Suzanne, your research was a qualitative study in which the constructs of closeness and separateness in the marital relationship were explored through focusing on bodily or somatic experience of the partners.  Why did you choose to focus on closeness and separateness and what questions were central to this study?

There were three questions central to this study: What is the somatic experience of closeness and separateness in the marital relationship? How is the somatic experience of closeness and separateness connected to emotion, cognition, and behavior? What meanings do partners give to their somatic experience, and how do these meaning affect the marital relationship?

Throughout my years of study, both in my private practice and in my own marriage, I’ve seen that we are in constant movement between being close to our partners and being a separate self in the context of a relationship and I wanted to hear people talk about how their body is involved.  I also wanted to know if they noticed what was going on in their body when they were both feeling close and in close proximity to their partner and if they were able to learn from taking note of their body cues. Additionally I was interested in how a strong sense of self, and our own autonomy in a relationship is experienced in our bodies and what bodily cues are perceived as we move between closeness and separateness with our partner.  The reason I chose closeness and separateness is that through my years of study I’ve seen that closeness, being close to our partner which we also call intimacy, and having a healthy marriage also requires that we have a healthy sense of our self and that putting these two together, these two experiences, they really form a construct of the marital relationship.

How did you gather your data for the research you reference in your dissertation?

Essentially my data was self report gathering and I interviewed thirteen married people in a variety of ways by defining three groups; two couples together, four couples’ separately and then three individuals whose partners were not interviewed.  The interviews were an hour to an hour and a half long and I asked them to recall their experiences of closeness and separateness. I started by asking them to do a memory recall, and I took them through a process if they needed some help in doing that, of experiences of feeling close and then of experiences of their autonomy and then I asked them as they were recalling that to tune into their bodies and to tell me what they were noticing in their bodies as they paid attention to those memories.

What I found was that with each transcript there was this “lesson” that came out of it.  As I was transcribing the interviews I realized that these “lessons” sounded more like a through line, from which the metaphor of dance emerged, as well as the development of some common themes.  Eventually, after reviewing the transcripts from the interviews over and over I identified four major themes: (a) the dance of closeness and separateness; (b) the choreography of the dance; (c) the energy expressions that fuel the dance; and (d) the transition zone between closeness and separateness.  In order to illustrate this movement the diagram I used was the infinity symbol on it’s side to describe this ongoing movement or dance - the dance of closeness and separateness that partners are in and either moving close to or moving into our separate autonomy - and that we are always in this motion. The interesting data I observed in the interviews came from the somatic descriptions that identified a definite somatic cue that indicated that they wanted to take the turn around the infinity symbol and head back off in the other direction.  Essentially they described a point at which in each experience they got a sense that they’ve had enough of being alone and wanted to get with their partner, or they’ve had enough of their experience of closeness and needed some separate time. From these body cues as they described them it became clear that the somatic domain was connected to the other three major domains: the emotional domain, the cognitive domain and then the spiritual domain.

So that these four domains were interactive and connected to each other and it was my contention that it was the somatic domain that was the basis for all of it, whether people were aware of what was going on in there bodies or not, it was the body cues that facilitate the feeling, the thought and the spiritual experience of closeness and separateness.

Did your subjects have previous somatic training?

I did ask for that as the primary criteria because in a qualitative study you want to have information rich data and that means that you want to have people that know what you are talking about when your asking somatic relevant questions.  Many people had specific training in a somatic process like hakomi for example or had been body-centered meditators trained in mindfulness processes from which they had learned or developed their somatic awareness.

What were some of the body cues described in the interviews?

They described how they might feel a rush in their belly, a longing in their heart, or they would notice something in the region of their heart.  One couple that I interviewed separately spoke about how their heart is their primary metaphor and the primary area of their body where their experience showed up meaning they were very heart centered and could tell what was going on in their relationship by what was going on around their heart.  The husband of the couple even described that if he knows that he’s way off base in his relationship that literally his heart starts hurting and there have been periods in his life where he’s been so off base with his relationships that his heart would literally hurt, one time it was so bad that he thought he was having cardiac event. He then described how he would take a pause and realize that what was really happening was that he’d really messed up in his relationship. Basically this couple was particularly attuned to that area of the body and had learned to read the somatic cues in order to benefit their relationship.  Another woman described this “buzzy wuzzy” feeling when she tried to move from closeness to separateness, and actually that was the forth theme that I identified which was that in the cross over, in this transition zone from closeness to separateness, people could have either a really smooth and easy transition, like if the dance is going really well you don’t see the transition between the steps it just goes so smooth and easy, but if people are not having an easy time about going from closeness to separateness, and vice verse, I call that trip stumbling or falling. To stay consistent with the metaphor of dance that if you are going to miss a step you are going to stumble or trip. Or you might even fall out of the dance and that it was in the transition zone where the problems of a relationship would show up. Some couples would even bring up a conflict to get separate or somebody might get sick to get separate, or to get attention and to get close. So the transition zone was a really important area and theme of the whole process that came through.

What inspired your research?

Well I’ve been married for 37 years and through the ups and downs of my marriage I began paying attention to my body more and more, and although I’ve always been pretty kinesthetic, the somatic education I’ve received really deepened my understanding and awareness. Also my initial training in marriage and family work was in systemic training and in Murray Bowens model in addition to a few others as well. One of the things Murray Bowen always said was “emotion is the basis of all relationships and emotion itself is from within the body” and it’s the life force that fuels the relationship, so I was attuned to that and as I paid attention more to my experience in my marriage I would notice that I would feel twisty feelings in my belly if we were in conflict in some way.  Or if I felt particularly close and I knew it was time to head off on my own somewhere I would feel this pull in my solar plexus making it hard to pull away, so my own experience in my marriage really had me start paying attention to the cues my body was sending me and I really learned to use them effectively to benefit my marriage. And then my clinical work with couples over the last 25 years or so I just started watching people move in and move out of their experiences with each other and my initial somatic training when I started that in the 1990’s was pretty much about relationship repair and development and using our body language and body cues to inform us about what’s needed here, and how could we shift here- what attention needs to be given and that sort of thing.

What were the results that surprised you in your study?

There were two things that really surprised me.  First, how spontaneously the participants included spiritual experience in their somatic descriptions.  I didn’t ask any questions about their spiritual experience I stayed away from that, I didn’t particularly know how to ask those questions, I didn’t want to confound things with spiritual experience but everyone of the participants said something that indicated that they were talking about their spiritual sense of feel or this connection between each other or the disconnect that happens in conflict that something larger then themselves became more in contact with the greater world and with nature.  And it was true for men and women that in talking or at least in being asked questions of them to pay attention to their body they talked about the spiritual experiences and I found that quite delightful and really very interesting.

Another thing that really surprised me was the variety of ways people used their body experience and cues as a resource.  One way was as a signal at that transition point and another was a signal of desire.  It was fascinating to hear they got a body sense about it and went – oh I really want to be close – or oh I really want to get separate and how the body cues were used as pieces of information to make a decision.

What are the 3 most important lessons couples could learn, and benefit from, based on your research?

The value of somatic awareness – developing that particular skill can really enhance themselves as individuals and enhance their ability to be able to read their partner’s better and allow their partner to get to know them better.  Somatic awareness partnered with communication really serves the relationship well.

My personal opinion about this after my years of experience is that when both partners are developing their skills about this it can make a very positive difference in sorting out their issues, and in discovering those issues they may realize that this is as far as we go in our relationship, but they have used the skill in a really good way to help them get clear about their relationship, and if they do separate hopefully it will contribute to a much easier transition for them.

Another important lesson about this is how important somatic awareness skill is in self-regulation during interaction especially in conflicts.  So many conflicts just spin out of control and that’s what really brings damage to a relationship, but when you are somatically aware you can take a pause and notice that you feel tension in your body and that the situation is escalating so much that you’re starting not to make sense, you can stop and take care of yourself for a moment and go back to it.

The third lesson is that personal development of somatic skills really expands the vibrancy and vitality and can really serve to experience the pleasure of life in a much larger way and the pleasure of adult intimate relationships in a much larger way.

For a copy of the dissertation, The Embodiment of Adult Intimate Relationship: A Somatic Exploration of Closeness and Separateness, email Suzanne at heartspace@charter.net