledging his mother's history and her own narrative about her life, develops greater interpersonal awareness. The ability to hold the other's narrative with respect is itself an important relational skill, and allows one to connect with the other in new ways. The son also begins to reconsider some of his gender assumptions that a man must be completely independent, and that being cared for by mother is a sign of weakness. He comes to a more interdependent view of the mother-son relationship and of his own development as a man. We now explore first with couples, then with intergenerational relationships the possibilities in therapy of helping clients move from a narrowly autonomous view of self to a more relational view. In the process, issues of power, conflict, connection, and disconnection are re-considered from a relational perspective. In this author's experience, such a shift allows development of greater personal for the empowerment, thoughtfulness, and generosity in clients' relational lives. Relational Resources in Couples Therapy Couples in conflict frequently describe their struggles in win/lose, power over terms. Each feels like a victim, blaming the other for the troubles in the relationship. Seeing things from the other's perspective can feel like a threat to oneself and to one's own power. Differences may feel dangerous rather than an opportunity for dialogue and clarification. Moments of disconnection can be devastating if they are taken as personal rejection rather than as part of the inevitable flow in a relationship. Holding a relational view of self and of the relationship allows partners to face conflict and disconnection in a more centered way. Reframing conflict and disconnection as normal parts of the flow of a relationship is reassuring to couples, especially if partners learn how to find their way back to each other. John Gottman's (1999) research is instructive here. He finds that couples in good marriages may have plenty of conflict; and that they are adept at giving and receiving repair attempts, or ways to reconnect. Such couples have developed a view of the We (Bergman & Surrey, 1992; Buber, 1965; Fishbane, 1998; Gottman & Levenson, 1999), an ability to hold the relationship itself as an entity to be nurtured. We now consider some of the relational challenges for couples, specifically around connection, disconnection, and

conflict, and ways to work with these issues in therapy. Dynamics of Connection and Disconnection Staying connected in the face of the inevitable disappointments and hurts of a close relationship is often difficult. It is in the nature of human relationships that they do not rest in a steady state of connection. Persons oscillate between connection and disconnection. While temporary states of disconnection are to be expected and are not inherently destructive, a chronic sense of disconnection can be devastating: In a relational model of psychological development, disconnection from others is viewed as one of the primary sources of human suffering. Similarly, disconnection from oneself ... creates distress, inauthenticity, and ... isolation (Jordan, 1995a, p. 1). Jack (1991) notes that women frequently feel they have to choose between taking care of other or of self. Because they are socialized to value connection above all else, women often disconnect from self in order to connect with other. Of course such a connection is by definition flawed, and such a relationship can result in chronic anger, exhaustion, or depression. Miller & Stiver (1991,p. 2) describe a relational paradox: In our deep desire to make connection, we keep large parts of ourselves out of connection. The fear is that if one brought oneself fully into relationship, including hidden or shameful parts, one would lose the connection with the other. Maintaining connection with both self and other is a key challenge in intimate relationships. This challenge is at the heart of much of my own clinical work. In couples therapy I often coach partners to make a relational claim, to have a voice in the relationship. This entails speaking one's own needs and holding the good of the relationship and of the other at the same time. This is a complex relational skill, much more difficult than the win/lose game with which couples often begin therapy. Some clients lose their relational nerve when they feel disconfirmed or discounted by their partner. They tend to lose their voice when the other is dismissive. Voice is a relational process; Jordan (1995b) notes that voice implies listening; when I'm with someone who doesn't listen, I lose my clarity of voice. When persons are thus silenced or silence themselves, their grievances go underground. They may adapt and go along, arranging themselves around the partner. A large part of one's own experience is thus kept out of connection. When one finally does give voice to feelings or needs, it is likely to be in the context of a boiling over of anger and resentment. In coaching clients to make a relational claim, I encourage them to keep current with their experience, and to communicate it clearly and respectfully to the partner. At the same time, I help the partner to be open to the other's relational claim, as well as to articulate their own experience. Couples learn to see these discussions as opportunities for mutual empowerment rather than as power over struggles. As they make this relational shift, it becomes safer for each to maintain connection with the other. It is helpful for relational partners to contextualize moments of mismeeting within the larger frame of their connection with each other. They can develop techniques to recognize the breaks in connection, and to reconnect around this recognition. Even saying to another, I feel angry with you or I want to pull away from you can be a force for connection. As Johnson has noted, to articulate that one is numb is often the first step away from numbness and towards connection with the partner (1996,p. 42). Sharing one's experience even of disconnection can strengthen the bonds of relationship. Johnson's (1996) work with couples focuses on deepening these bonds, helping the couple to develop a safe, intimate attachment. Experiencing moments of disconnection or conflict without becoming inauthentic, disconnected from self, intimidating or blaming of other, is a major interpersonal challenge. A relational view of conflict, in which conflict is included as part of connection, in which anger is a relational event, can transform difficult moments in a relationship. But the notion that anger is a relational event can be experienced very differently for men and for women. As Gottman (1999) has noted, men are often flooded emotionally and physically when women bring up conflictual issues. The response is often shutting down or escalation. Anger is a Relational Event The first clinical vignette of the impact of narratives of the self on the lives of per-sons, revolves around a marital scene.[1] A couple is driving in the car to a concert. The wife thinks to herself, Here we are alone; I can finally talk about my frustration with my husband; I really want him to understand how I'm feeling. She begins to spell out for him why she was upset earlier in the week when he criticized her talking on the phone with her friend. As she speaks, she becomes animated and intense. She is bent on making him understand her frustration. The husband hears his wife's intensity and thinks to himself, Why is she screaming at me? He begins to feel emotionally flooded and frightened of conflict. He asks her why

she is ruining a perfectly good evening with a fight. She feels misunderstood and criticized; she becomes angry, feeling that once again he won't listen. The fight escalates. The husband feels endangered; once again he is with an angry, shrieking woman, just like his mother. His only option, as he sees it, is to shut down the conversation, to disconnect. They arrive at the concert angry, disheartened, and thoroughly disconnected. This couple's conversation, their mismeeting (Buber, 1973), reflects their different relational images (Miller & Stiver, 1997) and internal narratives. Their narratives are based on their experiences in their families of origin and other social experiences, as well as in their different gender training. The woman has been processing her feelings and the feelings of her friends since she was a young girl. She has fought with her friends and her mother, and learned to work out the differences. She is comfortable with conflict as a part of connection. If she is troubled by something, she is soothed by talking about it, preferably with the person involved. The man, meanwhile, has learned that crying is unmanly, that he should be tough and not wallow in the world of feelings. When his mother was angry with him as a boy, he learned to tune her out much as his father did; he applies this same survival strategy to his wife when she is angry with him. He is also informed by a sense of entitlement; as both a first-born and a male, he is most comfortable when he is in charge, and he is threatened by his wife's emotional assertion of her own agenda. Conflict for this couple leads to a big disconnection. They are caught in a power over struggle, each blocking out the experience of the other. In this process, each partner relates to self as subject, and to the other as object; movement and narrative possibility have been frozen (Mirkin & Geib, 1995, p. 3). Such moments of impasse can lead to relational despair for the couple. But a moment of mismeeting can be genuinely transformative when each comes to understand the other's feelings and experience in the mismeeting. This couple's impasse is rooted in their separate beliefs, which we explore in couple therapy. For example, the wife's assumption is that if you love someone, you bring your pain and anger to that person and you process it together. She is unaware of her husband's belief that anger is dangerous, and that an angry woman is particularly frightening. He is similarly unaware of her beliefs. In working with this couple, I help them to articulate these beliefs, and to identify the cultural gender training that underlies them. I encourage each partner to become curious about the other's experience. I help them take responsibility for their own narrative, to see themselves as meaning-makers. I also help them articulate and reconsider their narratives about the other (he's controlling and uninterested in me; she's always angry). I help them shift from dueling realities to multiple realities (Anderson, 1997, p. 74). This process of deconstructing the impasse (Fishbane & Scheinkman, 1996) often yields a deeper understanding of the other's experience, and can lead to greater intimacy in the couple. We also work to build a shared narrative about their relationship, articulating goals and vision together. In our work they begin to shift from holding two autonomous self-narratives in which each feels victimized and endangered by the other, to a shared relational narrative in which the good of the one can coexist with and facilitate the good of the other a narrative of the We. They shift from two linear experiences of victimization to a systemic, circular view. They come to see the destructive cycle, rather than the other partner or their own failings, as the enemy (Johnson, 1996, p. 55). The shift from blame and shame to mutual responsibility is a crucial part of the change process: There is ... relief in being able to acknowledge responsibility in a context where this does not incur a sense of shame or deficiency (Johnson, 1996, p. 102). In this new narrative, both are experienced as subjects. In this context, each experiences their own autonomy (in Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner's sense) while making room for the autonomy of the other, what Buber calls the elemental otherness of the other (Buber, 1965, p. 69). Inherent in the relational approach is an ethical concern for the well-being of the other (Doherty, 1995). After they shift to a more relational view, conflict still exists in the couple; but they have confidence that they can learn from their differences, that both will be heard. As Buber puts it, I affirm the person I struggle with (Buber, 1965, p. 79). The couple comes to see anger as a resource to improve connection, instead of as a danger (Miller & Surrey, 1997, pp. 203 & 202). I coach the wife to use a softer startup (Gottman, 1999) when she brings her concerns or complaints to her husband, which makes him feel less threatened. The danger in this advice is that it can replicate women placating men, and muting their own voices in the process. I make it clear that the softer startup is a tool to insure that the wife is indeed heard and taken seriously by the husband not a technique to keep her in her place or silence her. Correspondingly, I work with the husband to listen to his

wife, challenging his sense of entitlement and control, opening a space for shared power. I encourage the husband to be more receptive to his wife's influence, citing Gottman's (1999) finding that men in good marriages have this ability. Gottman's work is a valuable resource in helping couples develop relational skills, especially around conflict. In their old dance, when the wife raised issues or was critical, the husband felt defensive and tried to get her to stop. The wife felt chronically resentful over being shut down by him; her resentment then carried over into the next interaction, which in turn stimulated his defensiveness. In the new dance, the husband is more open to her concerns, which the wife conveys with less resentment. While angry moments still occur, they become relational events to be processed jointly, rather than expressions of chronic dissatisfaction or disconnection. The couple's new relational narrative includes difference and conflict as opportunity rather than as a threat. They have learned to face their differences as a team. In the process they are challenging power over dynamics in their relationship. I encourage the couple to enlarge their sense of empathy for each other. They experience empathy as safe when each can hold his or her experience while trying to understand the other's experience at the same time. This is possible only if each partner has secure boundaries and feels he or she will not be lost while attending to the other. As noted above, in a relational view, boundaries are seen as points of meeting between self and other, not just as self-protection from other. If a couple is stuck in a competitive or 'power over mode of relating, in which one's autonomy is threatened by the reality or claims of the other, if they engage in a power struggle over whose reality is true or more valued, then empathy is impossible. Empathy is further hindered by blame and defensiveness. When one is stuck in a blame mode, there is no way to connect with the other in dialogue, as an I to a Thou (Buber, 1970). A relational approach to therapy entails helping clients to challenge their own blaming, victim position, and to become interested in the other's experience from a position of empathy. In this process each learns to speak his or her own reality in a manner that invites the empathy of the other (Fishbane, 1998). Empathy in this view entails moving from subject-object relating to subject-subject relating (Jordan, 1997c, p. 144). Each learns to make a relational claim while staying connected with the other. In this process, not only is the relationship transformed; the self is as well. As Johnson notes, rigid constricted interpersonal cycles narrow down the experience, presentation, and enactment of self. When these cycles are expanded, the sense of self also expands (1996,p. 166). Intergenerational Relational Challenges The shift to a relational narrative of the self is particularly poignant in the context of intergenerational relationships. Moving to a position of relational autonomy, and of power with/power to rather than power over, facilitates the possibility of mutually respectful intergenerational connection. We consider now two examples of persons struggling with such a shift: A father with his young son, and a woman with her elderly mother. A man reports the following experience with his 6-year-old son. The boy, piqued at his father, says, I hate you, Daddy! The father is hurt and threatened by the boy's comment, and counters defensively and angrily. The boy runs to his room, and ultimately to his mother. The father feels further shut out of the close bond between his son and his wife, and father and son are trapped in mutual distrust and disconnection. As I sit with the parents in therapy, I explore the relational possibilities. I ask the father, Have you considered saying to your son when he says `I hate you,' `That hurts my feelings, but I want to understand your feelings better. Why are you so angry with me?' The father is intrigued. Not only had he not considered such a response, he had assumed that when attacked, the appropriate response is self-defense. He was approaching the relationship with his son from a power over model; he felt his son's fury as dangerous and disempowering, and he re-asserted his position through his own angry retort. The notion that he could welcome his son's anger into the relationship, that he could make anger a constructive relational event, was a revelation. He had been trained by his own father, by the culture, and by the practice of law to deal with others competitively and in a power over mode, especially in the face of conflict. We explored the notion of conflict in connection, of discussing his son's anger and his own with empathy, and valuing it as an important part of their relationship. We explored as well the father's sense that he knew why his son preferred the mother ideas such as kids are always more attached to mothers and it's the Oedipal connection. My question encouraged the father to take a position of not knowing (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992), to ask his son, and so open a dialogue with him. The father would allow himself in this position to be affected by his son, to be open to his son's meaning-making. He would be

ready to be surprised by his son (Friedman, 1965). The father did indeed go home and tried his new relational skill with his son. He reported at the next session that he had responded in a more empathic, curious manner to his son's anger, with positive results. The boy became less guarded and hostile with his father, and their relationship became less stagnant, more fluid, and more trustworthy for both (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991). The changes between father and son were anchored by our working as well on the couple's dynamics, structural issues in the family, and multigenerational issues that informed the childrearing assumptions of both parents. For our purposes I am highlighting a powerful moment of choice for the father, in which he shifted to a more relational narrative of his relationship with his son, and developed greater relational competence (Surrey, 1991) as well. In doing so he also taught his son relational competence, fostering his son's emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995). In this work, the parent-child hierarchy was maintained: the father still had parental authority and responsibility. But the father learned to use his authority to foster relational resources with his son, and to deal with conflict in a manner that invites dialogue rather than competition or rejection. In the process, the father-son relationship became closer and more open because it was less dominated by patriarchal, power over dynamics. This relational shift is likely to affect the son's own definition of manhood and fatherhood as he grows up. The final vignette involves a 45-year-old woman with her 70-year-old widowed mother. The daughter is stuck in chronic resentment at her mother for being self-absorbed and critical. The daughter is thrown every time her mother disappoints her by being unempathic or ungenerous. I consider with the daughter how she is caught in a victim mode with her mother, and in a hierarchical, power over relationship. The daughter is still under the spell of childhood (Fishbane, 1998), still hoping that her mother will one day give her what she needs, still powerless to change the relationship or her life. The daughter is caught in a victim, resentment mode in other relationships in her life as well, repeatedly replicating the stuck relationship with her mother in all relationships. Like her mother, she has become self-absorbed, ungenerous, and critical an expression of invisible loyalty (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973), a negative, self-destructive tie to her mother. She is constantly vigilant for slights from and imperfections in her mother, and is exhausted whenever she spends time with her mother. Prior individual therapists, working with a traditional autonomy narrative, had recommended that she grieve the relationship with her mother and move on, even that she curtail the relationship to a minimum, since it is so toxic to her. By contrast, a relational, multigenerational approach encourages the daughter to invite her mother to a reworking of their relationship in which both can benefit. This invitation is offered not in a critical, angry tone, which would surely result in mother's defensiveness and counterattack. Rather, it is offered in a respectful manner. I call this the loving update; it involves inviting the parent to a more mutually respectful, trustworthy relationship in which both parent and child can bring their concerns and more of their experience into the relationship. It also involves inviting parents to witness the changes in the adult child. In the process, mother and daughter develop a new, shared narrative of their relationship, in which each can be a subject. As preparation for the loving update, the work entails helping the daughter understand her mother as a real person with her own story, to accept and perhaps to forgive her (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991; Framo, 1981; Hargrave, 1994; McGoldrick, 1995; Walsh, 1998). In the process, she shifts from a hierarchical view of her mother to a generational view (Fishbane, 1998, 1999), in which she sees her mother as having once been a child herself, a link in the chain of generations of which the daughter is herself a part. We consider how the daughter would like her relationship with her mother to work including the daughter setting goals and honoring her own boundaries and needs. In this I am encouraging her to become the author (White, 1989) of her own life and of the relationship with her mother, rather than the victim. Actually, she will be the co-author with her mother of their relationship, as they create a new shared narrative together. In this new story it is unlikely that the mother suddenly is transformed into the generous, attentive person the daughter desires. Indeed, changing mother is not the goal; it is rather the daughter changing her own stance in the relationship (Bowen, 1978). Part of our work entails anticipating the mother's reactions, including her resisting change (Lerner, 1985), and planning a calm, centered response on the part of the daughter. In this process, the daughter shifts from a power over mode with her mother to one of personal empowerment. She can find ways to set rules of engagement that feel safe. Her new view of autonomy includes the ability to see her own part in the relational morass with her mother, and to take

responsibility for that part. It also involves the readiness, the openness, to learn about her mother's experience, to see her mother as subject, and to be moved by her mother. This view of autonomy incorporates a readiness for the relational. Unlike her earlier therapies, which fostered separation and distance from the mother, a relational intergenerational approach encourages differentiation of self in contact with mother. As noted above, in this relational multigenerational approach, differentiation with or within the family of origin is a more appropriate term than differentiation from the family of origin. Differentiation with her mother emphasizes the dialogical, relational nature of the work. After our careful preparation, when the daughter invites her mother to a loving update of their relationship, my client is pleasantly surprised. Her mother is not only nondefensive, she is relieved to be finally included in a positive way in her adult daughter's life. She responds to the invitation with maternal gusto, eager to help her daughter and to be relationally relevant to her. The mother also tells more of her own life story, which allows the daughter to appreciate the mother's struggles and courage in the face of her own difficult journey. After the update, mother and daughter continue to have differences and conflict; but they now have a frame of reference that holds the relational needs of both. As the daughter relinquishes her burden of resentment and criticism of her mother, she becomes more energized and flexible in her other relationships as well. She is no longer living with invisible loyalty, having developed more constructive loyalty ties to her mother. The daughter has learned how to be personally empowered while staying in connection with her mother; she has found her way to relational autonomy. In her new, less constraining narrative, being in connection with her mother is not threatening to her autonomy and sense of self. She is able to hold her own intergenerationally. For her part, the mother, feeling less criticized and rejected by her daughter, becomes less critical and harsh herself as she relaxes more in the relationship. Not all parents are able to respond as generously to the loving update invitation, and in cases of ongoing abuse or danger such an invitation to a better connection with parents may not be safe or realistic. In such situations, the work would focus on the adult child coming to understand the parent's own history and limitations. In my experience, however, many clients who consider their t with another. As J. Grunebaum puts it, power tactics are viewed [in the contextual approach] as a statement of despair about the possibilities of trust and trustworthiness (1987,p. 654). Conflict often provokes power over moves as well as a tendency to disconnect or withdraw. Both of these responses arise from a sense of conflict as threat, and both responses interfere with the flow of relational connection. One of the challenges in the relational model is to find ways to stay connected in the face of conflict (Bergman & Surrey, 1992), to face differences respectfully. Frequently at the heart of a conflictual moment is a need or desire to have an impact on another, to speak and be heard, to make a difference to the other. The ability to have voice in relationships (Olson, 1995) is a key aspect of power. Relational power also includes the ability to move the relationship out of a state of disconnection and back into connection (Stiver, 1995), to be able to have an impact on the flow of the relationship itself. Struggles over meaning in interpersonal relationships may become power over interactions. The ability to name one's experience is a central aspect of personal empowerment. Couples in conflict often fight over competing narratives, each trying to assert the right to define and describe the couple's reality. A mutual empowerment or power with model encourages the couple to hold multiple realities, and to make space for each partner's experience in the relationship. Proposing a shift from power over to power to or power with in relationships is not simple. In marriage, such a move could ignore the reality of the husband's comparative power vis-a-vis the wife his greater physical and economic power, for example, or the danger of physical violence. Mutual empowerment must take fully into account real power differences, based in our patriarchal culture. Otherwise, power with simply replicates women placating men, and power differences are rendered invisible. Indeed, a move to power with requires a shift to greater reciprocity and equality in a relationship. Power over interactions are apparent both in high conflict relationships where each battles for control, and in asymmetrical, nonconflictual relationships in which one partner dominates the other. Committing to a power with perspective necessitates sharing power and control equitably. It also entails acknowledging and dealing with power differences and power over interactions as they arise. The therapist has a crucial role in naming these power over dynamics, and helping clients address them in a safe therapeutic context. CLINICAL APPLICATIONS

The theoretical shift to a more relational view of the self described above provides rich potential in the clinical realm. Clients, raised in a culture that prizes autonomy and competition, may bring these values and assumptions to their own personal relationships. The myth of rugged individualism is often confused with healthy autonomy. Family conflicts between spouses, siblings, or parent and child tend to be viewed by those involved in terms of competing interests or power struggles. The win/lose mentality so pervasive in the dominant culture affects the most intimate of family relationships as well. The therapy context provides an opportunity to rethink these cultural assumptions. Relationally oriented therapy encourages clients to identify their own narrative of self and others, and to take responsibility for that narrative. As clients describe difficulties in their relationships with significant others, the therapist can facilitate empathy and curiosity about the other's experience as well as the client's. Openness to the other and to the other's narrative is reframed as a healthy relational skill rather than as a sign of weakness. The relational therapist can consider with clients the impact that competition and zero-sum game thinking have on their relational lives. Clients are often responsive to discussions that highlight relational potential in their connections with others, a process similar to looking for resources of trustworthiness in families (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Ulrich, 1981). An interaction that might have been perceived in win/lose terms, or as an infringement on personal autonomy, may be refrained in more relational terms. For example, an adult male client experiences his mother's worry about him as infantilizing, an infringement on his autonomy and his boundaries. When we consider together specific interactions with his mother from a relational perspective including an appreciation of his mother's history he begins to see her worry as a loving, albeit extreme expression of her care for him. Our work helps him articulate his concerns to his mother and set limits with her respectfully, in a way that honors the relational resources between mother and son. The shift to a relational perspective affords the adult son more flexibility and creative options with his mother; he is no longer trapped in the bind that either she wins or he wins. Furthermore, the son, in acknowledging his mother's history and her own narrative about her life, develops greater interpersonal awareness. The ability to hold the other's narrative with respect is itself an important relational skill, and allows one to connect with the other in new ways. The son also begins to reconsider some of his gender assumptions that a man must be completely independent, and that being cared for by mother is a sign of weakness. He comes to a more interdependent view of the mother-son relationship and of his own development as a man. We now explore first with couples, then with intergenerational relationships the possibilities in therapy of helping clients move from a narrowly autonomous view of self to a more relational view. In the process, issues of power, conflict, connection, and disconnection are re-considered from a relational perspective. In this author's experience, such a shift allows development of greater personal for the empowerment, thoughtfulness, and generosity in clients' relational lives. Relational Resources in Couples Therapy Couples in conflict frequently describe their struggles in win/lose, power over terms. Each feels like a victim, blaming the other for the troubles in the relationship. Seeing things from the other's perspective can feel like a threat to oneself and to one's own power. Differences may feel dangerous rather than an opportunity for dialogue and clarification. Moments of disconnection can be devastating if they are taken as personal rejection rather than as part of the inevitable flow in a relationship. Holding a relational view of self and of the relationship allows partners to face conflict and disconnection in a more centered way. Reframing conflict and disconnection as normal parts of the flow of a relationship is reassuring to couples, especially if partners learn how to find their way back to each other. John Gottman's (1999) research is instructive here. He finds that couples in good marriages may have plenty of conflict; and that they are adept at giving and receiving repair attempts, or ways to reconnect. Such couples have developed a view of the We (Bergman & Surrey, 1992; Buber, 1965; Fishbane, 1998; Gottman & Levenson, 1999), an ability to hold the relationship itself as an entity to be nurtured. We now consider some of the relational challenges for couples, specifically around connection, disconnection, and conflict, and ways to work with these issues in therapy. Dynamics of Connection and Disconnection Staying connected in the face of the inevitable disappointments and hurts of a close relationship is often difficult. It is in the nature of human relationships that they do not rest in a steady state of connection.

Persons oscillate between connection and disconnection. While temporary states of disconnection are to be expected and are not inherently destructive, a chronic sense of disconnection can be devastating: In a relational model of psychological development, disconnection from others is viewed as one of the primary sources of human suffering. Similarly, disconnection from oneself ... creates distress, inauthenticity, and ... isolation (Jordan, 1995a, p. 1). Jack (1991) notes that women frequently feel they have to choose between taking care of other or of self. Because they are socialized to value connection above all else, women often disconnect from self in order to connect with other. Of course such a connection is by definition flawed, and such a relationship can result in chronic anger, exhaustion, or depression. Miller & Stiver (1991,p. 2) describe a relational paradox: In our deep desire to make connection, we keep large parts of ourselves out of connection. The fear is that if one brought oneself fully into relationship, including hidden or shameful parts, one would lose the connection with the other. Maintaining connection with both self and other is a key challenge in intimate relationships. This challenge is at the heart of much of my own clinical work. In couples therapy I often coach partners to make a relational claim, to have a voice in the relationship. This entails speaking one's own needs and holding the good of the relationship and of the other at the same time. This is a complex relational skill, much more difficult than the win/lose game with which couples often begin therapy. Some clients lose their relational nerve when they feel disconfirmed or discounted by their partner. They tend to lose their voice when the other is dismissive. Voice is a relational process; Jordan (1995b) notes that voice implies listening; when I'm with someone who doesn't listen, I lose my clarity of voice. When persons are thus silenced or silence themselves, their grievances go underground. They may adapt and go along, arranging themselves around the partner. A large part of one's own experience is thus kept out of connection. When one finally does give voice to feelings or needs, it is likely to be in the context of a boiling over of anger and resentment. In coaching clients to make a relational claim, I encourage them to keep current with their experience, and to communicate it clearly and respectfully to the partner. At the same time, I help the partner to be open to the other's relational claim, as well as to articulate their own experience. Couples learn to see these discussions as opportunities for mutual empowerment rather than as power over struggles. As they make this relational shift, it becomes safer for each to maintain connection with the other. It is helpful for relational partners to contextualize moments of mismeeting within the larger frame of their connection with each other. They can develop techniques to recognize the breaks in connection, and to reconnect around this recognition. Even saying to another, I feel angry with you or I want to pull away from you can be a force for connection. As Johnson has noted, to articulate that one is numb is often the first step away from numbness and towards connection with the partner (1996,p. 42). Sharing one's experience even of disconnection can strengthen the bonds of relationship. Johnson's (1996) work with couples focuses on deepening these bonds, helping the couple to develop a safe, intimate attachment. Experiencing moments of disconnection or conflict without becoming inauthentic, disconnected from self, intimidating or blaming of other, is a major interpersonal challenge. A relational view of conflict, in which conflict is included as part of connection, in which anger is a relational event, can transform difficult moments in a relationship. But the notion that anger is a relational event can be experienced very differently for men and for women. As Gottman (1999) has noted, men are often flooded emotionally and physically when women bring up conflictual issues. The response is often shutting down or escalation. Anger is a Relational Event The first clinical vignette of the impact of narratives of the self on the lives of per-sons, revolves around a marital scene.[1] A couple is driving in the car to a concert. The wife thinks to herself, Here we are alone; I can finally talk about my frustration with my husband; I really want him to understand how I'm feeling. She begins to spell out for him why she was upset earlier in the week when he criticized her talking on the phone with her friend. As she speaks, she becomes animated and intense. She is bent on making him understand her frustration. The husband hears his wife's intensity and thinks to himself, Why is she screaming at me? He begins to feel emotionally flooded and frightened of conflict. He asks her why she is ruining a perfectly good evening with a fight. She feels misunderstood and criticized; she becomes angry, feeling that once again he won't listen. The fight escalates. The husband feels endangered; once again he is with an angry, shrieking woman, just like his mother. His only option, as he sees it, is to shut down the conversation, to disconnect. They arrive at the concert angry, disheartened, and thoroughly disconnected.

This couple's conversation, their mismeeting (Buber, 1973), reflects their different relational images (Miller & Stiver, 1997) and internal narratives. Their narratives are based on their experiences in their families of origin and other social experiences, as well as in their different gender training. The woman has been processing her feelings and the feelings of her friends since she was a young girl. She has fought with her friends and her mother, and learned to work out the differences. She is comfortable with conflict as a part of connection. If she is troubled by something, she is soothed by talking about it, preferably with the person involved. The man, meanwhile, has learned that crying is unmanly, that he should be tough and not wallow in the world of feelings. When his mother was angry with him as a boy, he learned to tune her out much as his father did; he applies this same survival strategy to his wife when she is angry with him. He is also informed by a sense of entitlement; as both a first-born and a male, he is most comfortable when he is in charge, and he is threatened by his wife's emotional assertion of her own agenda. Conflict for this couple leads to a big disconnection. They are caught in a power over struggle, each blocking out the experience of the other. In this process, each partner relates to self as subject, and to the other as object; movement and narrative possibility have been frozen (Mirkin & Geib, 1995, p. 3). Such moments of impasse can lead to relational despair for the couple. But a moment of mismeeting can be genuinely transformative when each comes to understand the other's feelings and experience in the mismeeting. This couple's impasse is rooted in their separate beliefs, which we explore in couple therapy. For example, the wife's assumption is that if you love someone, you bring your pain and anger to that person and you process it together. She is unaware of her husband's belief that anger is dangerous, and that an angry woman is particularly frightening. He is similarly unaware of her beliefs. In working with this couple, I help them to articulate these beliefs, and to identify the cultural gender training that underlies them. I encourage each partner to become curious about the other's experience. I help them take responsibility for their own narrative, to see themselves as meaning-makers. I also help them articulate and reconsider their narratives about the other (he's controlling and uninterested in me; she's always angry). I help them shift from dueling realities to multiple realities (Anderson, 1997, p. 74). This process of deconstructing the impasse (Fishbane & Scheinkman, 1996) often yields a deeper understanding of the other's experience, and can lead to greater intimacy in the couple. We also work to build a shared narrative about their relationship, articulating goals and vision together. In our work they begin to shift from holding two autonomous self-narratives in which each feels victimized and endangered by the other, to a shared relational narrative in which the good of the one can coexist with and facilitate the good of the other a narrative of the We. They shift from two linear experiences of victimization to a systemic, circular view. They come to see the destructive cycle, rather than the other partner or their own failings, as the enemy (Johnson, 1996, p. 55). The shift from blame and shame to mutual responsibility is a crucial part of the change process: There is ... relief in being able to acknowledge responsibility in a context where this does not incur a sense of shame or deficiency (Johnson, 1996, p. 102). In this new narrative, both are experienced as subjects. In this context, each experiences their own autonomy (in Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner's sense) while making room for the autonomy of the other, what Buber calls the elemental otherness of the other (Buber, 1965, p. 69). Inherent in the relational approach is an ethical concern for the well-being of the other (Doherty, 1995). After they shift to a more relational view, conflict still exists in the couple; but they have confidence that they can learn from their differences, that both will be heard. As Buber puts it, I affirm the person I struggle with (Buber, 1965, p. 79). The couple comes to see anger as a resource to improve connection, instead of as a danger (Miller & Surrey, 1997, pp. 203 & 202). I coach the wife to use a softer startup (Gottman, 1999) when she brings her concerns or complaints to her husband, which makes him feel less threatened. The danger in this advice is that it can replicate women placating men, and muting their own voices in the process. I make it clear that the softer startup is a tool to insure that the wife is indeed heard and taken seriously by the husband not a technique to keep her in her place or silence her. Correspondingly, I work with the husband to listen to his wife, challenging his sense of entitlement and control, opening a space for shared power. I encourage the husband to be more receptive to his wife's influence, citing Gottman's (1999) finding that men in good marriages have this ability. Gottman's work is a valuable resource in helping couples develop relational skills, especially around conflict. In their old dance, when the wife raised issues or was critical, the husband

felt defensive and tried to get her to stop. The wife felt chronically resentful over being shut down by him; her resentment then carried over into the next interaction, which in turn stimulated his defensiveness. In the new dance, the husband is more open to her concerns, which the wife conveys with less resentment. While angry moments still occur, they become relational events to be processed jointly, rather than expressions of chronic dissatisfaction or disconnection. The couple's new relational narrative includes difference and conflict as opportunity rather than as a threat. They have learned to face their differences as a team. In the process they are challenging power over dynamics in their relationship. I encourage the couple to enlarge their sense of empathy for each other. They experience empathy as safe when each can hold his or her experience while trying to understand the other's experience at the same time. This is possible only if each partner has secure boundaries and feels he or she will not be lost while attending to the other. As noted above, in a relational view, boundaries are seen as points of meeting between self and other, not just as self-protection from other. If a couple is stuck in a competitive or 'power over mode of relating, in which one's autonomy is threatened by the reality or claims of the other, if they engage in a power struggle over whose reality is true or more valued, then empathy is impossible. Empathy is further hindered by blame and defensiveness. When one is stuck in a blame mode, there is no way to connect with the other in dialogue, as an I to a Thou (Buber, 1970). A relational approach to therapy entails helping clients to challenge their own blaming, victim position, and to become interested in the other's experience from a position of empathy. In this process each learns to speak his or her own reality in a manner that invites the empathy of the other (Fishbane, 1998). Empathy in this view entails moving from subject-object relating to subject-subject relating (Jordan, 1997c, p. 144). Each learns to make a relational claim while staying connected with the other. In this process, not only is the relationship transformed; the self is as well. As Johnson notes, rigid constricted interpersonal cycles narrow down the experience, presentation, and enactment of self. When these cycles are expanded, the sense of self also expands (1996,p. 166). Intergenerational Relational Challenges The shift to a relational narrative of the self is particularly poignant in the context of intergenerational relationships. Moving to a position of relational autonomy, and of power with/power to rather than power over, facilitates the possibility of mutually respectful intergenerational connection. We consider now two examples of persons struggling with such a shift: A father with his young son, and a woman with her elderly mother. A man reports the following experience with his 6-year-old son. The boy, piqued at his father, says, I hate you, Daddy! The father is hurt and threatened by the boy's comment, and counters defensively and angrily. The boy runs to his room, and ultimately to his mother. The father feels further shut out of the close bond between his son and his wife, and father and son are trapped in mutual distrust and disconnection. As I sit with the parents in therapy, I explore the relational possibilities. I ask the father, Have you considered saying to your son when he says `I hate you,' `That hurts my feelings, but I want to understand your feelings better. Why are you so angry with me?' The father is intrigued. Not only had he not considered such a response, he had assumed that when attacked, the appropriate response is self-defense. He was approaching the relationship with his son from a power over model; he felt his son's fury as dangerous and disempowering, and he re-asserted his position through his own angry retort. The notion that he could welcome his son's anger into the relationship, that he could make anger a constructive relational event, was a revelation. He had been trained by his own father, by the culture, and by the practice of law to deal with others competitively and in a power over mode, especially in the face of conflict. We explored the notion of conflict in connection, of discussing his son's anger and his own with empathy, and valuing it as an important part of their relationship. We explored as well the father's sense that he knew why his son preferred the mother ideas such as kids are always more attached to mothers and it's the Oedipal connection. My question encouraged the father to take a position of not knowing (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992), to ask his son, and so open a dialogue with him. The father would allow himself in this position to be affected by his son, to be open to his son's meaning-making. He would be ready to be surprised by his son (Friedman, 1965). The father did indeed go home and tried his new relational skill with his son. He reported at the next session that he had responded in a more empathic, curious manner to his son's anger, with positive results.

The boy became less guarded and hostile with his father, and their relationship became less stagnant, more fluid, and more trustworthy for both (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991). The changes between father and son were anchored by our working as well on the couple's dynamics, structural issues in the family, and multigenerational issues that informed the childrearing assumptions of both parents. For our purposes I am highlighting a powerful moment of choice for the father, in which he shifted to a more relational narrative of his relationship with his son, and developed greater relational competence (Surrey, 1991) as well. In doing so he also taught his son relational competence, fostering his son's emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995). In this work, the parent-child hierarchy was maintained: the father still had parental authority and responsibility. But the father learned to use his authority to foster relational resources with his son, and to deal with conflict in a manner that invites dialogue rather than competition or rejection. In the process, the father-son relationship became closer and more open because it was less dominated by patriarchal, power over dynamics. This relational shift is likely to affect the son's own definition of manhood and fatherhood as he grows up. The final vignette involves a 45-year-old woman with her 70-year-old widowed mother. The daughter is stuck in chronic resentment at her mother for being self-absorbed and critical. The daughter is thrown every time her mother disappoints her by being unempathic or ungenerous. I consider with the daughter how she is caught in a victim mode with her mother, and in a hierarchical, power over relationship. The daughter is still under the spell of childhood (Fishbane, 1998), still hoping that her mother will one day give her what she needs, still powerless to change the relationship or her life. The daughter is caught in a victim, resentment mode in other relationships in her life as well, repeatedly replicating the stuck relationship with her mother in all relationships. Like her mother, she has become self-absorbed, ungenerous, and critical an expression of invisible loyalty (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973), a negative, self-destructive tie to her mother. She is constantly vigilant for slights from and imperfections in her mother, and is exhausted whenever she spends time with her mother. Prior individual therapists, working with a traditional autonomy narrative, had recommended that she grieve the relationship with her mother and move on, even that she curtail the relationship to a minimum, since it is so toxic to her. By contrast, a relational, multigenerational approach encourages the daughter to invite her mother to a reworking of their relationship in which both can benefit. This invitation is offered not in a critical, angry tone, which would surely result in mother's defensiveness and counterattack. Rather, it is offered in a respectful manner. I call this the loving update; it involves inviting the parent to a more mutually respectful, trustworthy relationship in which both parent and child can bring their concerns and more of their experience into the relationship. It also involves inviting parents to witness the changes in the adult child. In the process, mother and daughter develop a new, shared narrative of their relationship, in which each can be a subject. As preparation for the loving update, the work entails helping the daughter understand her mother as a real person with her own story, to accept and perhaps to forgive her (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991; Framo, 1981; Hargrave, 1994; McGoldrick, 1995; Walsh, 1998). In the process, she shifts from a hierarchical view of her mother to a generational view (Fishbane, 1998, 1999), in which she sees her mother as having once been a child herself, a link in the chain of generations of which the daughter is herself a part. We consider how the daughter would like her relationship with her mother to work including the daughter setting goals and honoring her own boundaries and needs. In this I am encouraging her to become the author (White, 1989) of her own life and of the relationship with her mother, rather than the victim. Actually, she will be the co-author with her mother of their relationship, as they create a new shared narrative together. In this new story it is unlikely that the mother suddenly is transformed into the generous, attentive person the daughter desires. Indeed, changing mother is not the goal; it is rather the daughter changing her own stance in the relationship (Bowen, 1978). Part of our work entails anticipating the mother's reactions, including her resisting change (Lerner, 1985), and planning a calm, centered response on the part of the daughter. In this process, the daughter shifts from a power over mode with her mother to one of personal empowerment. She can find ways to set rules of engagement that feel safe. Her new view of autonomy includes the ability to see her own part in the relational morass with her mother, and to take responsibility for that part. It also involves the readiness, the openness, to learn about her mother's experience, to see her mother as subject, and to be moved by her mother. This view of autonomy incorporates a readiness for the relational. Unlike her earlier therapies, which fostered separation and

distance from the mother, a relational intergenerational approach encourages differentiation of self in contact with mother. As noted above, in this relational multigenerational approach, differentiation with or within the family of origin is a more appropriate term than differentiation from the family of origin. Differentiation with her mother emphasizes the dialogical, relational nature of the work. After our careful preparation, when the daughter invites her mother to a loving update of their relationship, my client is pleasantly surprised. Her mother is not only nondefensive, she is relieved to be finally included in a positive way in her adult daughter's life. She responds to the invitation with maternal gusto, eager to help her daughter and to be relationally relevant to her. The mother also tells more of her own life story, which allows the daughter to appreciate the mother's struggles and courage in the face of her own difficult journey. After the update, mother and daughter continue to have differences and conflict; but they now have a frame of reference that holds the relational needs of both. As the daughter relinquishes her burden of resentment and criticism of her mother, she becomes more energized and flexible in her other relationships as well. She is no longer living with invisible loyalty, having developed more constructive loyalty ties to her mother. The daughter has learned how to be personally empowered while staying in connection with her mother; she has found her way to relational autonomy. In her new, less constraining narrative, being in connection with her mother is not threatening to her autonomy and sense of self. She is able to hold her own intergenerationally. For her part, the mother, feeling less criticized and rejected by her daughter, becomes less critical and harsh herself as she relaxes more in the relationship. Not all parents are able to respond as generously to the loving update invitation, and in cases of ongoing abuse or danger such an invitation to a better connection with parents may not be safe or realistic. In such situations, the work would focus on the adult child coming to understand the parent's own history and limitations. In my experience, however, many clients who consider their relationship with their parents hopeless or beyond repair are surprised to find relational resources and openness to change in their families of origin in the context of the loving update. This invitation to intergenerational reconciliation, in which the adult child acts with relational integrity (Boszormenyi-Nagy et al., 1991) is done for the sake of the adult child as much as for the parent. As in the case above, being able to make a relational claim with one's parents while honoring them at the same time empowers a person in his or her own relational life (Fishbane, 1999). CONCLUSION In my work with the couple, the father, and the adult daughter, each client was stuck in a key relationship in their life. Each felt at some level endangered by the claims of the other in the relationship, and protected self against other. They shared a view in which their own autonomy and well-being were threatened by conflict with the other. Each held a narrative of self that privileged independence and autonomy. Competing narratives and power over interactions dominated the interactions in each case. Conflict threatened the self and connection with the other as well. The therapy challenged these narratives of self and other, facilitating a more relational view. Autonomy was redefined as including a readiness for the relational. Conflict and difference were refrained as relational events, to be honored and worked through as part of the relationship. Boundaries were strengthened around the self not so much to protect self from other, but to facilitate the self entering into relation with the other. The clarification of these boundaries promoted the development of empathy and curiosity about the experience of the other. These shifts allowed for a shared narrative to emerge, and increased the possibility of dialogue and mutual care in the relationship. The relational view of the self described in this article is eloquently conveyed by the philosopher Martin Buber (1970): The I of the basic word I You is different from that of the basic word I It. The I of the basic word I-It appears as an ego.... The I of the basic word I You appears as a per son. ... Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons. [pp. 111-112]

Relational narratives of the self, which are emerging in both psychotherapy and in theories of development, emphasize the potential of the person to enter into relation. They challenge Western notions about power and the self, and consider dilemmas of connection and disconnection in persons' lives. Although much of the relational developmental literature focuses on women, I believe it is equally applicable to men. Indeed, since men are particularly socialized in the independent, power over mode that dominates our culture, rethinking men's development in relational terms and reconsidering our gender assumptions are essential. Particular ethnic subcultures may express or deal with the relational dilemmas and challenges raised here in different ways. It would be instructive to explore this question, considering as well specific therapeutic issues in working in a relational/systemic approach with clients of various ethnic or class backgrounds. Inherent in the relational model presented here is a critique of Western individualism, and of autonomy as a contextless and unembedded self-creation. Relational therapists and theorists, along with feminists and postmodernists, are challenging the status quo of patriarchy, of excessive individualism, of a contextless view of the person. The relational narrative of the self challenges as well the excessive emphasis on competition and power over in our culture, and especially in intimate relationships. This shift toward a more interdependent view of the person is consonant with the embedded self that is characteristic of many traditional cultures. In addition to challenging these cultural values in the realm of theory and public discourse, I believe that therapists are in a unique position to consider with clients the effect power over thinking has on their personal lives, and to invite clients to consider both self and connection with other from a more relational perspective. As the clinical examples suggest, the narrative of the self that we hold affects how we live our own lives and how we enter into relationships. It also affects how we raise the next generation. The story we tell about what it means to be a person does indeed alter our world. An earlier version of this article was delivered at a conference in the Internationale Wissenschaftsforum, Heidelberg, Germany, 1997. I gratefully acknowledge Michael Fishbane, Judith Grunebaum, Bonnie Lessing, Betty MacKune-Karrer, and Marsha Mirkin for their feedback on earlier drafts of the paper. Manuscript received October 31, 2000; revision submitted March 13, 2001; accepted April 19, 2001. 1 All case examples are composites of actual clinical vignettes, and are offered for illustrative purposes of working as a therapist in the relational model. REFERENCES Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy. New York: Basic Books. Anderson, H., & Goolishian, H. (1992). The client is the expert: A not-knowing approach to therapy (pp. 25-39). In S. McNamee & K.J. Gergen (eds.), Therapy as social construction. London: Sage Publications. Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R., & Tarule, J.M. (1986). Women's ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books. Bellah, R.N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W.M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S.M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Berger, P.L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. New York: Doubleday. Bergman, S. (1991). Men's psychological development: A relational perspective. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Work in Progress. Bergman, S.J., & Surrey, J.L. (1992). The woman-man relationship: Impasses and possibilities. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Work in Progress. Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., Grunebaum, J., & Ulrich, D. (1991). Contextual therapy (pp. 200-238). In A.S. Gurman & D.P. Kniskern (eds.), Handbook of family therapy, Vol. II. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Krasner, B.R. (1986). Between give and take: A clinical guide to contextual therapy. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family

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Mona DeKoven Fishbane, Ph.D., is a psychologist on the faculty of the Chicago Center for Family Health, and in private practice in Chicago and Highland Park IL. Address correspondence to author at 1803 St. Johns Avenue, Highland Park IL 60035; e-mail: mfishba@aol.com. Copyright of Family Process is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.