Moving Towards Emotional
Maturity in Helping Relationships
What Are the Three Most important
Resources you Bring to a Helping
Relationship?
• Yourself
• Yourself
• Yourself
• Bringing the best possible “Self” to the
relationship is not self-ish. It is
responsible, healthy, and generous.
What is Stress/Anxiety ?
• The body’s response to a threat, or a
disruption to the homeostatic balance of
the organism.
– Includes automatic physiological adaptations
to the threatening environment.
– There are physical and psychological
changes– (heart, immune system, sleep,
learning, memory, etc.)
Chronic Stress/ Anxiety
• Why Zebra’s Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert
Sapolsky, professor of neurology and
nerurosurgery at Sanford University.
• Zebras react only to acute stress
• Humans turn on the same stress response
for perceived or imagine threats.
• Humans have a hard time turning off their
stress response system.
“For the most part, only humans can keep the
HPA axis going indefinitely. We can do this
because of how our faculties of perception,
thought, and emotion are produced in the brain
and how they are connected to the stress
response.” (McEwen)
Chronic stress leads to Symptoms
• The Balance Within: The Science
Connecting Health and Emotions, Esther
Sternberg, M.D. , NIMH, NIH
– Physical Sx
– Emotional Sx
– Social Sx
So. . . .
Anxiety/Stress (threats, real or perceived
and our response to them) will impair our
ability to be a resource for others.
Anxiety/ Stress is a significant contributor to
the challenges others face.
What intensifies Stress?
California sea snail
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
Train one group of animals
with warning cue, then a head
shock; train other group
without warning. Measure
escape locomotion of each group.
California sea snail
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
Train one group of animals
with warning cue, then a head
shock; train other group
without warning. Measure
escape locomotion of each group.
Assay degree of learned anxiety
by measuring the amount of
escape locomotion an animal
displays following training:
California sea snail
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
Train one group of animals
with warning cue, then a head
shock; train other group
without warning. Measure
escape locomotion of each group.
Assay degree of learned anxiety
by measuring the amount of
escape locomotion an animal
displays following training:
Animals trained with warning stimulus showed no
California sea snail
increase in escape locomotion when tested in absence of warning; when
signal present, however, group exhibited significantly more escape
locomotion than when signal not present. This means the animals had
no apprehension in the absence of a cue (anticipatory).
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
Train one group of animals
with warning cue, then a head
shock; train other group
without warning. Measure
escape locomotion of each group.
Assay degree of learned anxiety
by measuring the amount of
escape locomotion an animal
displays following training:
Animals trained with warning stimulus showed no
California sea snail
increase in escape locomotion when tested in absence of warning; when
signal present, however, group exhibited significantly more escape
locomotion than when signal not present. This means the animals had
no apprehension in the absence of a cue (anticipatory). Animals trained
without warning cue, show a generally heightened responsiveness that
is unaffected by presence or absence of a warning cue (chronic anxiety).
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
One Example of intensification of
stress response:
-- Unpredictable
--Uncontrollable
California sea snail
In helping relationships we are
confronted with the constant stress
of dealing with situations that we (as
helpers) can’t control and can’t
predict.
From Metapsychology to Molecular Biology:Explorations Into the Nature of Anxiety
Eric R. Kandel - American Journal of Psychiatry 140:1277-1293, 1983
What Do we Do?
• Fight, Flight, Freeze, Care-take
• Automatic, instinctive, pre-cognitive
reactions– reduce the stress!!
• Conflict
• Distance/Cut off
• Over/Under Function
• Triangle
• None of these are long term solutions for
toning down the stress/anxiety.
What Does Work to Reduce Stress/
Anxiety?
• Becoming more of a “Self”--- Developing
emotional maturity.
Definitions of Emotional Maturity
• The ability to be responsible for my own thinking,
feeling, and acting while allowing others to do
the same.
• Be in contact with highly anxious
people/situations without taking on the stress for
yourself
• Clear about the difference between thinking and
feeling, know which one you are doing, and free
to choose between them.
Levels of Emotional Maturity
Low levels: feeling-dominated. No distinction
between feeling & fact. Energy into seeking
love & approval, and little available for life
goals. Intellectual functioning submerged.
(Minimal self-regulation.)
Low levels: feeling-dominated. No distinction
between feeling & fact. Energy into seeking
love & approval, and little available for life
goals. Intellectual functioning submerged.
(Minimal self-regulation.)
Moderate levels: Beginning differentiation of
emotional &intellectual systems, with most of
the self expressed as pseudo self. When anxiety
is low, functioning can resemble higher levels.
Low levels: feeling-dominated. No distinction
between feeling & fact. Energy into seeking
love & approval, and little available for life
goals. Intellectual functioning submerged.
(Minimal self-regulation.)
Moderate levels: Beginning differentiation of
emotional &intellectual systems, with most of
the self expressed as pseudo self. When anxiety
is low, functioning can resemble higher levels.
Moderate to good levels: Enough differentiation
between intellectual & emotional systems to
function as a cooperative team. Functional
intellectual system. (High self-regulation)
• Levels of Emotional Maturity relate to how
much “self” exists in relationships.
A conceptual continuum of Self
No-self: Cannot differentiate between feeling
and intellectual systems. A dysfunctional
intellectual system. Only capable of a
narcissistic “I”, such as “I want–I’m hurt-I
have the right.” Others exist to meet my wants and needs.
I exist to meet the needs or wants of others.
Pseudo-self is made up of knowledge incorporated by the
intellect and of principles and beliefs acquired from others. It
is acquired from others, and it is negotiable in relationship
with others. It can be changed by emotional pressure to
enhance one’s image with others or to oppose the other. In
the average person, the level of solid self is fairly low in
comparison with the level of pseudo-self. A pseudo-self can
function well in most relationships; but in an intense emotional
relationship, such as marriage, the pseudo-self of one merges
with the pseudo-self of the other. One becomes the functional
self and the other a functional no-self.
Solid self is a manifestation of a functional intellectual
system that withstands pressure from the feeling system. It is
made up of firmly held convictions and beliefs that are
formed slowly and can be changed from within self, are
never changed by coercion or persuasion by others. (“I
believe-I will do-I will not do.”)
Compassion
malignant
compassion
no-self
solid
self
malignant
indifference
no-self
Compassion
malignant
compassion
no-self
anxiety-driven
solid
self
malignant
indifference
no-self
anxiety-driven
Compassion
malignant
compassion
no-self
solid
self
malignant
indifference
no-self
A person in this mid-range has enough solid self to experience
compassion for others without feeling compelled to launch into
an overfunctioning mode. Ie. Doing for others what they can
our should do for self.
How Emotional Maturity Develops
• Develop clear values, goals, beliefs,
principles for the situation or relationship.
• Define your self by your actions—what you
will or won’t do– without needing to
convince or persuade others.
• Stay in contact with stress-producing
people/situations.
• Observe your self.
Benefits
• Healthier, stronger You.
• When an anxious mind comes into contact
with a less anxious mind, the anxious mind
calms down and has better access to
thinking.
Relationship Dilemma and Symptom Development
Coping
Mechanisms:
distancing
to insulate
from emotional
intensity
seeing the
problem as in
the other
emotional wellbeing derived from
doing for the other
Failure
in Adaptation:
reciprocal
process
blocked from
sustaining
emotional
connection
seeing cause of
problem as in
oneself
feeling isolated
and
out-of-control