This is http://www.essayz.com/a9005302.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %DISHONEST COMPENSATION REPLACEMENT RELATIONSHIP 900530 Unhealthy human relationships often entail dishonest compensations, replacements, within the dynamics of the relationship. Often some aspect of the relationships involve pretending that the replacement of some essential aspect of a healthy relationships with some substitute is an o.k. replacement. Dishonest compensations are unhealthy because they are dishonest in ways which undermine personal and communal integrity. Even if the dishonest compensations are mutually agreed to, they are unhealthy; e.g., as in collusive games of mutual self deception. Mutual dishonesty is unhealthy even when all participants feel/believe that it is to their advantage. Dishonesty is even more unhealthy when there is a lack of mutuality and a lack of balance in the actual/perceived levels of advantage in the dishonesty. Substitution of money, purchased gifts, false flattery, etc. in place of open and honest intimacy are dishonest compensations within the dynamics of a relationships. Such substitutions involve pretending that the replacement of essential honesty, sensitivity, tenderness, responsiveness, etc.; with money, purchased gifts, false flattery, etc. are o.k. replacements. Workaholics who use work as a means to avoid embarrassing intimacy and as a means for acquiring compensatory money, purchased gifts, etc. are not providing healthy substitutes for what they withhold in the avoidance of intimacy. The replacements are not healthy compensations for what is withheld. In healthy relationships participants are seeking to minimize dishonest compensations and replacements. Perfection is not expected or demanded; yet within healthy relationships the participants are the process of recognizing and minimizing the presence of dishonest compensations, substitutions, replacements, pretenses, etc. In healthy relationships participants seek to be authentically themselves and seek to encourage each other to be authentically themselves. Participants are not seeking to falsely impress each other to achieve acceptance. Participants in healthy relationships are not seeking to conform themselves to some conception of the ideal person, mate, lover, rescuer, helper, provider, worker, parent, spouse, child, etc. Participants conceive themselves to be who they are naturally and with integrity; rather than violating their own integrity to try to achieve acceptability and acceptance. Dishonest substitutions are not part of healthy relationships. Healthy relationships are not characterized by dishonest deals, bartering, battering, dishonest contracts, agreements, or games of mutual self deception. Such violence is unhealthy. All dishonesty is unhealthy and does violence to the truth. Violence and dishonesty are intimately related where there is a pretense of but not the reality of intimacy. Dishonest substitutions in attempts to achieve the pretense of intimacy lead step by step to various other forms of violence. Doing violence to the truth leads to doing violence to each other. Mutually doing violence to the truth about a relationship leads step by step to mutually doing violence to each other within the relationship. It is dangerous to participate in dishonest compensations within relationships. It is healthy to seek authenticity, honesty, openness, and tenderness within relationships; and to avoid relationships where they cannot be nurtured. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================