TRAINING  &  COACHING  for  MANAGERS & LEADERS

Case Histories

Relationship Bonds & Limiting Beliefs

Systemic Coach Training Manual: Soulwork 5

Are you entangled in difficult relationships or painful emotions? Do you suffer from childhood trauma? Do you suffer from your parents' drama, your partner's demands, your boss's moods? Soulwork can help you untangle your life, and you can help others reclaim their freedom.

Are you bonded?

What do you HAVE to believe to remain in your job? What MUST you believe to stay in your marriage? What do you HAVE to believe to be a good citizen of your country?

Relationship bonds can be described as bundles of emotions and beliefs that allow you to stay in difficult relationships. Relationship bonds are often substitutes for truth and substitutes for identity.

If you were neglected or abused as a child, or were victim of emotional incest or mentor damage, you may now suffer severe limiting beliefs and automatic dysfunctional behaviors that impact your family, work and social life. You may suffer from identity loss that manifests as relationship bonds.

If you have identity loss, you may behave strangely during times of stress (work or family problems, etc), when symptoms prevent normal functioning. If you are bonded to ineffective or dysfunctional people, you may be unable to live a happy life. Your relationship bonds define what feels right.

The consequences of relationship stress - such as abandonment, abuse and betrayal - include fixed beliefs that compensate for perceived injustice or relationship damage. Many people are damaged during relationships with teachers and mentors and well-meaning but irresponsible therapists.

[ Training Abuse ] [ Mentor Damage ] [ Client Abuse by Therapists ]

Identity Loss

In systemic diagnosis, chronic dissociated behavior (imagine a math professor pondering a difficult problem) is called Lost Identity, the long-term expression of another person's personality (think of popular ideas of possession) is called Identification, and long-term bipolar behavior or mood swings (think of popular ideas of split personality) is called Identity Conflict.

• Lost Identity - inner emptiness - dissociated sense of self from body
• Identification - identify with somebody (the closest form of bonding)
• Identity Conflict - identification with conflicting people (See Bipolar Disorder)

Descriptions of Lost Identity, Identification and Identity Conflict are described at Identity Loss. You can learn systemic solutions for identity loss in Soulwork 4 training, and solutions for relationship bonds. See our training calendar for locations etc.

Relationship Bonds & Identity Beliefs

Relationship bonds help people (especially children) continue difficult relationships. For example, a child may perceive that a parent is stupid or crazy, and compensate for this perception by creating a limiting identity belief that he or she (the child) is stupid or crazy. (Some intelligent women take care not to be perceived as more intelligent than their partners).

You may cling to limiting identity beliefs throughout your life, yet avoid becoming aware of them. Relationship bonds are often taboo - you avoid acknowledging them. If your awareness of a bond can damage an important relationship, you may (unconsciously) avoid this awareness.

Existential or Contextual Bonds

Relationship bonds can be differentiated as existential (all of life) or contextual (part of life), in the areas of identity, relationships and humanity. Global relationship bonds (often at the level of humanity) are associated with mentor damage and spiritual abuse. This table shows how identity bonds support dysfunctional behavior (in this table bad can be any limiting concept).

Although bonded beliefs and behaviors feel comfortable and familiar, a relationship bond forms a false identity, or compensation for identity. Any change to relationship bonds may change sense of life.

Existential relationship bonds may indicate chronic identification, lost identity or identity conflict, while contextual relationship bonds may be activated by internal or external stimuli. Both existential and contextual relationship bonds can trigger severe and recurring dysfunction:

• apathy, depression, anxiety or anger
• destructive or toxic relationship habits
• incompetent or inadequate performance
• obsessions, compulsions or addictions

Origin of Relationship Bonds

Relationship bonds originate in relationship disturbances, often during childhood. These may be single high-intensity experiences (e.g. a child witnesses an event that the child can neither understand nor assimilate), or repeated unpleasant relationship experiences (e.g. a parent often communicates that a child is bad). Relationship bonds are a common consequence of abuse, trauma and mentor damage.

Maintain Relationship Bonds

People strengthen and maintain relationship bonds by...

• age regressed or traumatized behavior (PTSD) in the context of the bond
• dysfunctional relationships that perpetuate the bond through transference
• seeking and exaggerating experiences that support or confirm the bond
• ignoring, minimizing or denying information that contradicts the bond

If a relationship bond to one person (e.g. father) is transferred onto another person (e.g. husband), then aberrant bonded behaviors may then be activated by the substitute. Also, a bond to one person (e.g. ex-wife) may be transferred onto many people (e.g. all women).

Taboo Relationship Bonds

As unpleasant emotions often accompany relationship bonds, people not only avoid acknowledging their bonds - they may avoid anything that reminds them of their bonds. The bonds become taboo. People avoid or sabotage life experiences that may invalidate their bonds. Bonded people may:

• use drugs to dull their emotions (alcohol & nicotine are common)
• avoid situations or circumstances that might trigger painful bonds
• attempt to block thoughts or images that might trigger the bond
• dissociate all emotions to avoid feeling anger, sadness, or anxiety
• physically hurt themselves as a distraction from emotional pain
• avoid career success and/or relationship happiness

If a taboo bond is activated, a person may retreat into dissociation, irritation or confusion (E.g. "I forget what we were talking about" or "I don’t want to think about it".) Some people blame esoteric entities. Others blame their parents. Few people take responsibility to find solutions for healing their bonds.

Trained systemic coaches can help people explore their relationship bonds, educate people about them, discuss their origin and extent and help people dissolve their bonds with systemic coaching.

[ Autoimmune Disease ] [ Personality Disorders ]

Relationship Coaching ... Systemic Coach Training ... Your Next Step