One of my all-time favorite comic characters is Sylvia, Nicole Hollander”s sassy and willfully clueless heroine with her naughty, spoiled cats. In one memorable strip from the ”80s, she sums up my attitude toward self-help books. Sylvia is writing a sentence using the word conflagration.
The frame shows her busy at the typewriter. “Lydia looked for more logs to put on the fire, but there weren”t any,” Sylvia writes. “So she turned to the bookshelf and pulled down: Smart Women, Foolish Choices; Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them; How To Love A Difficult Man; Women Who Love Too Much; and Men Who Can”t Love and threw them on the fire. ?What a lovely conflagration they make,” she murmured happily to herself.”
I might never have read “Get Inside Your Relationships: Tools and Strategies for Building Attachments” if the author, Mary McMillan, a practicing marriage and family therapist and former poet laureate of Lake County, had not read an excerpt from it at a writer”s workshop I attended.
McMillan used the image of a “playground” to describe the shared space where two people interact and develop an attachment. I was intrigued, and wanted to know more. What I found was an easily understandable method of relating to the other people in our lives, whether they be children, parents, spouses, co-workers or friends ? a way of relating that will make these relationships more rewarding for everyone involved.
“I call the relationship a playground,” McMillan explains, “Because what human beings do with each other in healthy relationships is play.” She goes on to further describe the metaphor of play: “Playing is a ubiquitous human activity. Even when we are working, we are playing. In our families and in society, we play many very complicated ? and sometimes serious ? games with each other.”
“Get Inside Your Relationships” has none of the soap-opera drama that so often infects self-help books. Rather, it is a no-frills operations manual on how to give and get respect, which is really what healthy relationships are all about. McMillan explains relationship styles and interactions in simple everyday language. She moves from the general ? basic human emotional needs, to the specific ? examples of ways to help us meet those needs by showing and gaining respect in our interactions with others.
The foundation for healthy relationships is built upon three elements, which are interrelated, and work together to maintain the relationship. These elements, or “rules of the playground,” are respect, reciprocity, and the belief that “I can take care of myself.” The author defines these three points, elaborating on the many levels of meaning associated with each, and explains why they are necessary.
Reciprocity, for example, is the give-and-take that characterizes a healthy relationship. According to McMillan, “… it refers not to how much we give or receive, but rather to how we give and receive. How you behave toward the other person often determines how he treats you … When interactions are reciprocal, you get what you give.”
McMillan also illustrates what will happen when one of these essential elements is out of balance, and shows us how to repair damaged relationships. She gives concrete examples of how we can use active listening to solve problems.
The following example demonstrates how a person can respond to blame or accusation and still keep the lines of communication open: “When someone is blaming you or accusing you unfairly, your first reaction will be to deny things. But starting a frustrating circle of ?Yes you did” and ?No I didn”t” isn”t very effective. Instead, it”s usually helpful to take a deep breath and ask him, ?How do you know that?” or ?What makes you think that?””
The “anger thermometer” is a simple tool that helps a person recognize and manage feelings of anger before they reach the boiling point, and find ways of expressing anger without damaging a relationship.
“Get Inside Your Relationships” offers valuable insights for those who want to get along better with family, friends and co-workers. It is much more than a self-help book, although the title suggests this as its primary purpose. Anyone undergoing psychotherapy or anger management counseling would benefit greatly from using this book as a reference. Its research-based and well-organized approach makes it an excellent training tool for teachers, social workers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and anyone working in the medical or mental health professions. It might even help Sylvia”s relationship with her cats.
