When I Do Relationships So Right How Do They Go So Wrong: Using Emotional Maturity to Transform Your Mind, Your Relationships, and the Generations to Come (Emotional Maturity 101)

Contents
Introduction
    Why do relationships go so wrong?
    How can you make your relationships go right?
    The importance of change
    What are the secrets to relationship success?
    A structure to improve human behavior
    What drew me to Bowen theory? A personal story
    You need EMDR for that
    Who will be helped by this book
    Navigating this book
    Reversing societal regression
    Limits and Options
    Imagine
Ch. 1. Thinking Big—The Seventh Generation Principle
    A story of three generations
    Struggling with a lifelong mystery
    A psychological theory to help future generations
    As for Carl
    Applying Bowen theory
    A theory ahead of its time
    Bowen theory and schizophrenia
    Bowen theory on a larger scale
    Begin with the end in mind
    Current signs of societal regression
    Reversing societal regression
    Societal progression
    EMDR therapy
    Integrating Bowen and EMDR
    The Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy’s Seventh Generation principle
    Bowen-style breakthroughs in my family’s three-generation story
    Creating societal progression
Ch. 2. Using Desensitization to Wake Up Your Healthy Mind
    Desensitizing anxiety and stress
    Reprocessing—EMDR’s advantage
    What does desensitization look like?
    The heart of EMDR
    How our minds heal—adaptive information processing (AIP)
    How Bowen desensitizes clients
    Why desensitize?
    Our senses can deceive us
    Example: a trip to the nursery
    Sensitivity can be positive or negative
    How EMDR therapy can help painful sensitivity
    Brain activity before and after desensitization
    Container exercise: self-help when your brain is sensitized
    Angie’s AIP
    What lies behind the AIP?
    The strengths gained from positive memories
    Angie today
    Ana’s happiness returns
    Activate your own AIP
    A self-help stress reduction exercise
    When feeling distress
    Maintaining positive sensitivity
    Secondary traumatization
    The politics of PTSD
    Corrine’s first PTSD symptom was panic
    More potent than drugs
    A milder example than PTSD
    How Bowen and EMDR (iBE) calm emotional reactivity
    Significant stress and trauma
    What is next?
Ch. 3. Understanding Conflict
    Bowen on conflict
    The dimensions of conflict
    Sadly, conflict is a part of life
    The effects of extreme conflict
    Understanding conflict can lead to resolution
    Beyond personal conflict: the war between the sexes
    Bowen’s conflict training brought more progress
    Inner conflict
    Conflict aimed at strangers
    Meeting conflict with wise differing
    Violence increases along with appetite for conflict
    Nonviolent communication
    On the way to emotional maturity
    The benefits of freedom from conflict
    There is reason for hope
Ch. 4. Choosing Understanding and Empathy
    Emotionally-mature responses
    Responses to conflict
    Responses to differences
    Relationship building
    Dealing with a critical spouse
    What if my feelings are hurt?
    Limited license to disagree and criticize
    Chief Joe Medicine Crow—courage and compassion
    From getting to understanding
Ch. 5. Understanding Distance
    Distance or cutoff
    Immigrants
    Natives
    After getting a new name, what came next?
    Distance affects us in many more ways
    The phenomenon of breaking up
    Breakups are always painful
    Forgiveness
    Death, the distance we can’t avoid
    Funerals or memorial services
Ch. 6. Choosing Connection and Patience
    Emotionally-mature relationships
    Repair skills
    A new meaning for well-connected
    The value of connection
    Support system strength survey
    Remember your support system
    Overcoming distance and cutoff
    An old fable
    A real-life fable
    Connection
    Life and connection
Ch. 7. Understanding Triangling—or Bringing in a Third
    Variations of triangling
    Triangling examples
    Understanding triangles and their effects
    A complicated triangle and its effect on a vulnerable child
    How can the focus be positive?
    Eye witness account: The high price to the child of positive child focus
    Identifying normal focus versus too much positive focus
    Negative child focus
    Triangling and schizophrenia
    A deeper look at gossip
    Retroactively repairing the damage of false gossip
    Questions inspired by the concept of triangling
Ch. 8. Choosing Direct, Personal, Committed Relationships
    The complexity of triangles
    Reversing the triangling move
    Averting gossip in a mature way
    What happens to triangles over time
    Gaining a neutral perspective
    Changing others by changing yourself
    Showing up and being vulnerable
    How to be safer from affairs
    When there is a lack of trust
    A benefit of commitment
    Triangle challenges
    Keeping helpful child focus appropriate
    Wise triangling may be useful
    Sexual harassment
    Workplace abuse
    Creativity, humor, and triangles
    Thinking strategically about triangles
Ch. 9. Understanding One Up/One Down Reciprocity
    About the phrase one up/one down
    What is overfunctioning/underfunctioning?
    Reciprocal behaviors
    Codependence may be more familiar than reciprocity
    Codependency in a broader sense
    Which way is up (from one up/one down)
    Risks of reciprocity
    What to do if you are one up or one down
    Reason for optimism
    Reciprocity travels through a family, with consequences
    Analysis
Ch. 10. Choosing Balance and Equality
    The emotionally-mature response
    Creating equality
    Taking responsibility for self
    The benefit of reducing expectations of others
    Changing and letting go of one up/one down roles
    Resolving reciprocity when it appears
    Ways to approach your request for equality
    When a caregiver asks for help
    Other ways to prevent caregiver burnout
    Learning and unlearning one up/one down
    Being conscious as a care receiver
    Social patterns of one up/one down
    Balance and equality are possible for all people
    Shining examples of balance and equality
    Balance is dynamic
Ch. 11. Creating “I” Positions
    Definition of the “I” position
    How to develop your “I” positions
    How to be comfortable with the “I” position
    Allow others to have their own response
    How “I” positions help parents—and their children
    “I” positions can be called boundaries
    Risks, costs, and opportunities of the “I” position
    “I” positions of Nelson Mandela
    The need for mature leadership has never been greater
Epilogue: Your Transformed Relationships and Beyond
    What this means for you
    What this means on a broader basis
Appendix 1: How iBE Therapy was Developed
    The concepts of EMDR therapy I included in iBE therapy:
    iBE does not incorporate some aspects of Bowen theory. These include:
Appendix 2: Pop Quiz Key
Appendix 3: The Golden Rule
Bibliography