The Dance Of...

"I admired in [my patients] the very traits that caused them trouble in the world, their sensitivity, generosity, openness, vulnerability. Some of these sensitive and generous men and women had their own genius, a genius for connection. Often they were romantic. They entertained impossible idealism. They threw themselves whole-heartedly into relationships. What [psychiatric] medication offered them was autonomy, the ability to say no others and attend to the self."

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I am shamelessly stealing most of this from the book I'm currently in love with by Dr. Peter Kramer.

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Autonomy has long been an ideal of Western, and especially American, culture. America was founded on separation from its "mother" country, in the Declaration of Independence. The pioneer spirit romanticized aloneness. Emerson urged, "Insist on yourself," in all situations. Thoreau loved his self-sufficient (sort of) life in his log cabin with his vegetables, miles away from the nearest town. Now our society is increasingly mobile, making intense bonding risky.

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Critiquing the ideal of autonomy has fallen under the umbrella of feminist psychology. Beginning in the 1970s, people began labeling independence as a masculine ideal. Men in particular are encouraged to be emotionally independent, to value differentiation as the highest form of maturity. Women, on the other hand, find mutuality and connection an important part of their development. They tend to feel best through the give-and-take of connecting with others. This creates imbalance in heterosexual relationships, with men often de-valuing the genius of their partners' skills, and failing to appreciate the relational support that allows them to realize their self. It seems to me that many people who appear autonomous do subtle things that undermine others' confidence. Christianne Northrup mentions in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom that many people also value functions associated with male brains: linear thinking, efficiency, conciseness. Femals brains, she says, tend to work in multiplicity, connecting emotions and language and goals all at once. Feminist writers challenged, even attacked, valuing differentiation above mutuality, and elevated connection to another axis of maturity.

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But "in this culture, to rely on a capacity for generosity, mutuality, and intimacy is dangerous, unless those talents are accompanied by highly independent judgment and the ability to walk away."

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That's exactly what many people now consider the ideal (like Harriet Lerner in The Dance of Intimacy): accepting difference and separateness, while staying emotionally present and connected. I feel like this sort of relating is the most difficult and most worthwhile way to live.