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%RELATION DESCRIBE CHARACTER UNDERSTAND TERM CHANGE+930306
 %SECURITY VULNERABILITY TELL OWN STORY ACCEPT SELF 930306

     Each   human   relationship   may    be    described,
characterized,   and understood in terms which pertain  to
the characteristics of:

     1.  Histories of participants and defined outsiders.

     2.  Articulated           and           unarticulated
agreements/conflicts.

     3.  Foci of special attention and regular avoidance.

     4.  Origins of threat, fear, support, & security.

     5.  Vocabulary     and    language    of     dominant
communications.

     6.  Levels of honesty, objectivity and reflexivity.

     7.  Levels of planning, activity and passivity.

     8.  Levels      of      openness/secretiveness      &
honesty/collusions.

     9.  Kind/extent   of  interactions  with  the   wider
community.

     10. Kinds and extent of mutual mis/understanding.

     To the extent that participants in a relationship are
unaware  of the importance of the above characteristics of
their relationship;  to such an extent  they are likely to
experience   relational   difficulties  which  will   pose
dilemmas to  them,   and perhaps lead  to  tragic  efforts
which  the  participants  will  be unable to comprehend or
learn from.

     It is  important to learn to  recognize  patterns  of
characteristics  which  are  integrative  and healthy,  in
contrast  to   patterns  of  characteristics   which   are
disintegrative  and unhealthy.   Such contrasting patterns
need to be recognized, described, talked about,  and dealt
with   both  openly  and  honestly  in  order  not  to  be
victimized by them.

     Healthy  communities provide  their  members  various
support  groups  within  which participants  are  in  fact
secure and also  feel  themselves  to be secure---in  open
and   honest   dialogue   about  their  own   experiences,
perceptions, emotions, beliefs, interests, needs, desires,
hopes and aspirations.    Personal and communal  integrity
and health  are impossible  in  the absence of such secure
contexts provided by healthy support groups wherein people
may safely be vulnerable in honest dialogue.  Such support
groups may be formal or informal;  but  in  any  case they
play essential roles in healthy communities.

     Addicts, codependents and other people trapped in the
dysfunctional patterns of perception,  attitudes, beliefs,
ideals  and values which are dominated by collusions  will
find  it  difficult to conceive of  the  possibility  that
there might exist safe places where they could be  in fact
secure  and also  feel themselves  to be secure---in  open
and   honest   dialogue  about  their   own   experiences,
perceptions, emotions, beliefs, interests, needs, desires,
hopes and aspirations.   To conceive of such a possibility
is  too  threatening  to  their  collusions.    Even  more
difficult  to  conceive  is how essential  are  such  safe
places are in the healing process of  recovery from  their
own  dysfunctionality---even after the healing process  is
well begun and intellectually understood.

     Purely  informational,    intellectual,    scholarly,
cognitive  and scientific considerations do not provide an
adequate context for healing from the above  dysfunctional
patterns.     No  number  of  inspired  lectures,   books,
readings  and  informational  sources  will  promote  real
healing  in  the  absence  of individual  sharing  by each
recovering dysfunctional  person---within  support  groups
wherein they are  in fact secure and also  feel themselves
to be secure---in open and honest dialogue about their own
experiences,  perceptions,  emotions, beliefs,  interests,
needs,  desires,   hopes and aspirations.  No other person
can do for them the telling of  their  story;   a  telling
which is essential for recovery, and which must be told in
a safe place where both  it and the teller are accepted as
they are, and given the gifts of true security.

     Recovery  of health requires not only the offering of
and the reception of information,   advice,   admonitions,
guidance, leadership, etc from others.  Recovery of health
requires  that there be significant opportunities to  open
up   and  express  one's   own   experiences, perceptions,
emotions,  beliefs,  interests,  needs, desires, hopes and
aspirations; and that such expressions and   the   persons
expressing them be accepted sympathetically without threat
of condemnation,rejection or excommunication.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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