Competition Versus War, Roles Versus Hierarchy

By commenting on the difference between a competitive situation and one where purpose is shared, I opened the door to wondering about the differences between intimacy and competition on one hand and then competition and war or violence on the other. This thinking follows the rubric of moving from intimate situations where we feel close to someone else on to situations where we relate socially based on power and status or roles and then on to situations where we must decide whether those we must face are either included in our sense of the in-group and those who are excluded altogether.

If we reverse this continuum, we must first decide (or, instinctually react as to) whether to include anyone as equals (include/exclude, animal or basic relationships). If they can be considered as equally human instead of as less than us, we will interact based on perceived power and status roles (social relationships). If we become closer than interacting primarily through roles, if we feel able to be ourselves more openly and authentically, more heartfelt, then we can speak of a realm of intimacy (private relationships). [Sometimes people operate in supposedly intimate or private relationships primarily through role relationships and reactive emotions and instincts, so we could say that close human intimacy has not developed.]

In the best sorts of relationships, we can mix business and pleasure, business and private sorts of interactions, role responsibilities and intimacy. But to do so, those involved must develop some sense of professionalism, respect for privacy or "boundaries", and also some agreement on when to act professionally or intimately. When the people involved are not quite mature enough for this, we separate business from pleasure or suffer the consequences. The question becomes one of when, or if, it is possible to mix business (role/status/power types of relating) with pleasure (and intimate means of relating). Therapy certainly crosses those lines.

Let's work outside in--from that inclusion/exclusion response to status/power/role relationships to intimate/personal relationships. The exclusion response occurs when we feel that the other party or parties involved are less than human, or not part of our group, or a threat to survival. This allows for eating meat, cruelty to animals, genocide, slavery, and on an individual level, rape and physical assault. Essentially, at this level, we are dealing with basic instincts. If we include someone as human or like us, we relate based on status, competition for power, and roles. Other social animals do this, too. Other animals are relating somewhat on emotions and somewhat on instincts, but humans also include the possibility of relating based on explicit social roles (other animals have differentiated roles, but ants aren't as conscious of this differentiation or as flexible in their ability to change their roles, for example). We end up with a complex mix of basic instincts, the ways those instincts relate with emotions, and also the ways in which our roles relate with instincts and emotions. Things get more complex as we move towards intimacy which is why it can be helpful to distinguish between complexity and complications. When we feel free to interact as the complex individuals we are, this feels very freeing rather than feeling complicated. And at the level of intimacy, we can include all instincts (although usually moderated), emotions (moderated), thinking (moderated), etc. without feeling competitive and without needing to put on a "role-face" (and be primarily professional).

These distinctions should make it clear that it is possible to have competition (between roles and types of status) without being at war. In essence, we still compete, like for that next promotion, but we agree to "play nice" (compared to lions eating male cubs, anyway). Furthermore, it is possible--however unlikely--that we can incorporate business and pleasure or our professional role relationships with our personal relationships. The better we are at all of this, the closer we can feel. War and dehumaninzation (exclusion) make it impossible to feel close, and professionalism alone (role relating without personal intimacy) makes it impossible to feel close.

Therapy fascinates me because it is a professional role that usually is expected to incorporate intimacy. In other words, few people would want Mr. Spock as a therapist. As a professor, maybe, but not as a therapist. That role simply does not fit his manner of relating. One difficulty for therapists, then, is that they inevitably mix business and personal relationships and feelings. As opposed to business associates deciding to strike up a friendship or friends deciding to strike up a business relationship, therapists' business is the constant management of roles and intimacy, the constant crossing of lines between what is public and what is private.

In this dance, clients have the right (a professional-level concept) to certain expectations of what their therapist will do for them. Most therapists have a desire to feel personally intimate with their clients, and indeed, if this feeling is shared, it is a strong aid to progress. And this leaves us with the conundrum of when to respond from a role-position and when to respond more personally. The situation is complicated exponentially when therapists cannot or do not formulate clearly what their professional role is. Even without this complication, this type of relationship is complex. But my relationship with my girl is more interesting for being complex...only we try to keep that happy complexity as uncomplicated as possible.

If you've seen mixed martial arts fighting, it is not so hard to distinguish between competition and war or malevolence. Two people step into a UFC ring, agree not to bite one another, gouge eyes, or punch balls--but otherwise proceed to batter one another until there is a knockout, a submission, or time is called. Since many of these competitors respect each other and the game, people don't get killed, hatred doesn't have much place (well, maybe somewhat for the fans), and we get to enjoy intense competition that is not war. Pretty clear distinction as long as people mostly follow the rules. Competition, not war.

In therapy, clients have a right to expect the expert (hopefully, the therapist) to take the lead in a noncompetitive manner. This calls for a particular skill that many professionals clearly do not possess and do not need to possess. While salespeople can get away with feeling competitive with both other salespeople and their own clients, while salespeople can try to "win" against their peers and their clients, it doesn't work for therapists to try to "beat" their clients. And yet, the peculiar difficulty to this type of relationship is that therapists must respond to expectations while I have rarely or never heard anyone speak about a client's responsibility in the relationship. How do we treat clients as social equals while supposedly having a greater expertise on intimacy? What can we expect or ask for from them as our social equals?

It seems reasonable that a client expect a certain degree of expertise from a therapist. It seems equally reasonable to me that a therapist expect a certain degree of civility from clients. And in moments where civility and expertise come together, there is an opportunity for intimacy, personal growth, and gratification on both sides. In order to do that, we simply have to recognize that there is a difference between an instinctual/emotional reactivity that is based on one-up/one-down relationships and an unavoidable equality between civil equals. In other words, we carefully set the situation and choose our moments so as to invite intimacy into unequal role relationships (therapist/client) that are based on civil equality (client/professional). The customer is not always right, but common respect allows for diversity of opinions and experience and expertise. In other words, the customer is never wrong in expressing what they want.