Differentiation: A Double-Bind for Women
Something I think we get very wrong in our mainstream culture is the way we think about independence and dependence. We prioritize independence in the Western world, particularly in the US. We have a history of thinking we are The Rugged Individualist, like a superhero who doesn’t need anyone or anything, and that's seen as the best way to be a human.
Contrast this with what I know to be true as a couple and family therapist: individuals are not alone on emotional islands. As a relational therapist, I think about each client as an individual AND someone who is in close emotional connection with loved ones. That sounds like a contradiction, but isn’t. It’s seeing the whole person–seeing them as themselves while always remembering they are someone’s loved one.
This relational view of each client is crucial when it comes to women's mental health. Women live in a world that expects us to be strong and independent, yet at the same time to be the emotional caretakers of the family, putting ourselves in a distant last place. This becomes a double-bind. If a woman is deeply involved in the emotional life of her loved ones, she becomes labeled the “helicopter mom” or someone who needs to “let people live their own lives.” If she steps back to foster her own emotional independence, she is seen not being as nurturing as she “should be.” The constant message is, “Nurture others before yourself, but be your own person.” It’s no wonder that women show up in my office anxious and angry, and feeling guilty for feeling these emotions. They needn’t feel guilty. They are feeling exactly how humans feel when caught in a double-bind–powerless and frustrated.
So what does a woman do when caught in this inevitable double-bind? Embrace it, but on your own terms. From the perspective of couple and family therapy, true independence is remaining completely yourself while being deeply emotionally connected with others. We call this differentiation, which I think is a bit misleading. Differentiation sounds like stepping away from your loved ones, but it's really more about saying, “I can love you and stay intimately connected with you and at the same time be a different person from you with my own emotions.”
The person who embodied differentiation for me was my grandmother. She had a knee injury as a teen and it meant that walking for her could be quite painful. So she was not out in the backyard with my siblings and I, or following us around the house. Instead, she knitted and crocheted and listened to the family life around her. Gramma was definitely intimately connected with us–she knew everything that was going on in our house! She knew if we were fighting with each other, who wasn't sharing, and who was really sick and who was trying to avoid homework and chores. She watched and listened to us playing in the backyard through the window, drinking coffee and crocheting, and calling us out on our shenanigans when we tried to tattle. We couldn’t push her to take sides and she had no time for backtalk. Yet she also knew when we were upset or needed extra attention, and she was there to provide it. She loved us fiercely and indulged us as only a grandmother can. Yet her life did not revolve around us. My grandmother was so intimately connected with us and so fully her own person.
Differentiation is not easy. It truly is the work of a lifetime. We can get lost dancing between the competing demands as we try to value our interconnectedness from the perspective of our own sense of self. When I get lost, I mentally take a step back and watch what is going on around me in my family, like my grandmother watching us play through the kitchen window. I can empathize and remain connected with my loved ones while also maintaining my own sense of self and emotional responses–but not always. As my grandmother would say, “If wishes were fishes we’d all have a fry.” So I work to give the same compassion to myself that I would give one of my loved ones and try again to calibrate the balance. This, ultimately, is what differentiation is about–making the effort from a compassionate stance for others, yes, but more importantly, for ourselves.
