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November/December 2001 Living Now
Passionate Relationships, A Paradigm Shift

by Hannah Zaiv

Have you ever been in a relationship that was going well, very comfortable, lots of support and validation - and the sex got boring? How about a relationship where the honeymoon ended and turned into a frustrating impasse - an ongoing painful argument consisting of two approximately opposite positions that seemed impossible to resolve? Or a relationship where seemingly equal initial functioning became lopsided, with one of you becoming the "healthy" one and the other the "sick" one, leading to ongoing disappointments for you both?

According to Dr. David Schnarch, author of the books Passionate Marriage and Constructing the Sexual Crucible, there is a natural process that occurs in all committed relationships, which leads to these, and other, gridlocks. These are, he writes, in fact not problems but opportunities. Dr. Schnarch develops the work of Dr. Murray Bowen, systemic family therapist and theorist who emphasized the process known as "differentiation". We leave our families of origin at approximately the same level of fusion - that is, lack of separate identity - shared by our family members. We then tend to find new relationships with partners who nearly always share our same approximate level of emotional fusion. These relationships, if used properly, can then help us to differentiate, which is to say, become more fully our complete selves, in the presence of another.

Dr. Schnarch has developed a sophisticated form of couples therapy, in which he encourages the naturally-occurring conflict to heat up, thereby "cooking" the partners into their next levels of psychological development. Because he makes use of a naturally-occurring process, he has remarkable success even with so-called difficult clients, including those with long-term history of volatile relationships and with much abuse in their past.

A psychologist licensed both as a sex therapist and a marriage and family therapist, Dr. Schnarch breaks diametrically away from many of the predominant premises in those fields, especially discarding the approaches that teach techniques for improving sexual functioning or communication skills, which he considers antithetical to assisting clients to move into their full and unique identities.

He emphasizes helping clients move to a place of self-validated intimacy where instead of insisting that our partners validate us, we increase our capacities to self-soothe. He defines "intimacy" as the ability to self-confront and self-disclose in the presence of another, pointing out that other-validated so-called intimacy only leads to patterns of accommodating, dull sex, and general stuckness. Self-validated intimacy, by contrast, leads us into greater and greater amounts of risk-taking and to more passionate, vibrant, and truly loving relationships.

His actual form of therapy is somewhat subtle, involving gentle pacing and leading of both partners in interlocking processes that help each of them to confront themselves and their own issues, a process that can be intense, sometimes painful, and, eventually and concurrently, exhilarating. The process is, ultimately, a spiritual one, helping people evolve toward their deepest integrity and most profound abilities to love and be loved.

Hannah Zaiv is (since 1985) a Licensed Professional Counselor who has had training in couples' therapy from Dr. Schnarch. She works with individuals and couples and, with her partner Robin Irelan, offers process groups for couples. She can be reached at 503-659-9384.