Friendship Therapy (Jan 2023)
Hi.
Welcome to our inaugural newsletter! Our first topic: friendship therapy.
Friendship therapy is a kind of relationship therapy. Like couples therapy and family therapy before it, friendship therapy recognizes that individuals exist in environments, that those environments include other people, and that those people can be very influential to our mental health and well-being.
Unlike couples and family therapy, however, friendship therapy explicitly acknowledges that close relationships also occur with people who fall outside the “traditional” family model. As of 2022, 29% of U.S. households consisted of one person and 34% of adults had never been married. In addition to this demographic shift away from the nuclear family, the clinical focus on relationships within the nuclear family model has obscured and stigmatized foundational ties of attachment and affiliation in queer and trans communities, communities of color and immigrant communities, and in working class communities.
Our friends have always been important.
An article recently out in The Atlantic about the longest on-going study of human happiness (since 1938) claims that one major factor contributes greatly to human healthy and happiness: having good relationships with others. Working on our relationships with others in the context of therapy is one way to practice working through interpersonal difficulties collaboratively rather than withdrawing from the relationship or engaging in on-going cycles of conflict. All important relationships in our lives are likely to have moments, aspects, periods, or patterns of disharmony. Whether we can successfully navigate through these normal challenges together as a team, while preserving the relational bond and re-establishing mutual care and safety, makes all the difference.
Friendships are a great place to practice this skill of working with others on your relationship, what therapists sometimes call “rupture and repair.”
Unlike our relationships with our families of origin, our friendships are most often chosen by us and may have fewer obligations and societal baggage surrounding them. They can sometimes feel safer emotionally and psychologically than our families or romantic partnerships, making them an excellent place to try out being more vulnerable, joining with others, sharing our needs and wants directly, giving voice to our feelings, asking for help, and setting appropriate boundaries. Friendship therapy is a great place to risk showing up differently in relationships than you have in the past by trying out new, flexible roles with others.
So, when is friendship therapy useful?
While all friendships might potentially benefit from some time spent with a therapist who specializes in friendship therapy, in my view, friendship therapy is most beneficial for friendships that are also attachment relationships. Attachment relationships occur when your nervous system relies on someone else to help you feel safe, secure, and calm. These are also the relationships that can feel most scary to lose and where significant feelings (anger, fear, frustration, hurt, sadness) can arise when you are worried you and your friend may be growing apart or that you’ve had a disagreement that can’t be mended.
Attachment experts Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) report in their comprehensive review of the research on attachment in adulthood, “attachment security is associated with friendships characterized by trust, self-disclosure, closeness, mutuality and the use of more relationship-promoting conflict resolution strategies” (p. 283). If your relationships from earlier in life were not as secure as you needed them to be, friendships can be a great place to heal and become more securely attached. Friendship therapy can help you (and your friends!) with developing these close and trusting bonds that promote overall health and well-being.
Take Care,
Lisa C. Knisely, PhD, LSWAIC
Mikulincer, Mario and Shaver, Phillip. (2007). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change. The Guilford Press.
