Staying True to Ourselves While Staying Close to Others

Maintaining our unique sense of ourselves can sometimes feel difficult in relationships. We may feel a pendulum swinging between honoring our own needs and wishes and the desire for belonging and approval from others. In certain relationships, especially when there is a lot of conflict or distress, it can feel as though being true to ourselves means risking disconnection or betrayal, while feeling loved and approved of by the other person may require us to compromise important parts of who we are.

Sometimes these discrepancies can feel so intense that we either can’t live our own truth in a relationship and become really unfulfilled, or we let go of the connection altogether and distance ourselves from others to be able to live our own truth. Often, however, a balance between differentiating ourselves from others while also remaining open and intimate with other people can be more desirable to experience a deeper sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

What is “differentiation of self?

In psychology literature, there are a variety of theories and research that explore our sense of self and how it can be affected by our relationships with others. One such concept is called “differentiation of self,” which comes from the family systems approach.

Differentiation of self refers to our capacity to maintain a sense of our unique self and emotional balance while staying connected in relationships and continuing to relate to others (partners, family members, etc.), especially when those relationships become more intense or turbulent.

For example, when we have an adequately differentiated sense of self, we can:

Maintain our inner calm and peace and still make decisions aligned with our values when there is a conflict in relationships
Tolerate and work through conflict without withdrawing or feeling overly defensive
Express and find ways to live our needs without necessarily cutting people off
Not overly identify with or take responsibility for other people’s emotions or peace
Be able to listen to others, especially when they have conflicting and diverse opinions, without necessarily changing ours or feeling threatened

However, if differentiating ourselves from others is something we struggle with, remaining grounded in our own thoughts and values becomes difficult or painful when relationships become emotionally intense. We may become overly dependent and enmeshed or overly distant from others to maintain a sense of peace. For example:

We may become overly influenced by how other people behave or feel
We may change ourselves for other people’s approval or to avoid rejection
We may act to maintain other people’s peace instead of our own, often at the cost of our own
We may often become emotionally reactive and be unable to contain our emotions

More specifically, the family systems approach suggests that the way we differentiate ourselves from others has two underlying major processes:

Internal or intrapersonal functioning: what happens inside of us and how we manage it

I-position: our ability to maintain our personal values despite external conflict or pressure
Emotional reactivity: how we tend to behave when we are emotionally flooded, especially our vulnerability to becoming too overloaded during intense emotions

Interpersonal or relational functioning: what happens in relationships and how we function and relate in relationships

Fusion with others: the degree to which we become over-involved with others and act based on other people’s needs and approval
Emotional cutoff: the degree to which we become rigidly distant from others under conflict or distress

However, the way we show up in relationships can be quite nuanced and complex. While differentiation of self in relationships specifically talks about the relational aspect of this capacity, our ability to differentiate ourselves from others can be affected and shaped by many other internal processes, from mentalization (e.g., the capacity to understand and interpret our own and others’ mental states) to emotional regulation (e.g., the capacity to manage and modulate our emotional responses), which require us to carefully reflect and observe our patterns to arrive at meaningful insights about them.

How do we build the capacity to differentiate our individual self?

Our capacity to differentiate our unique self while still experiencing connection and intimacy with others is often seen as something that is almost a part of our personality, such as a trait or relational pattern that begins developing early in life, which is shaped by our key relationships (e.g., with our caregivers and siblings) and attachments to other people.

Often, such unique patterns can become relatively stable over time, influencing how we understand from and make choices regarding intimacy and separateness. They may experience certain changes, however, when we experience significant life experiences, including periods of intense distress or trauma, or also through supportive clinical interventions which can help us better understand these patterns and explore more empowered ways of responding.

How can therapy help?

Sometimes relationships can come with the cost of either becoming too dependent and intertwined with other people in order to experience love and peace, or becoming too isolated in order to experience our independence. Often, however, what brings us deeper fulfillment and psychological and physical well-being can be described as a more in-between, balanced point, where we can maintain our own independent thoughts and inner equilibrium while also staying connected and feeling love and safety with others.

While our capacity for differentiation of self emerges through interpersonal experiences and can remain relatively stable and predictable, our relational patterns can change with many experiences, including developing deliberate self-regulation and relational skills as well as through therapeutic efforts. Therapy can help us:

Increase our awareness of our own patterns and needs
Address family and relationship challenges that are contributing to a limited expression of self
Develop greater emotional regulation and resilience
Help build and communicate flexible and meaningful boundaries
Understand and work with patterns such as emotional sensitivity, withdrawal, and overgiving (e.g., people-pleasing)
Learn more aligned ways of handling conflict
Improve communication between couples and families
Learn to tolerate differences and disagreements without threatening the sense of connection
Cultivate and repair our relationship with intimacy and connectedness and more.

Takeaways

Differentiation of self is a construct in the family systems approach, which describes our capacity to maintain a sense of our unique self and emotional balance while staying connected and intimate in relationships, even when relationships become intense or turbulent.
Being well-differentiated can show up in daily life as being able to maintain inner peace, making decisions aligned with our values, tolerating conflict, expressing our needs without being overly dependent on others or without cutting people off, and more.
When differentiation is difficult, we may become overly influenced by others, change ourselves for approval, prioritize other people’s peace over our own, become emotionally reactive, or move toward either fusion with others or emotional cutoff.
Deeper fulfillment often comes from a balanced point between dependence and isolation where we can maintain our own thoughts, values, boundaries, and inner equilibrium while also staying connected, tolerating differences, handling conflict, and cultivating intimacy and safety with others.
Our capacity for differentiation develops through relationships and attachments and can become relatively stable over time, but significant life experiences, supportive relationships, self-regulation, and therapy can help us understand and change these patterns.

References

Calatrava, M., Martins, M. V., Schweer-Collins, M., Duch-Ceballos, C., & Rodríguez-González, M. (2021). Differentiation of self: A scoping review of Bowen Family Systems Theory’s core construct. Clinical Psychology Review, 91, 102101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2021.102101
Skowron, E. A., Van Epps, J. J., & Cipriano-Essel, E. A. (2014). Toward a greater understanding of differentiation of self in Bowen family systems theory: Empirical developments and future directions. In P. Titelman (Ed.), Differentiation of self: Bowen family systems theory perspectives (pp. 355–389). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
Skowron, E. A., Stanley, K. L., & Shapiro, M. D. (2008). A Longitudinal perspective on Differentiation of Self, Interpersonal and Psychological Well-Being in Young Adulthood. Contemporary Family Therapy, 31(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-008-9075-1

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