Relational Dialectics - Essay Example

Compatibility is an added factor why relational dialectics often appear to be unnoticeable. Most people involved in a relationship tend to test the waters of their harmony and congruence, believing that the stability of their relationships can be won over by a series of trials and errors. Relational Dialectics is a set of contrasting impulses; a waged battle between eccentricity and self-centeredness (represents yourself and your life as a whole) against personal attachments and its emotional appendages (signifies your personal relationships and acquaintances).

In a purist’s perspective, the most reliable way to secure the permanence of a relationship is to understand the logical existence of relational dialectics. As defined earlier, these are a load of factors that manipulate a relationship. If one can take hold of the limiting factors of a relationship, which in this case is the relational dialectics, it is absolutely possible to gain your desired upshots for your relationship. Relational Dialectics can be best embodied in three major pairs of tensions that oppose yet act dependently on each other; openness vs.

protection, autonomy vs. connection and novelty vs. predictability. The by-products of all these tensions accurately predict the outcomes of the relationships. In a certain relationship, the comfort of the people concerned relies on the degree of intimacy that these two people share. This is where openness inserts into the panorama. Openness is illustrated between people sharing personal abstract things with each other such as thoughts, opinions, attention and the likes. When openness is very well observed in a relationship, intimacy and emotional links between the people involved are strongly established.

This could be a great help in maintaining a relationship however, the openness is being eternally opposed by protection. As part of the human nature, no matter how much a person is so into another one, a room for defense mechanism will always be left saved in order for that someone to protect the most endangered unit of each person’s earthly existence - emotions. Even if the people implicated in a relationship enjoy the intimacy and the substantial understanding they share, it should be assumed that someday and somehow, either or all of them will craft a personal zone that will place distance between them in order to defend each one’s privacy.

As openness unfolds, connection between two people will develop. The same goes for protection; if the people concerned in a relationship favors personal protection, their relationship can be considered uncommitted and autonomous. Therefore, the second tension pair which is autonomy vs. connection was derived from the mechanisms of the first tension pair. Autonomy, as defined on most dictionaries, is a personal temperament of being self-reliant, liberate and independent. This tension clashes against connection.

The intimacy being shared in a relationship creates the profound inner connection between two people but this connection can either be destroyed or prevented from rising because of autonomy. As an individual, having the desire of being autonomous is not a horrific thing at all but such is not applicable in terms of stabilizing personal relationships. Evidently, everyone has the