Differentiation: the key to Self-Awareness and our Mental Health

Local Life - Local perspectives

Author: Eleftheria Tsirigoti

Differentiation is a great concept and, as I will describe below, the differentiated human seems to be the “perfect” human, although the perfect does not exist in life. To be precise, this is an authentic, balanced, and mentally healthy person. This explains why differentiation is perhaps the most important long-term goal in psychotherapy – a goal that we conquer step by step. When we talk about differentiation, we are essentially referring to one thing, but it has many ramifications on who we are in general: differentiation from our family of origin.

Differentiation, and its opposite, fusion, is about the extent to which we can feel differently, think differently, have different opinions, and make substantively, not superficially or reactively, different choices than the family that brought us in the world or from the parent with whom we are closest. It has to do with how much we have shed burdensome – and ultimately inappropriate – feelings and thoughts (e.g. unnecessary stress and fears) that we have inherited from our family, dysfunctional patterns and ways of interacting, and an emotional over-involvement with others, our own people, which ends up torturing us, many times without us realizing it. Differentiation is the ability to be me, with as little influence as possible from the opinions or reactions of others. It’s more about a constant striving for balance than a goal that can ever be 100% achieved. This goal becomes extremely difficult in the Greek family, as the “different” or healthy emotional distance is often accompanied by great guilt on the part of the child - and the later adult - towards the parent. Of course, this guilt is built from the parent to the child consciously or unconsciously in various ways.

When the parent is quite demanding or controlling and demands, in his own way, the child’s compliance with what he wants for/from him or when he takes the child on his side, making him a participant in all the problems he has with his partner ( and the child’s other parent) or when the child feels that the parent is quite weak or when the parent constantly emphasizes to the child how much he sacrificed for him, all of the above lead quite easily to the child’s guilt and merging with the parent. As a result of the above, he is an undifferentiated person, or otherwise pseudo-self, who has low self-awareness. Although we may think we know clearly who we are, we ultimately have many blind spots, inner conflicts, and contradictions that we often don’t realize.

Often what we think or feel (even if we are aware of it) is very different from what we express or do. We may also either underestimate or overestimate ourselves and operate by many rules and high expectations of others. An undifferentiated person usually simply reacts to his environment and may sacrifice his individuality for the sake of unity, emotional closeness, acceptance, and approval from others. In these cases, the need for closeness and the need for individuality is experienced in a conflicting way that does not allow for both to coexist.

So, I either merge with the other or avoid close relationships because I experience them as threatening – that I will be “sucked up”, oppressed and I will lose my individuality. Moreover, when there is a lack of differentiation, the truth is not the facts themselves but our inner emotional state, i.e. our anxiety or fears about the present and the future. Anxiety is our emotional response to a real or imagined danger. Our reactions can be momentary or chronic. Chronic stress is mainly related to imagined or expected risks and increases when the degree of differentiation is low. Chronic fears are therefore always inherited from our family, whether we realize it at first or not, and are passed on to the family we create. Humans usually exhibit unpleasant symptoms when the degree of differentiation is low.

In contrast, the differentiated person, or whole self, possesses considerable self-awareness and, for this very reason, is able to evaluate himself more realistically. If I am able to assess myself more realistically, I have, by extension, more realistic expectations of myself, but also others, without making extreme actions. Diversified is a cool and responsible person in his life. She/He is the one who knows his responsibilities towards others but without being overly responsible for them. The latter is a big issue, which we usually don’t realize when we are involved in intimate relationships. We often assume for our own people much more responsibility for their lives than we do. High differentiation means being authentic with myself, knowing clearly what I want and need, and being able to set boundaries for myself and others. The differentiated person combines the ability to think logically with the ability to stay in touch with his feelings and express them.

The more diverse I am, the more – paradoxically – I am able to engage closely with others, without merging with them and renouncing who I am. Differentiated people also respond better to stressful life situations. So what about the cases of people who are not particularly differentiated? The only solution is to work with ourselves. Psychotherapy reduces chronic anxiety and inherited fears, which cause various symptoms and prompt us to repeat traumatic situations.

Before this happens, of course, we will experience, during treatment, momentary anxiety which is inevitable in our attempt to define ourselves about significant others. Momentary stress has much less harmful effects on our bodies than chronic stress. On the other hand, psychotherapy directs or causes the emergence of our true selves and interrupts the transmission of dysfunctional traits, patterns, and behaviors from one generation to the next.