Report 1
Disjunctive vs.
Conjunctive
Discourse and Behavior
in Couples
By
Instructions for this
report are at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409b-g26-report1.htm
G26 Lecture Notes on the
Unity Model of Marriage:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409b-g26-lecture-notes.htm
Section A: Categorizing
Interactions Using the Enead Chart
This is Table 1a
(READ TABLE FROM BOTTOM UP)
|
PHASE
THAT GOVERNS THEIR INTERACTIONS |
THREEFO0LD
SELF |
||
|
SENSORIMOTOR |
COGNITIVE |
AFFECTIVE |
|
|
UNITY |
7 |
8 |
9 |
|
EQUITY |
4 |
5 |
6 |
|
DOMINANCE |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Table Found at http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409b-g26-lecture-notes.htm
“Basic Ennead Chart of Interactions”
PRIME (2005)
Prime is a story about a woman named Rafael who has
recently been divorced, who meets and falls in love with a man who is much younger
than herself. The man that she falls for
is Dave and he is 23 years old, and 14 years younger that Rafael who is 37
years old. To make matters even more complicated, Rafael’s therapist happens to
be Dave’s mother who does not approve of the relationship because Dave is
Jewish and Rafael is not. The film tells the somewhat comedic romance of how
they fell in love and eventually realized that they were not right for each
other and parted ways.
Examples of the couple’s
interactions in Prime:
Dave is lying about who he
lives with. When she asks him who his lives with he says that he live with
roommates, and fails to mention that he lives with his grandparents
When they are at dinner,
they begin a discussion on carp, which is a food that Jewish people eat. Dave is trying to complain about how horrible
it is, and doesn’t understand why Jewish people love it so much. When Raffee
begins to try and give an explanation he says, “What is this, the history Channel?
Are you trying to kill this for me?” He seems to be joking, but he is not
letting her express her opinion.
When Dave goes to visit her
at her work, he comes in contact with her boss. Her boss asks him, “Who are
you, one of the models?” and he says back “Who are you the Hairdresser?” This
gets her in trouble at work. When she
confronts him, he apologizes, because he says that he is upset because he has
been moved down to one day a week at work, and he has to be out of his place by
the end of the week. She just smiles,
and gives in, and lets him get away with it.
Dave is in the living room
playing Nintendo when Raffee walks in and says “Are you coming to bed?” She is
dressed in a sexy t-shirt. He says “Yeah, right after this game.” He looks at
her, and then goes right back to being engaged in the game. She kind of ducks
her head sadly, and walks away.
Dave is sneaking around and
having friends over at the apartment, without telling Raffee. When he hears her
coming in, he hides him. He says hello to her and says “What are you doing home
so early” She says “I am sorry, do you want me to leave?” She seems irritated.
They hear a noise. Raffee says “Is there someone here?” He says “No.” He is lying. She says, “Is there someone here
with you?” Dave’s friend comes out of hiding.
She says “What is going on here?” Dave says, “Let me explain, we were
only here for a few minutes, then I heard you coming, and I panicked.” He says
to his friend “I told you not to come up here.” This reminded me of two
brothers caught by their mom, both giving blame. She says, “I have to come home
to this; you are a preschooler Dave.” Dave says, “You have had me on lock down
since I moved in here. You tell me you want me here, and then you treat me like
I am an inmate.” They are both raising their voices. She says, “You barely
carry your weight around here. I do everything. You don’t even clean up the
place. The one thing that I ask of you
is that you would tell me when you bring someone here.” Dave says, “This is not
a big deal, you need to get over it; I am not Francis, I am not lying to you or
cheating on you.” She is like that is real great Dave. His friend is even
shaking his head in the background, like I cannot believe that you just said
that. Finally Dave says, “You should get a dog if you want to give orders, because
I really do not give a shit anymore.” And he walks out.
They get together, and Dave
says “I missed you so much.” He tries to
touch her face, and she pushes his hand away.” She says, “Dave, I think that we
need to see other people.” He says “What?” She says, “You are in no place to
give me what I need.” She seems upset, but okay with her decision.
While they are broken up,
Dave ends up sleeping with a model that works with Raffee. They end up getting
back together, and then Raffee finds out about it. He ends up tracking her down
in the elevator at her building. He says, “I am sorry, and it was a really bad
call, and I wasn’t thinking. I am learning this as I go along. I do screw up
from time to time; I am actively trying to get it right. I want to be that guy for you. I love you so
much, that I will figure it out.” She pulls him the elevator and starts kissing
him.
Later they are upstairs
making love and Dave says, “I want to make a baby with you, because you want
this, and I want to give it to you.” But she says to him that it shows how deep
his love goes, but she cannot let him do that, because it is not right for him.
The interactions in Prime according to the Enead Chart:
Zone 1-Sensorimotor Dominance
1) When Dave and Raffe are having dinner and are talking about Carp, and she
tries to give him a little historical input, and he asks her, “What is this the
history channel?” and does not let her give her thoughts on the subject.
2) The scene where Raffee comes home to find
Dave at home with his friend without asking, as explained above. When she
confronts him about lying and not pulling his weight around, he just says that
he doesn’t want to be treated like a dog, and walks out.
3) Raffee tries to get him to come to bed, but
he is too busy playing Nintendo, and does not pay attention to her body
language and cues that she wants him to come to bed, he just turns around and
keeps playing.
4) Dave acting
unprofessional at her work, and giving her boss a hard time, and discussed
above.
Zone 2-Cognitive Dominance
1) When Raffee finds out
that her Therapist is really Dave’s mother, and they are talking about it, he
is showing cognitive dominance by making jokes, and not trying to really
understand how this is all making Raffee feel.
2) Dave just sits around
the house all day, and does not help with chores or duties. He just expects her
to work all day, and then come home, and pick up after him.
3) Dave is Jewish, and
Raffee is not, so they disagree on their religious beliefs.
4) Dave lies to her and
keeps things from her, such as who his roommates are.
5) He also lies to her when
he has a friend over, and tries to hide him.
Zone 3-Affective Dominance
1) While they are broken
up, Dave ends up sleeping with a model that works with Raffee. When they get
back together, he does not tell her, and she has to find out at work.
Zone 4-Sensorimotor Equity
1)
He looks into her eyes when he sees her.
At the furniture store he is playing with her hair and looking into her
eyes.
Zone 5-Cognitive Equity
1)
Dave apologizes to her for sleeping
with the model, saying it was a really bad call, and says, “I wasn’t thinking.
I am learning this as I go along. I do screw up from time to time; I am
actively trying to get it right. I want
to be that guy for you. I love you so much, that I will figure it out.”
Zone 6- Affective Equity
1) Dave is willing to give
Raffee a baby, because he loves her, and wants to make her happy.
IRIS
(2001)
The second film that I chose to use is the film Iris. Iris
is based on a true story on Iris Murdock, a famous author from
Examples of the couple’s
interactions in Iris:
Present: John says, “Do we
have whole grain?” He is holding up a dressing bottle. She says “What is whole, is it something within itself, or does it have
parts?” He says, “If you have a whole, you have a whole. You and me are a whole.”
Past: They are at a dance,
and John is being very attentive to her. He is holding her arm, and he says,
“Watch out you might fall.”
Present: She says, “Help,
Help!” Screaming. He says “I am trying to help you.”
He goes out the room, and closes a glass door. She comes to the window, and
taps, and he lets her in. She says softly, looking for the word “sss...sory”. He says “Please don’t
Iris; you have nothing to be sorry for.” He says “We should be saying sorry to
you.” He holds her in an embrace. He says, “Shall I read to you.” She says, “I
wrote novels.” He says, “Yes, you did, you wrote special things, secret
things.” He looks at her with love, and continues to hold her.
Past: He has just read her
novel and he says to her, “Everything you do, everything you say, write, you do
it superbly, your whole life, everything you touch will be that way, I am
certain.” He goes on, “and I know that you must feel, that I do not belong in
your world.” She says to him, “You know about me than any one on earth, you are
my world.” She kisses him, holds his face in her hands.
Present: After a funeral of
one of Iris’s friends they are driving home, when Iris becomes very upset. She
tries to grab the wheel, and eventually jumps out of the car while it is
moving. He pulls the car over and ends up falling down the hill. He falls right
next to her. He holds her, and she says, “I love you.” He says “Little mouse I know that you do.”
He says, “I used to be so
afraid to be alone with you, know I cannot live without you.” They are both
crying, and holding each other. He holds her and they begin to walk out. He
says to her, “Let’s get us home, and then there will be tomorrow, and then the
next day, and the next, getting closer and closest together.”
The interactions in Iris according to the Enead Chart:
Zone-7 Sensorimotor Unity
1) When they are in the
store shopping, they are joking and looking at each other. Their dialogue moves
smoothly, both equally contributing.
2) She goes back to his
room, they are talking, and then he begins to kiss her arm, and she reaches to
kiss his arm as well. They rub noses, and look into each other’s eyes.
3) When they were young and
playing in the water, by the lake, they were smiling, and laughing, and
engaging with each other. They dry each other off. When they are older and at the same area,
they are laughing and playing the same way.
Then Iris went in to a bad spell. John, helps her, and helps her get dressed.
4) He is very attentive to
her, helping her move around the house, getting her tea.
5) John even goes as far as
to basically jump out of a moving car, when Iris jumps out, to try and get her.
When he finds her, he holds her so close.
Zone-8 Cognitive Unity
1) John is quite taken with
all of Iris’s ideas. He is always happy to hear her speak, like she did at a
dinner, talking about the importance of education.
2) There is a conversation
with John and Iris, “Everything you do, everything you say, write, you do it
superbly, your whole life, everything you touch will be that way, I am
certain.”
Zone-9 Affective Unity
1) The second half of the conversation from
above, John goes on, “and I know that you must feel that I do not belong in
your world.” She says to him “You know more about me than any one on earth, you
are my world.” Kisses him, holds his face in her hands.
2) In the scene where Iris
had jumped out of the car, and they were on the ground, He holds her, and she
says, “I love you.” He says, “Little
mouse I know that you do.”
He says, “I used to be so
afraid to be alone with you, know I cannot live without you.” They are both
crying, and holding each other. He holds her and they begin to walk out. He
says to her, “Lets get us home, and then there will be tomorrow, and then the
next day, and the next, getting closer and closest together.”
Contrast of Prime and
Iris:
I believe that
Prime and Iris show relationships that are at the opposite end of the spectrum
in regards to the three models of marriage. I believe that Prime represents
Dominance and Equity behaviors and interactions, and that Iris represents Unity
behaviors and interactions that lead to a Unity model of marriage that will
last for eternity. Prime was a movie
where the relationship seemed to be based upon selfish wants and needs that
lead the couple to be joined together. Raffee was looking to fill a void that
had been left when she and her husband had separated.
The interactions between Raffee and Dave were at times very
much in the Dominance model, but over all I would say that their relationship
fell into the Equity model, because they seemed to want to make each other
happy, and Dave did seem to listen to Raffee most of the time. They had too many differences to be able to
join together and move into the Unity model, such as their differences in
religion, and the fact that they were at different places in their life. As Raffee said, “He just couldn’t give her
what she needed.”
The story of Iris Murdock and her husband John, I feel is
an excellent example of a Unity model of marriage. They give a great example at the kind of
relationship, and the amount of love that can be achieved by truly conjoining
to one another. Their love was very obvious from the very beginning. They were so in sink with their interactions.
From the beginning of their relationship, John was trying to conjoin with her.
She was his world, and he was hers. They were with each other all the time, and
happy to do so. They were one unit, a “whole” as John said it. Even when Iris developed Alzheimer’s, there
was no where else that he would rather be, than with her.
Conclusions:
I think that
the films that young people watch have a huge effect on how they perceive the
way a relationship is supposed to be. I
have always felt that I could tell a lot about a person, by what their favorite
movies were. I think that it is so
unfortunate that so many people my age watch films such as “Old School” and “American
Pie,” but most have probably never even heard of the film Iris. So many young
people are watching these films thinking that is how love is supposed to
be. So many girls are getting the
impression that is how girls are supposed to act in order to get guys to like
them. They see these films, and think
that it is okay for men to treat them bad.
When I watch a film, such as Iris, I am always moved to
tears, to see just how much love a person can have for another. I believe that, this is how love is supposed
to be, and that is why I will settle for nothing less than that for my own
life. I see friends whose favorite movies are ones like the films I have named,
and they are the same ones that come to me and do not understand why some guy
has treated them badly. They do not realize the pattern of behavior that they
are falling into. It is my hope that the younger generations begin to wake up,
and snap out of this pop culture that they have been spoon fed through the
films, TV shows, and MTV--that they start to educate themselves, for as Iris
Murdock said, “Education may be the means by which we realize that we are
happy. It opens our eyes, our ears. It
gives us the assurance and the confidence to walk the path that our educated
mind offers.”
Section B: Findings of a Prior Generation
Effects of Gender
Portrayals on Younger Generations
Laura C. Moa
Her Report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/moa/moa-409b-g25-report1.htm
Laura found that a young mind can be a
very impressionable mind. She said that both male and female youth will mimic
their behaviors based on their icons and heroes, and also things they see among
their friends. She said that rap music
is very influential on youth. She says that it is constantly playing on the
radio. Many of the lyrics of these popular rappers show extreme disjunctive
language toward woman. Constant profanity, name-calling, denigration, and
domination are heard every day by young boys and girls.
She believes that exposure to this
type of negative ideals can have harmful effects on the impressionable minds of
youth. She said that Psychologists and researchers have done various studies on
the effects of media on youth, and that strong correlations have been made to
suggest that this exposure has an effect on children. Since media often
displays destructive examples of behavior concerning the relationships of men
and woman, then it will affect children when they watch displays.
Tiffany Akiyama
Her Report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/akiyama/akiyama-409b-g25-report1.htm
Tiffany seemed to look at this issue from the perspective
of her own life growing up. She said that in growing up the media has played a
role in how she views relationships. She says that she relates her knowledge of
the media’s impact on her, and the impact that it must have on children. She
examined this very issue by looking at a Psychology article about the negative
influences of media upon children. The article was called, “The Media:
Relationships to Psychiatry and Children.” She said that this article speaks highly
about the concern on health but it also touches on how much Television
children watch a week, such as 21 hours a week, and she relates it to taking up
80% of the children’s time. She believes
that this article acknowledges that this much television can have a negative
impact on children's views of sex and relationships.
She also looks at another site
that emphasizes the impact that media can have on boys and girls and their type
of speaking styles that will reflect how they view and feel about the opposite
sex. This site also includes the impact of where the person was born and
raised--meaning that however that child's parents were influenced to act in a
certain way in relationships will be shared with their child. She goes on to
say that parents need to remind their children who are going through their
adolescence, that everything that you see on television isn’t always an accurate
depiction of real life, and how you should behave.
Crystal Bulda
Her Report is located at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/bulda/bulda-409b-g25-report1.htm
Crystal found that some of the
portrayals in the media may have an effect on young boys and girls in making
them feel as though this is how you are supposed to act in this society,
behaviors such as young girls wearing make-up, revealing clothing, acting
sexy to other young boys and pretending as if they are adults. She also
said that she believes that the media makes young boys begin to look at girls
as being the underdogs in life and that girls are not
equal to them. She also thought that it had an effect on how boys talk to
girls, and that media gives them the impression that it is okay to talk down to
girls. She said that the environment has a big effect on young children, and
that is where they go to look on how to model their behavior.
She examined different articles that
helped to prove her point on the effects of media on younger generations. One
of the sites that she found was from the
Angela Murray
Her report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/murray/murray-409b-g25-report1.htm
To look at the effect of AUV’s on young children; Angela
took a real life example of her own, and examined the impact that AUV’s have on
her nieces. She explained that her sister had been abused by her husband and
that abuse taught her nieces that is was okay for them to be abused. She also explained that each time her sister
tried to ask for something from her husband and he refused to do it, her nieces
learned that their opinions as women mattered less than the opinions of men in
their lives.
She said that she believes that the media helped to put the
imprint in her sister’s mind that it was okay to let a man treat her like that.
She felt that she had been trained to believe that she is worth less than the
men in her life. Anti-Unity Values in
the media, she believes, teaches boys that they only need to push harder to get
what they want from women in their lives. She believes that boys are only
learning to dominate, and are not learning to teach women the right way.
She examined articles and found that many young
people will say that they do not believe that the media has a strong influence
on their behavior, but all the articles show how much of an impact it really
has on our lives. She said that by viewing sex regularly, the act has lost its
sacredness within the marriage bed. It
has been cheapened. In the media
promiscuous sexuality is promoted daily and the effects of such promiscuity are
rarely mentioned. She said that girls are being taught that their body is no
longer sacred, and it is okay to just give it away to anyone, causing girls to
participate in sexual activity at much younger ages.
Christine Gora
Her Report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/gora/gora-409b-g25-report1.htm
Christine found that mass media exposes
children to AUVs that immediately changes their
behavior. She discusses the impact of cable in children, and the growing number
of sex scenes in television. She
connected children having sex at younger ages, to the over-exposure of sex in
the media. She also addressed the issue in families that have a lack of
education and moral values. She felt
that they were more at risk to being influenced by AUV’s in the media. She says
that this has turned into a cycle, affecting each new generation.
Christine also examined finds on the
Web, where she found one site where there was an analysis done on
out-of-wedlock births in the
Katie Ide
Her report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/ide/ide-409b-g25-report1.htm
Katie
found that kids today grow up so much faster than ever before. They want Ipods and cell phones and want to wear makeup, all at a
very young age. She thinks that this is partially because they see movies with
sex, betrayal and dishonesty that their parents do not censor. She talks about movies that show “guys night”
and the example that gives, and how it is not in the Unity model. She said that you can see the change in
values in simple things, such as what kids play with. For example, young girls are playing with
dolls that have on enough makeup and outfits to make them look like girls I see
at the club on the weekends.
She
said that girls are getting the idea in their heads that in order to be
accepted, they need to give the message to guys that, “Hey I’m here for your
pleasure, come use me!” She found that boys are growing up with the idea that
they are pimps, and that it is okay to treat girls badly. She talked about
campaigns such as “Real Beauty” that are supposed to make young girls feel
better about themselves. She says that these would not be necessary if AUVs making girls feel bad about themselves
were not present in the media.
One
of the articles that she examined talks about the link between rap songs and teens
becoming sexually active at a young age. It talks about how teenage boys are
viewing themselves as “Sex-driven” studs when listening to rap songs that make
women to be sexual objects. The article expects that just by listening to rap
lyrics, teenagers will commit some sort of sexual act 2 years sooner than those
who don’t listen to those type of songs. It also describes the teenage brain
being in constant construction and that teens that are exposed to sexually
explicit songs are at greater risk. The study concluded that 51 percent of
teens who listen to rap music had sex versus 21 percent of teens that didn’t
listen to rap music.
She
also talked about young children wearing bracelets that are different colors
according to what sexual acts they have done, that they are proud to tell the
world the sexual things they have done. There are different games that go along
with the bracelets that give boys, once again, control over the girls, to do
the sexual acts that they want. She says that this just goes to show that the
media is starting fabs that are increasing sexual
activity at a younger age.
Christine Afonin
Report can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2006/afonin/afonin-report1.htm
Christine believes that AUVs are
issues of the society, and that problems arise when people are ignorant, and
are misguided by them. She believes that many people mimic others, and that it
is by imitation that couples lead other couples to a downfall. She thinks that
imitation comes from many forms in the media including music and films. She
says that many people try to relate their problems to those of people on TV,
and they are lead astray. She says that she encounters AUVs
in the media, and she sees the effects that they have on her friends.
She
says that children also mimic what they see in the Media and that they learn
many of their behaviors from what they see as well. She goes on to say that
many AUV’s are viewed as glamorous, and that this further affects children into
imitating these, and believing that is how the world is supposed to be. She
said the biggest problem with society is that each and every one of us fights
to understand and create our own place within it. But one problem about society
that seems to elude us is that its basis is artificial and corrupt with ideas
of power and not love.
My reactions to their Findings:
I agree with the findings of the prior generation. I agree
that so many children are growing up way too fast, and it is a result of the
things that they are exposed to in our society, including the media. With the growing amount of time that children
watch TV per day and the growing number of programs that are accessible,
children are growing up watching shows that show children acting in ways that
are not normal for their age. For example, the show “
I cannot believe the way that teenagers are dressing today.
Teenage girls wear so much make-up and wear such mature clothes that I cannot
tell a 15 year old from a 25 year old. I
look at girls in public, and I think how my mother never would have let me out
of the house dressed like that. Girls watch girls like the ones on
Relevance of my findings:
The relevance of these finding are
very important. The effect the AUVs in the media on younger generations has led to
problems with our youth today. The mind
of a child and teenager is so impressionable.
If we put out bad examples of how to behave and how to have a
relationship, it is only going to cause bad behaviors and relationships in the
real world. We only know that which we
are exposed to, and if all we are exposed to are behaviors that fall into the
dominance and equity models, then we are never going to know that there is
another way, a better way, a way that provides unity and a marriage that will
last into eternity.
Psychology Literature on this topic:
Sexuality,
Contraception, and the Media. By: Committee on Public Education.
Located
at:
This
article discusses the growing health problems from American adolescents having
sex. It discusses the impact that the
media plays on the influence of adolescents having sex at young ages. It says
that many music lyrics, TV shows, and film contain messages to the youth that
can be misleading, but that adolescents take as fact.
Mass Media
Influences on Sexuality. By: J.D Brown
Located
at:
This
article says that there is still more research that needs to be done in this
area, but that preliminary reports that have been done on adolescents say that
the media does have an effect on the sexual behaviors of the viewers.
Sex
knowledge and Behavior in
Located
at:
This
article discusses the growing number of teenagers who have become sexually
active before the age of 18. It
discusses the need for better education on sex, since most teenagers get their
information about sex from TV, which is not an accurate source for sex
education.
Section C:
Disjunctive vs. Conjunctive Verbal Interactions
Summary of Lecture notes 17a Part 5:
When a couple is interacting with each
other, they can have conjunctive or disjunctive verbal interactions. A disjunctive verbal interaction would be an
interaction where the husband responds to the wife with being negative to her, denying her request, or refusing it. An example
of a disjunctive interaction would be when a wife asks her husband to go
grocery shopping with her, and he says, “No, we should go to Home Depot.” In this interaction the wife is asking the
husband to do something with her, and he is giving her a refusal response.
These interactions are the type of interactions that you would see in a
dominance model of marriage.
Another
type of disjunctive behavior would be being disloyal to your wife, such as
keeping secrets or telling lies, s such as confiding in your children, and
telling them things that you do not tell your wife.
Being abusive, swearing, and yelling at your wife are also examples of
disjunctive behaviors. If you do not make things up to your wife after
disturbing or hurting her, than you are committing another disjunctive
behavior. These disjunctive behaviors hurt the couple now in the present, and
in eternity.
A
husband who is doing conjunctive behaviors is humbling himself before his wife,
and encouraging unity. Conjunctive acts include being honest with your wife at
all times, never giving her refusals, and always speaking to her in a nice calm
and caring voice. An example of a conjunctive interaction would be a husband
talking to his friends about his wife, the same way that he would if she was in
the room. Another example would be
agreeing to go with your wife somewhere, even if it is not where you want to
go. A husband uses conjunctive behaviors when it is his goal to be mentally
intimate with his wife and to achieve a marriage that is eternal.
My opinion
on conjunctive and disjunctive behaviors:
It is my opinion that maintaining conjunctive
behaviors, and avoiding disjunctive behaviors, is vital at achieving a good
marriage, and achieving a marriage that will last in eternity. So many men do not humble themselves, and
they let their pride rule, and it ultimately destroys their marriages. I
believe that it is the act of humbleness in life that enables us to love in the
first place. We must always put
ourselves in each other’s place in order to understand how they feel, and where
they are coming from. I believe that Dr. James definition of what are
conjunctive and disjunctive behaviors are very accurate. Many men may not feel this way, and that is
because they are still letting their pride take over, and they are not humbling
themselves in their relationship. It is these men that are in male dominance
relationships, and they are the ones that are the farthest away from unity.
Examples from Deborah Tannen’s “Gender and Discourse”:
Example #1: Page 37
Isadora: “Why do you turn on me? What did I
do?”
Bennett: Silence.
Bennett: “What did I do?”
He looks at her as if her
not knowing were another injury.
Bennett: “Look, let’s just
go to sleep now, Let’s forget it.”
Isadora: “Forget what?”
He says nothing
Isadora:
“It was something in the movie, wasn’t it?”
Bennett:“What, in
the movie?”
Isadora“.
. . It was the funeral scene. … The little boy looking at his
dead mother. Something got you there. That was when you got depressed.”
Silence
Isadora:
“Well, wasn’t it?”
Silence
Isadora“Oh, come on, Bennett, you’re making me furious.
Please tell me. Please.”
This
is an example of a disjunctive behavior. Isadora is trying to conjoin to
Bennett by trying to find out what is wrong, and he is just being silent. He is not answering her questions. He looks
at her with an angry face, and shifts the blame to her like she did something
wrong, instead of discussing it with her. He then tries to drop the subject
further pushing Isadora out of the conversation, and not letting her in and
telling her what is wrong. He tells her to forget it, but how can she forget
it? She keeps pressing on as women will, with the strong desire to conjoin, but
he will not answer her, he just leaves her hanging, which hurts her even more.
Example #2: Page 145-156
Marianne: (Searchingly) Has something happened, Johan?
Johan: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I swear.
Marianne: We’re pretty
honest with each other, you and
Johan: I think so.
Marianne: It’s awful to go
around bottling things up. One must speak out, however painful it is. Don’t you
think?
Johan: (Irritably)
Hell, yes. What time is it?
Marianne:
Johan: My watch is always
stopping. What were you saying? Oh yes, honesty. I suppose you mean over sex,
to put it bluntly.
Marianne: Sometimes I think
we…
Johan: People can’t always
live by cheek by jowl. It would be too tiring.
Marianne: Yes, that
is the big question.
Johan: Anyway, I must go
now.
This is also an example of disjunctive behaviors. Marianne
tries to talk to Johan about something that is important to her. He can tell that she is trying to confront
him, so he starts to dodge the conversation by distracting her, and asking
other questions. He is also lying to her
when he tells her that nothing is going on, when both of them know that something
is going on. At the end he just cuts off
the conversation, and says that he has to go, which is leaving her feeling
unfulfilled in the conversation, and hurt.
These are behaviors that will hurt their relationship, and keep them
away from being able to achieve unity.
Section D: Conclusion and Advice to
Future Generations:
My Summary:
From studying the three models of marriage including
the Unity Model of marriage, I feel that I have begun to learn the details at
how to have a Unity marriage, and what types of behaviors will keep me from
achieving it. Before taking this class, I already had the idea that I wanted a
marriage similar to that of the Unity marriage, and now I am learning the
skills to make sure that I acquire that kind of relationship for myself in my
own life. Before taking this class the lines between dominance, equity, and
unity were fuzzy, but now I see the distinctions very clearly and where the
lines are drawn.
There are some behaviors that fall into the equity model
that I had previously thought were okay in a marriage, but I have begun to
change my mind throughout this course as I become more educated on what it
takes to achieve a marriage that will last into eternity. I have come to realize that everything being
equal in a relationship is not the best thing.
I have learned that what is best is a relationship that is working
jointly together at all three levels of the threefold self. The information and skills that I am learning
in this course, I will take with me and apply to any relationship that I may go
into from this point on.
It has been hard for me to accept the idea that Swedenborg went back to heaven and hell to interview
couples on eternal marriages, but I have been using the positive bias at
examining his findings, and I do accept the fact that it is possible that he
did in fact go into heaven and hell. It has also been hard for me to accept
that marriages will be eternal in heaven in the way that it is explained. I do hope that I will still be able to be
with my husband in heaven when I die, but it is my religious beliefs as a
Christian, that there is no marriage in heaven, except for that of God and his
people. I do however also accept the
positive bias on this subject as well, and I acknowledge that it is possible
that marriages are eternal in heaven as discovered by Swedenborg.
The only thing I could say that I would modify about the
course would be to assign Report 1 from the beginning of the semester to give
more time to work on it, and assign Report 2 as soon as possible as well. I have found that there seems to be more
extra time in the beginning of the semester and this would give people a chance
to get a head start.
My Advice to Future Generations:
My
advice to future generations first and foremost is, Do
not Procrastinate!! Even if you start on the project early, you will need to do
more than just a little bit here and there to get the report done on time. As most college students know, time flies and
other things can come up, so it is best to get it done early. My advice is to give yourself time to watch
the films at least twice each, so you can really catch all of the interactions,
so that you can better place them in the Enead chart.
I also advise to cognitively try and always take the positive bias when going
through the lecture material in this course.
Having a positive bias will help you to better understand the material,
and get more out of the course.
My Home
Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bs2007/gorman/gorman-home.htm
Class Home Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/classhome-g26.htm