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Why ‘soulmates’ struggle with conflict in their relationship

Do you have a ‘unity’ or ‘journey’ approach to your relationship? (image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net)

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Emily Brontë

The image of romantic togetherness may sound idyllic – meeting your soulmate and living happily ever after – but it could ultimately be damaging to your relationship. A psychological study has found that people in romantic relationships who regard their partner as their ‘soulmate’ or their ‘other half’ can struggle when it comes to conflict. After all, if they were a match made in heaven, why on earth would arguments or discord affect their perfect union?

The key to a happy life together lies in how people view and evaluate their relationships. While there may be a multitude of ways of thinking about relationships, the social psychology researchers identified two frames through which to view relationships. One is the ‘Unity’ view, where couples believe they were made for each other and meant to be together. The second is the ‘Journey’ frame, which sees a relationship unfolding over time, with conflict helping to grow the partnership and make it stronger.

In two experiments Professor Spike W. S. Lee of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Southern California tested couples on the unity vs journey spectrum. The first experiment was a knowledge quiz that recalled either conflicts or celebrations with their partner. The second, subtler experiment involved identifying shapes that formed a whole (representing unity) or drawing a line from A to B (representing journey).

As anticipated, recalling celebrations made people satisfied with their relationship regardless of how they thoughts about it. Recalling conflicts made couples feel less satisfied with their relationship—but significantly only with the unity frame in mind, not with the journey frame in mind.

Professor Lee concluded: “People who implicitly think of relationships as perfect unity between soulmates have worse relationships than people who implicitly think of relationships as a journey of growing and working things out.” If you think of your relationship as a journey, he added: “You’ll feel better now, and you’ll do better down the road.”

Google searches suggest mental illness is seasonal

There are fewer Google searches on mental illness when summer is in full bloom.

When the sun’s out and your mood lifts after a seemingly interminable winter, you’re not imagining it if you think you feel better and brighter. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) may be more prevalent than previously believed.

Searches on Google suggest that mental illness may have strong links with seasonal patterns, according to research by the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University. Previous studies on mental illness patterns have been done by phone, but may not have been accurate because people can be reluctant to reveal the state of their mental health. But the researchers were able to monitor passively the queries people typed in to Google’s search engine.

The research team monitored mental health queries in the US and Australia between 2006 and 2010. The findings were grouped according to type of mental illness. They found that mental health queries were “consistently higher in winter than in summer”. Examples of this include:

Summer searches for eating disorders are down 37% in the US and 42% in Australia compared with winter.
Searches for suicide are 24% lower in the US and 29% lower in Australia in the summer.
Bipolar Disorder searches are down 16% and 17% in the US and Australia respectively during summer months.

“We didn’t expect to find similar winter peaks and summer troughs for queries involving every specific mental illness or problem we studied. However, the results consistently showed seasonal effects across all conditions,” says James Niels Rosenquist, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The researchers plan to look at other mental illness trends – even down to patterns in mental illness queries on different days of the week.

Stories with mother help children make sense of their world

Hearing stories with mother helps children develop their own narratives about their lives. (pic: istockphoto.com/GeloKorol)

Mums are better than dads at telling stories to their children about past experiences, which helps kids develop their emotional skills.

This was the main finding from a piece of research called Gender Differences in Elaborate Parent-Child Emotion and Play Narratives. The researchers asked parents of children aged between four and five to reminisce about four past emotional experiences: one happy, one sad, a conflict with a peer and a conflict with a parent.

They found that mothers went into more detail when reminiscing with their children than fathers. They also included more emotional terms, which they then talked about with their kids. This helps children understand, develop and articulate their own feelings and point of view on these past experiences.

The researchers concluded: “Mothers appear to be helping children recount and understand their personal past more than fathers, and specifically, in working through difficult emotions that may facilitate emotion regulation skills.” The storytelling helps the children incorporate their own narratives into their lives.

For many adults who didn’t have such nurturing parents, coming to therapy to talk about their past, present and future can help them construct their own narrative and come to terms with what has happened to them. If you’d like to talk to a counsellor to help you make sense of your life, call 07956 823501 or email davanticounselling@gmail.com

Pressure to be ‘perfect’ gives children body-image issues

Anxiety about body shape is starting among children as young as four – and increasingly boys as well as girls have low confidence in their body image.

Four-fifths (78%) of teachers, lectures, support staff and leaders who responded to a survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) say that girls suffer from low self-esteem because of societal pressure to be ‘perfect’, and half (51%) believe boys have low confidence about their bodies. Anxiety levels are also growing: 59% of staff say that female pupils feel anxious about their bodies, and 30% say the pressures affect boys too. And comments about their bodies can be sensitive and easily taken to heart by 55% of girls and 27% of boys.

Girls are more likely to go on diets, and boys are more likely to turn to extreme exercise to get the body they think they want. Girls as young as four are conscious of what they’re eating, and girls aged 10 have been known to go on diets. Teachers have also noted obsession with hair among boys and girls.

Teachers believe airbrushed and unattainable images in the media are mainly to blame. Two-thirds think there is more pressure on children’s body image than 10 years ago – and 84% think girls are under pressure to maintain a particular body image, compared with 66% for boys. The issue is that the children then make themselves miserable once they have fixated on a particular body and realise they probably won’t be able to achieve it.

ATL is calling for more education and awareness in schools about healthy eating and exercise, as well as the practices of airbrushing so that children understand what is real and what is fake. ATL general secretary Mary Bousted says: “Young people want to fit in and it’s a hard part of growing up, but the pressure to have the “perfect” body should not be at the detriment to children’s wellbeing and happiness.”