![]() ![]() ![]() However, predictability and stability will never be constant and, as people naturally change, the need for difference and surprise clashes with our desire for certainty.Ĭonnectedness and Separateness: The physical, mental, and emotional bond of a relationship are necessary to promote commitment. Openness and Closedness: Relational partners expect openness while the individuals that make up the relationship desire privacy.Ĭertainty and Uncertainty: Certainty bonds the relationship and creates predictable comfort. While not necessary for the meta-level view on conflict resolution, they are certainly intriguing to consider: When the pressure gets to a point where our developed processes are not capable of resolving the contradictions, we experience a heightened conflict where the relationship’s continuation is in question.Įssentially, as we continue to make compromises, dissatisfaction grows and, if not proactively and constructively confronted, we will be at relational odds with one another.īaxter has a list of the various contradictions that we experience. ![]() However, these compromises are capable of building a head of steam. If you have had one healthy relational moment in your life, you’ve proven that you can do this. RELATIONAL DIALECTIC THEORY HOW TOYou, then, already know how to properly engage in conflict resolution. Finding this balance is what Baxter calls ‘Totality’ - the contradicting opposites unite and their contradictions are sustainably in balance. While the identities still continue to clash with our opposing wants and needs, we make practical decisions to healthily progress the relationship and accomplish as many of the various needs between the people involved as possible. Baxter calls this relational progress ‘Praxis’ - we continually generate experience with the other person and develop a process to communicate effectively through the contradictions. There is a seemingly innate process of managing various contradictions so that the relationship can endure. In response, contradictions emerge in reality when these two identities clash.Īs communicative beings, our use of language, then, is how we manage the tension and maintain the relationship. You have yourself as a singular person with your own consciousness and experience, but you also have yourself as an interconnected being with this other being. A relationship comprises two (or more) variables in your identity. While there are many approaches to this question, a helpful perspective comes from Leslie Baxter particularly because her explanation involves the role of communication in disclosing the unavoidable experience of conflict.Įssentially, Baxter discusses how the use of verbal communication is our means to handle the constant contradictions that occur in a given relationship. What is the cause of such striking together? Once we recognize the ubiquitous certainty of conflict and that it is natural, inevitable, potentially constructive, and contextual, we can begin the adventure of understanding its nature. If you want to explore more about the invitation conflict offers and how we ought to respond, you can do so here: The Invitation of Conflict - To never be the same - conflict could be the very answer we are looking for.medium You do, however, have control of what you will do with the difficulty and how you will respond to the conflict.Ĭonflict itself has no moral value. You have very little control of that likelihood. Your experience of the world is going to be hard. The second implication is that conflict is not necessarily negative. If you have any kind of contact with another being, there will be conflict. The first implication is that conflict is natural and inevitable. When multiple elements of the world come in contact, friction and tension results. Conflict is a disagreement that results from the perception of incompatible goals or uncertain relational trajectory.Ĭonflict comes from the Latin phrase ‘con-fligere’ which literally means “to strike with” or “to strike together”. ![]()
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