spiritual4u

The Library Of Spiritual Science

Research confirms that most couples report experiencing oppositional or negative feelings and acting upon them by exploiting, abusing, or injuring their partner. Physical and mental abuse is practiced by men far more than by women in the majority of societies and cultures. When people reason under the influence of exploitative motivations, they tend to misinterpret the intentions of their partner and tend to use stereotyped, inaccurate, and prejudiced thinking. Our verbal behavior will reflect this style of biased thinking. So will our actions.

There is an advantage in gaining control over our gender behavior in the three domains--affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor. We can avoid those cultural and psychological traits and habits that interfere with adaptive, successful long term gender relationships. The benefits of a stable successful long term gender partnership are extremely attractive. We will explore a particular principle in gender relationship called the conjoint self.

According to this model the perfection of unity in a gender partnership increases through differentiation and reciprocity of behavior in the threefold self of the two partners.

In other words, there are developmental levels of unity that gender partners can achieve or go through with each other. These levels of unity are ordered from external to more and more interior unity. For instance, an external level of unity between marital partners involves their sensorimotor self. They like and enjoy to do things together like dancing, touching each other, partying, camping, watching movies, eating out, driving, talking about their favorite topics, and so on. Note that these overt "external" activities involve sensory and motor interactions with each other (including verbal of course, which is an overt motor habit).

Note that these joint external activities do not necessarily mean that the two partners are in agreement with each other's way of thinking, each other's attitudes, or feelings and motivations. The cognitive and affective self of each partner may not be in agreement, and they may even be competitive or hostile to the other. What is on the inside that is not visible (affective and cognitive self) may be in opposition and even hatred against the partner, while what shows on the outside--sensory-motor activity, may appear harmonious and compatible -- except when there is an overt fight and then the partners show their anger, resentment, and disrespect for one other. Afterwards they make up, and the cognitive disrespect and affective hatred recede again into the underlying invisible state, lurking there, until the next fight at which time the abuse and disrespect come out again.

There is therefore a first level of the conjoint self, and this is external, involving sensorimotor coordination and joint achievement without necessarily there being an interior agreement and respect for the partner. Women, more than men, tend to experience this external phase of the relationship as unsatisfactory, painful, and injurious. Women often have to bond with other women to support and reassure each other during this phase of disharmony with their husband or partner.

Men tend to bond with other men by complaining about their women and speaking about them with disrespect. They also keep secrets from their women and do things they want to hide from them in order to obtain sexual favors, which is therefore a method of exploiting women and dehumanizing them. At this external level of unity, men feel more comfortable than women because they exercise more control in the relationship. Men tend to resist closer more intimate relationship phases in order to maintain their cognitive and affective independence. A man ordinarily dislikes giving up independence in his thinking and feeling while a woman is motivated to conjoin her thinking and feeling with her man. A woman strives to achieve mutual and reciprocal dependence while a man strives to retain independence. This creates a conflict dynamic between them, especially in the first level of unity which is external, involving the sensorimotor self only.

The second level of unity is deeper in that it involves the cognitive self of the two partners. This includes how they think, how they reason, how they justify things, what they consider acceptable or unacceptable, what information or knowledge they have, what philosophy of life and religion. These cognitive behaviors and habits are more resistant to mutual adaptation and reciprocity in the relationship. In other words a man and a woman can be married for years and yet maintain contradictory attitudes, beliefs, and judgments. The external sensorimotor level of unity (level 1) does not necessarily lead to a more interior unity of thinking and reasoning (cognitive habits). Yet many couples achieve cognitive level unity by joint involvement in running a home and raising children together. They see 'eye to eye' on many things and enrich each other's thinking process by mutual stimulation and admiration. When a man and a woman achieve this second level unity, they can love each other more deeply and the relationship continues to grow and become more satisfying and enriching.

The third level which is the deepest level of unity, is achieved through the operation of the affective self which includes motivations, needs, feelings, and desires. Two partners who love each other at this inmost level (affective), feel the desire and motive to protect, support and promote each other's feelings, wishes, and needs. Feelings of competition and conflict gradually disappear. The man acquires "androgynous" traits so that he is able to reciprocate the woman's feelings, emotions, and desires. He is no longer threatened by mutual dependence but feels rewarded by it and enriched. The woman, attached to such a new man, no longer feels threatened or insecure and is able to let go and be who she really wants to be, and needs to be, in order to feel fulfilled and free. A woman feels most free when she is in a perfect unity with a man.

Note that there are many other models of gender relationship which will not be reviewed in this course. Our objective will not be to survey these other models, but only to focus on examining the model of unity discussed in the Readings and in class discussions.

You will be publishing three reports this semester as part of your contribution to the generational curriculum on gender psychology. Dr. James has noted that thousands of people who navigate the Web find these student reports through Web search engines when they are looking for topics on relationships. Your report will contribute first, to yourself in improving your relationship awareness and skills. Second, it will be a contribution for future students who will be reading your reports, and third, for the public at large looking for factual data and interpretation. Your research, observations, and conclusions will be beneficial to others who will read your reports in the ensuing years. Long after you're no longer a student, your gender psychology reports will still be serving the public.

Note on Privacy: Students can use a pseudonym on their reports instead of their real name. Students who publish their reports on the Web can delete their reports after being graded. They can also request to have their reports deleted from the Web after the semester at any time in the future by emailing Dr. James. Usually the request is honored on the same day it is received. Students can also submit their reports in typing privately to the instructor instead of publishing them on the Web. This will not affect their grade.