We have a relationship. You as reader. I as writer. A unique virtual relationship that hopefully reflects the respect we share for a brief moment – my time to write something interesting and your time to read someone’s insights. This connection could be a superficial fleeting connection that ends at the last word. Or, you might feel a stronger connection with my ideas and a brief virtual relationship might last a lifetime. 

We have many relationships with just about everything. Words. People. Pets. And more that influence how you see and connect with yourself, others and the world.  

Examples of strong written connections that have enriched my life include the book, Illusions: the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Bach,  “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.” From the children’s book, The Lorax by Dr Seuss, “I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” Even impulsively buying Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley with a forward that said, “For Daddy and Mama. When I was little, you told me I could do anything. I’m not so little now, but you keep saying it. I’m starting to think you really believe it. I love you for that.” 

These kind and inspiring words reflect the potential power and impact of relationships. Sometimes written or verbal words are harsh and rejecting and connect in a negative way. For example, a school teacher repeatedly told me, “You are not a good writer.” Thankfully, I took her words as a challenge and not as a truth. 

While self-respect is about you, relationship-respect is about everyone. Your focus is expanded to include the unknown, interactive dynamics of connecting, growing, and sharing with others. In other words, you can’t always get what you want, but you get want you need in a respectful relationship where you feel loved, supported, connected and continue to develop and grow.

As previously discussed, DBT and BCA are two therapeutic approaches that work well together to provide practical guidance and useful insights to understand and improve your interpersonal relationship effectiveness. DBT focuses on building skills, and BCA on seeing how those skills are applied regarding your mental health. Together they help you learn new skills and understand how they work and fit into your life. Life is better when you can comfortably develop and maintain mutually validating and respectful relationships that support, empower and challenge you to become and share your best self.

DBT uses 4 modules – Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness and Emotional Regulation – to improve your skills and ability to manage your emotions and social life.  The Interpersonal Effectiveness module includes three specific skills: 

1. Self-respect – skills to respectfully and effectively just be yourself.  
2. Relationship-respect – skills to respectfully engage and dialogue with others.
3. Assertiveness  – skills to effectively speak up to express yourself.

This three-part series on Interpersonal Effectiveness previously discussed Self-Respect skills and now continues with exploring relationships and relationship-respect skills.

Relationship-respect is about being fair and respectful when interacting between yourself and others. Your focus moves beyond yourself to include an often undefined, unpredictable and uncontrolled connection with others. 

The undefined, unpredictable and uncontrolled nature of relationships is exactly what makes them so wonderful, amazing, scary, inspiring or horrible. Relationships are a powerful influence in your life. Relationships can lift us up to places and experiences way beyond what we can do on our own. Or tear us down into the deepest depths of despair. 

To use a metaphor, you are a boat. You use self-respect skills to define exactly what kind of boat you are. But relationships are the Ocean that you sail upon. Even though you control how you set your sail and where you steer the boat, you can’t control the ocean. You can only interact with the ocean. That is how relationships often feel. That you are a small boat on a huge ocean.  But here’s the real deal: Everyone feels like a small boat on a huge ocean, and relationships are actually how one boat connects to another boat. We are all boats. The ocean is just the environment that relationships sail upon. Relationships are about how two boats find and develop a connection as they sail upon the vast, ever changing ocean. 

The reason that I used the boat and ocean metaphor is that people often feel powerless in a relationship. They can feel hurt and rejected when they are ignored or invalidated. Or become frustrated and angry when they can’t control someone to get their own way. You can feel powerless floating on the ocean. But you are not powerless. You only become powerless when you stop caring for your boat (losing self-respect) and give up your efforts to steer and connect with other boats (relationships-respect). 

Here’s the life hack about perspective: How you feel is different than what you think or do. Feeling you are powerless is actually a thought that you are powerless because you can’t completely control a situation. Recognising that you don’t have complete control is not the same as having no control. Just being a boat floating on an ocean reveals that you have some power because you are a boat and floating. Powerless is a sunken boat, which you do not become until the day you die. Feelings are different than thoughts.

Relationships challenge the illusion of how much control we believe we have in our life. An illusion of control that we often use to think that we are protected and secure and can avoid the learned discomfort of vulnerability. That being vulnerably is bad. The learned discomfort of vulnerability is challenged by the research of Brene Brown when she discovered the purpose and power of vulnerability and stated, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” 

Relationships make us vulnerable, which can be uncomfortable and horrible, or inspiring and amazing. To steal the quote from Brene Brown, “Relationships are the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” They challenge you to comfortably be yourself, recognize the limits of your control, and then effectively connect with others. 

In DBT, developing and improving your relationship-respect skills begins by learning and using the acronym – GIVE. Each letter represents an approach or skill that can be used to build and maintain a healthy relationship. 

• G is be Gentle.
• I is be Interested. 
• V is be Validating. 
• E is Easy going manner. 

Each GIVE skill improves how you can engage and build a robust dialogue to interact with others. People want to engage when you are gentle, interested, and validating with an easy manner. Using such skills demonstrates that you are respectful and caring, and that they are seen, valued and appreciated.

In contrast, struggling with unstable, stressful, or difficult relationship is often the result of not using GIVE skills. Instead, the skills used create tension, discomfort, and dysfunction. BCA validates and recognizes these unhealthy relationship skills with the acronym – HARD. 

HARD is the opposite of GIVE, and represents ineffective and dysfunctional interpersonal skills that clients develop to keep themselves feeling emotionally safe by putting up walls, putting down others, and trying to control and keep everyone at a safe distance. 

• H is be Harsh. 
• A is be Absent-minded. 
• R is be Rejecting. 
• D is be Difficult. 

HARD skills break down communications and disrupt interactions, and can make anyone feel miserable, rejected, and angry. Instead of engaging in a validating and interactive dialogue, you perform a one-sided monologue of expressing yourself without any meaningful interactions. Essentially you create your own isolation by rejecting others as not having any value or worth in your life.   

One of the most effective and beneficial aspects of recognising the GIVE and HARD skills is that, unlike complicated relationships, the skills are simple, direct, and easy to identify and understand. Even first interactions provide a sense of being gentle, interested, validating with an easy manner, or harsh, absent-minded, rejecting, and difficult. 

But life is seldom so easy to clearly define, so while the specific GIVE and HARD relationship skills are easily recognize, they are often mixed and matched in ways that can mask or conflict with each other to make relationships better or worse. 

A “better” example is that I had a high school music teacher that was very harsh and difficult to get along with, but also a highly skilled music teacher. Most music students avoided spending time with him. But I happened to play the bassoon, which was his specialty. In spending time with him, and having some social awareness skills, I started to recognize that while he was harsh and difficult, he was also interested and validating regarding my music studies. In fact, he was the reason I excelled in music and became a Minnesota State High School Band bassoonist. There are many great coaches and skilled teachers that are demandingly harsh and difficult, but also very interested and validating towards your development. They help you become a better person.

A “worse” example is someone being gentle and validating with an easy manner, but has no interest in you, and instead is trying to manipulate you into meeting their needs. The relationship feels great and you feel special. One example of this manipulative style of relationship was a teen client in a DBT group. She struggled with relationships and low self-esteem, and her relationships with her mother  or boyfriend often conflicted. She described her boyfriend, as wonderful and loving with a gentle, validating and easy manner, but he would speak poorly about her mother and tried to break their mother-daughter bond. She felt conflicted about the relationships, but really tried to please her boyfriend, even when he was disrespectful or made unreasonable demands. One day during group therapy, she expressed feeling pressured by her boyfriend to trust him more and her mother less. Recognizing the manipulating aspects of the relationship, I asked her if he had made any unreasonable demands, such as asking her to have sex with other people approved by her boyfriend. Her eyes popped wide open in surprise, because that is exactly what he had started asking her to do. He said it was his cousin, who was sad and lonely. But in reality, he was a pimp that had been trying to manipulate and groom her into becoming a prostitute. She broke up with him, and then discovered that he had several “girlfriends” that he had been grooming to become his prostitutes. 

For better or worse, relationships have a significant impact in your life. An impact that you can manage better when you have effective interpersonal skills to maintain your self-respect and relationship-respect.

Dane Jorento, MSW, LICSW is a speaker offering keynotes, seminars, and workshops on mental health, trauma, ADHD, and relationships. He specialises in BCA Holistic Therapy, EMDR, and DBT approaches.