Vulnerability is a double-edged sword: it is the only path to deep connection and emotional bonding; but it also exposes us to experiencing emotional and relational wounds. This is the dual bind we frequently find ourselves in: if we play it safe, we limit the depth of what we could potentially experience, but if we take the risk, we could end up getting stung. 

How do we resolve this dilemma? Harnessing the transforming power of vulnerability requires some degree of risk. There is no love without the leap. However, there are ways to mitigate the threat of emotional pain. In couple’s therapy, we scaffold vulnerability to reduce the risk by structuring very manageable and achievable steps. Furthermore, we harness both neuroscience and evolutionary processes as allies. 

A Thinner Slice

I am a big believer that in therapy there is never a stuck place; you just need a thinner slice. I am repetitively encouraging my clients to make their inside voice their outside voice. “Just narrate what you are experiencing internally,” I instruct. If you are too fearful to share something, just tell your partner, “I’m too afraid to express what I want to share.” Most individuals see this as a failure, rather than a level of vulnerability. 

The person could have said nothing. But to say, “I would like to let you into what is going on inside of me, but I’m too fearful to do so.” In this type of interaction, I help my client see they did just reveal something, and it is an example of the scaffolded vulnerability I was referring to earlier. My next question often is to ask the client, “What was it like to disclose what you just did?” There is the experience, and then the experience of having the experience. There are layers of experience internally and relationally, and each one brings another opportunity for a deeper level of positive transformation. 

Creating Neuroplasticity

Subsequently, I may go one step further and have them focus on the felt sense of the experience – i.e., where do they notice it in their body. This felt sense is where we create the highest level of neuroplasticity and the greatest degree of transformation. Successively, I will ask the partner, “What was it like for you when they shared it?” One of the main therapeutic models I use in my practice is Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). One of the principles in AEDP is to make the implicit explicit and the explicit experiential. In therapy, experience is king; we are not there just to have conversations but to help create a new biological you. 

When you work in an experiential and embodied way, you stay out of the swamp of he said, she said. I will typically ask each partner at the beginning of the session to check inside and see what they notice before we begin. They may feel anxious, resentful, angry, confused, etc. Again, this is a way to slow things down and platform the level of vulnerability. If a partner says, “I feel anxious,” there is a degree of vulnerability in sharing this. I then ask the client, “What is your anxiety attempting to alert you too?”

Staying In The ‘Here and Now’

They may state they fear getting into a conflict or that they will not be able to do therapy ‘correctly’ or what they share may be used against them later. We then work collaboratively with their partner to address these fears until the anxiety is resolved or sufficiently reduced. Simultaneously, I work with their partner’s experiential reactions to all of this and assist them in achieving a more regulated and open state. By tracking, noticing, and intervening on each client’s experience in the ‘here and now,’ we’re able to stay out of all the criticism and conflict cycles the couple typically finds themselves in. 

After a brief period of learning how to create structured interactions such as these, couples become excited and hopeful about their ability to connect and communicate in a more effective manner. This then leads to the harnessing of evolutionary forces I was mentioning earlier in the article. Most couples arrive in sessions with their defenses activated. They could be in chronic shutdown or engaging in recurrent criticisms of their partner. This then becomes a feedback loop: when one partner criticizes, the other shuts down; when the other partner shuts down, the other is triggered and begins lobbing the attacks. 

Harnessing Biology for Connection

Each of these responses is activated neurologically. We have four basic options in times of distress: attachment, fight, flight, or freeze states. Couples are typically walking in the door in either some degree of shutdown or fight or flight. These are triggered when their amygdala, the brain’s threat detector, determines there is a danger of feeling emotional pain. Their adrenal glands will then secrete adrenaline and cortisol leading to a fight or flight response or, alternatively, activate their more primitive defense of a freeze state prompted by their dorsal vagal nerve. 

Furthermore, when you have been in repeated conflict, your brain associates your partner as threating and releases cortisol when you are around them. In laymen’s terms, you experience painful emotions and some level of stress response when interacting with them. What we want to achieve in couple’s therapy is to transition from the fight, flight, or freeze responses to developing an impulse to reach for attachment. Moreover, we want to reactivate the neurochemicals of secure emotional attachment, so you feel good when you spend time with them. 

The Feel Good Chemicals of Attachment

When the amygdala identifies your partner as safe and friend, it will activate the hormone oxytocin, which is referred to as the ‘love, cuddle, or bonding’ hormone. In addition, as you begin connecting in positive ways natural opiates and serotonin will be released generating a feeling of safety and well-being. This is the neurology and neurochemistry of secure emotional attachment. Oxytocin also decreases cortisol levels leading to a more open and emotionally intimate relationship. 

By structuring small, achievable interactions, a couple can successfully harness the transformative power of vulnerability and shift their biology to choose secure attachment, rather than defenses. With repeated practice, your brain will automatically release these feel good chemicals, and associate them with safety and feeling loved and cared for. 

It’s a Skill Not a Gift

I would also like to encourage you that developing the ability to communicate in this manner is a skill, not an innate gift that some have, and others do not. Neither is your inability to so a personal failure but a skills deficit. Even in ‘good families’ many of us were not provided with the emotional regulation skills or relational language to resolve conflict in a healthy manner. This creates challenges to emotionally accessing each other emotionally in times of stress or crisis. Skills can be acquired. Even if you’re starting farther back than someone else, you can still get there. 

The positive payoff from attaining these capacities is immense. For the couples I have worked with who have done so, it has not only changed their relationship but their life. I am not exaggerating when I assert this. Any couple who commits to the process of achieving this goal can successfully develop these abilities. It is my desire and heart to both encourage and challenge you that both you and your partner are capable.

Furthermore, we are wired to do so. We have biological systems dedicated to facilitating connection, emotionally healing, and obtaining the felt sense of feeling loved and safe. 
Vulnerability need not be so scary; it can be scaled to achievable steps for anyone. You are never blocked from it. You only need the knowledge and skill to learn how to navigate these moments. From there, nature will take over in a good way. If you would like to learn more about this topic or schedule a time to speak with someone about how to begin this process, please contact us at www.hawkinscounselingcenter.com