“Beware the distancing spiral.” I just came across this note in one of my notebooks from a decade ago and never has a truer thing been said. The note was scribbled in the margin, clearly quoting one of my conflict management professors.
Finding the note made me smile because I just said the same thing twice in the past two weeks. I said it to my class of graduate mediation students (I now teach where I once studied). And I said it to a coaching client who’d come to me because of frustrations with a few difficult clients she couldn’t afford to fire.
In the theory jargon of my profession, conflict spirals are the result of conflict that hasn’t been attended to effectively. Conflict spirals have a runaway feeling to them, build on themselves, and follow a generally destructive path…picture a powerful circular force like a hurricane and you’ll get the general idea of the problem with conflict spirals.
Distancing spirals are a type of conflict spiral, except that instead of leaving overt debris in its wake, the growing spiral causes a lessening of dependence, lowered investment in the relationship, and often the harboring of disappointment or downright resentment. Distancing in a marriage is one example of a this kind of spiral in action. Another is the gradual distancing between a coach and a client.
Distancing spirals grow gradually, often beneath our radar. They happen one avoided conversation at a time. Individually, none of the conversations is a deal breaker. Collectively, they’re building a force that’s hard to overcome. The key, then, is to notice and do something about them before they get so big they take on a life of their own.
Distancing spirals can be stopped in their tracks. If you wait too long or the other person won’t join you in overcoming it, the common method is to break off the relationship. If you’re a coach in a distancing spiral with a client, it’s an expensive way to make a living.
The other way is to step up to the difficult conversation that’s either been avoided or that hasn’t gone well in the past. It takes courage, commitment and some skill to do well, but most of these conversations are far less awful than the advance movie we’ve made about it in our minds. It takes the other person, too…not an insurmountable challenge if you help them address the fears that are preventing them from engaging it.
Distancing spirals are a gift and an opportunity for us. They allow us the chance to build a stronger relationship from one where we’ve simply begun settling for less, or from one where the gap grows daily wider. When we step up to them and say, “I’m sensing some tension or distance between us and I want us to have a strong relationship from which to build,” we open the door to some of the most powerful and important conversations we’ll experience.
Beware the distancing spiral, but don’t run from it. Run to it. Where can you keep your feet under you in any powerful spiral? In the center.
Posted on Nov 20th 06 by Tammy Lenski.
Tammy helps people talk out their differences and build stronger work and home relationships in the process. She does this as a coach, mediator and trainer and works with people worldwide. http://www.lenski.com
Other posts on Coachamatic by Tammy Lenski.
I really like the distancing spiral imagery. It really captures what happens. And I think it helps one know what to do when in one - go back down the spiral.
The image of the spiral is a powerful one - it shows you how a communication breakdown can start, then a little distance follows which creates a strain so the distance builds, etc etc. This image is helpful becasue I sometimes can’t figure out what happened. I only know over time having grown apart and the great distance thatt emerged. Now I can actually start to slide back down the spiral, seeing where things went amok.
Very helpful model - thanks!
Dave, thanks for taking the time to write. I had run across your blog and website a while back and think you’re doing some very interesting and important work with men. It’s a really good idea and I wish you the best. Let’s stay in touch!
Absolutly brilliantly written obsedvation of the unacknowledged truth of our unaddress sensations.. I am feeling a little too close to my therapist.. We are beinging to feel more familar than friendly… I don’t want our relationship to move to a familar plain. It is easier to stay in a truthful theraputic mode when she keeps up her professional distance from me … I would like if she would redirect our conversation away from her and back on me.. It is effortless for me to real people into a familar relationship regaurding family health pleasure . Then, i naturallly address those isses instead of the business at hand and even that i know and see this causes me to lessen my view of her skills.. Damned if she does damed if she doesn’t…. Maybe i do have too high expectations… Love your artical…
Regarding “lessening of dependence” in the sprial…that phrase troubles me. In a good coaching situation shouldn’t the coachee be always on the path of becoming less dependent? I would hope that the coaches goal shouldn’t be to keep coaching clients purely for financial reasons. I agree that it is negative to let a spiraling situation become a lowered investment in the relationship or a place of resentment, but this idea of the lessening of dependence to me is troublesome. And, yes, coaches need to make a living. But the idea of the client being dependent on the coach just rings wrong with me.
Glad I stumbled across you on Twitter. I like your sites, both personally and professionally. Your Twitter welcome page (a smart idea btw) brought me here.
Any particular thoughts on how to get into an avoided conversation? If I’m the one avoiding it I know how to deal with that, but what if it seems to be the other person?