Notice bonding patterns in a close relationship

Spot when you and a partner have locked into a parent-and-child pattern between selves.

Pourquoi ça marche

In Embracing Each Other the Stones describe bonding patterns: automatic pairings in which one person's self (for example a caretaking parent) hooks the other person's complementary self (a needy or rebellious child), and the two keep re-enacting it. Because each person is acting from a self rather than from an Aware Ego, neither experiences a choice. Naming the pattern as it happens gives both people a place to step back to.

Comment faire

1. Recall a recent repeating argument or dynamic with a partner, parent, friend or colleague.
2. Ask: in that moment, was I acting like a parent (managing, correcting, caretaking) or like a child (complying, sulking, rebelling)?
3. Ask the same about the other person's role. Name the pairing in a phrase ("I manage, they rebel").
4. Next time you feel the pattern start, pause and say to yourself which self has taken over before you respond.

Données probantes

Bonding patterns are the Stones' central relationship concept, set out in their book on relationships. The concept is a practitioner model drawn from their couples work; it has not been tested in controlled research. (anecdotal)

A relationship in which one person is frightened of the other, controlled or harmed is not a bonding pattern to be worked out together; it calls for outside support and safety first.

Sources

• Stone, H., & Stone, S. (1989). Embracing Each Other: Relationship as Teacher, Healer, and Guide. Nataraj Publishing.
• Stone, H., & Stone, S. (1989). Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual (first published 1985). Nataraj Publishing.

Erreur fréquente

Using the idea to diagnose the other person ("you are in your child again"). The Stones apply it to your own side of the pairing first; naming the other person's self out loud usually intensifies the pattern.