How to Resolve Conflict in Relationships: A Conversation with Esther Perel

This is open to debate. I'm John Don Van. Hello everyone, and as most of you know, this show tends to focus on debatable topics that are usually quite important in nature, such as foreign policy, economics, cultural trends, and philosophical political disputes, but that said we also have a soft spot for the Valentine's Day once we debated the question of whether dating apps kill romance, another time it was whether we should have sex with robots, well maybe it was more about artificial intelligence than romance, but you get the point. idea. Valentine's Day is here again and this time we're approaching it from a different angle instead of a debate.

I'm going to have a

conversation

with psychotherapist AER Perell, host of the Where to Start podcast, who has also made a name for herself. globally by truly offering thoughtful and thought-provoking information and guidance on

relationships

, especially the one-on-one type that have a sexual or erotic component involved, he'll even be taking his ideas on tour this spring and fall, he'll be in cities across the United States where you can enjoy an evening with St Perell well, what does that have to do with what we do? debating a one-word argument introducing arguments lovers have arguments open to debate is about bringing people with opposing views into the same room figuratively, at least sometimes literally, and exploring their differences in a way that involves consideration , self-examination and mutual respect and, above all, listening to each other, these are the essence of a good argument and even in our hyperdivided times, especially in these hyperdivided times, we believe that a good argument can actually cool the temperature and help us recognize that people who disagree with us are part of us too, that we don't have to hate each other just because we have opposing views and we know you're here listening because you understand.

EST Perell, who focuses on the person-to-person level, also advocates constructive

conflict

; In fact, she believes it's critical to successful

relationships

. She has a course called Turning Conflict into Connection, so we wanted to learn more about what she means by constructive

conflict

. and as a moderator of the debates that we do, I wanted to see what insight I could gain for my role as a person in the middle when we have two sides facing each other, and with that, as a

perel

, thank you very much for joining us in the open debate welcome to the program, Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here, so when you use the term turning conflict into connection, I think we're going to end up talking a lot about that, so let's lay out what it is.

Do you mean by that? And on some level, it's clear that you're saying to confront conflict, not to not try to avoid it, so first of all, even in your introduction, you know the idea that, um, the use of argument, not the use . the situation of being in an argument is not in itself negative, negative and that being able to manage conflict is essential for a healthy relational system, social system, political system, is what you are saying. I couldn't agree more with that and in part. What I do is I use the couple and the way they handle conflict to extrapolate it to larger groups and society in general, mainly because the couple is a very interesting unit from the beginning, the romantic couple, they start to get along, starts.

When we agree on many things, it starts out as a collaborative cooperative system and when it turns on itself and becomes a distressed relationship, you experience negative conflict, you experience conflict that is no longer generative but can be destructive and we can learn. It's a lot of looking at what happens in couples, people who once had great empathy for each other and now can't hear each other at all, and the principles of coup work are applicable to many other conflict situations and To do so it is necessary to understand. one very important thing is that the form is more important than the content how the conflict develops how people close how they polarize how they use totalistic language how they cook Sy and put everything in one argument how they basically deny the validity of anyone else All of that, these principles and some more are really applicable for groups and even for people who are dedicated to international conflict resolution.

What I just experienced this weekend. I had my first

conversation

with a person who works with groups and a person who works internationally and you could literally see that once you understand what conflict is and how it develops, it opens your View to multiple relational systems and what makes it seem like everything This is built into human nature, that we are a fractal type. In some ways we can have these tensions as a couple one on one and in a much bigger push back, the chamber group against the group Nation against Nation culture against culture there is a lot of that, yes, there is a lot of that, let's talk about something. of the things you talked about, um kitchen sink, what do you mean that kitchen sink?

It's when you and I are supposed to be discussing something, but in the course of that I start pulling up my entire memory bank, every other situation and I start adding everything else I'm upset about and everything else I'm not. i agree with you and every time you cried to me and i basically put all the dirty dishes in the sink at the same time which means you can't wash anything that's it you're basically trying to score but you're not trying to solve anything and you are certainly not protecting the relationship. Turning conflict into connection is basically being able to argue while preserving the relationship and that means Maintaining a level of enlightened self-interest What do you mean by that?

It means that you don't say the things you want to say just because they make you feel better or get you off your chest. Do you think this will do him? the relationship, what effect will this have on our story, on our connection to what we are meant to do together, you have a higher purpose than just you, a relationship is the space between the two people, it is not the two people in the series of conversations The ones we've had on this show one of my favorites was with a writer named Mónica Guzmán who published a book called I Never Thought of It That Way and she argues that it's kind of an antidote to our ability to demonize each other and caricature each other. others as enemies is curiosity, she uses the example of the stress she had with her parents where she is leftist and her parents were people who voted for Donald Trump and she found this, something she didn't find. easy to accept until she sat down with them and explored their reasons with them and found that it actually revealed that significantly they still shared many values ​​and that their area of ​​non-overlap was quite small.

Does your work find the same? Absolutely, in a distressed relationship, you tend to flatten the other person, make them one-dimensional, what they voted for what is it. It is important to them what has happened in their life etc., in a distressed relationship you tend to think that if you act badly or are not nice or whatever the circumstances are, you know I am in a bad mood, it means there was a lot of traffic . You know, put me in a bad mood, but if you are in a bad mood, if you are not kind, if you are rude, if you are not civilized, it is because that is your character, so curiosity as you describe it is what dissolves all these rigidities.

I think the goal is reconciliation or it is. I'll ask you, it's not really uhhuh no. I think the difference between constructive and destructive conflict and the opposite of conflict is not empathy, it is differentiation, it is actually the ability to live with differences. multiplicities with plural truths is what we see in the natural world that we as human beings struggle with, so to differentiate is my ability to hold onto my own ideas, beliefs, practices and at the same time be able to stay connected to you, yes , that's very interesting to Yo because on our debate show, by definition, the Debaters are in a somewhat competitive situation where they are not going to give in to the other side.

Sometimes that happens a little on the margins, but for the most part they get away with it. each side has expressed their positions, they have explored the other side and they leave, for the most part they disagree with each other, there is a third party in our debates and that is the public, and I think it is the public that is informed to the to hear both sides of the arguments, but what I wanted to bring this back to you was to tell you that you know that in our world both arguments still exist and still have validity.

Can a couple fundamentally disagree on some important issues and still remain a couple? and I think you're saying that actually yes, they can, absolutely, that's the goal, we all understand that you can like classical music and I'm not exactly in the situation in my marriage, it's actually okay, so you know it's possible that you want to have children and I. No, so there is a scale here. What is very interesting is that in highly differentiated couples people can tolerate a very large dose of differences and sometimes have a relationship with a little overlap, agreeing on some fundamental aspects but having a wide range of areas. where they think differently they act differently they have different priorities and others want a lot of overlap they feel like they need to agree on a lot of things to experience more harmony it's less a matter of issues you know there are many people who voted differently throughout their lives but they shared many other things and understood that they see the world differently and respected that what changes is if I experience your choice as a threat to me, if that is really where it is, it is not in the nature of the difference itself, it is in what they do with each other and some people find it very difficult.

I can have a person who says I can't imagine living with someone who likes Cruisers and can create Mass because I need you to be more like me or who I aspire to be and your preferences, it feels like something is being taken away from me. You don't ask people why they are fighting, you ask people why they are fighting and you will see that most of the time people fight for three. things that they fight for power and control, whose priorities are more important and who makes the decisions, that they fight for trust, which is care and closeness, who has my back and who I can trust, and they fight for respect and recognition, who values ​​me and where I can trust.

Matter, power, trust and value are probably most of what people really discuss, which is why your podcast, Where Should We Begin?, is unlike any other podcast in the sense that you bring excerpts of real therapies in which you have worked with people. This is a clip of you working with a man and a woman who are facing some challenges, so let's hear what I want them to do is get a job, be functional, independent, interested in the world and curious. and I know what I want I know and you think he doesn't know it's been so long if that were me if I didn't have a job I'd be scared I'd be up all night and I'd get one every two weeks I don't understand the relaxed nature of things and but If you crush it you will have the person who is all wrinkled next to you and you will think that it is because it is wrinkled. poop and you won't notice that you're kicking at the same time, the whole episode is so fascinating and that's what you're doing on this podcast is so fascinating and first of all, I have a ton of questions that I want I want.

I want to thank you for giving new life to the word Nim poop, which was beginning to lose its validity. The first, the first reaction I have is: do you know what the ethical clearance is on the use of the recordings of these sessions? I mean, how? How did you

resolve

that with your patients? They are not patients, they never were and they never will be. There are thousands and thousands of applicants for each episode they apply to. They are evaluated by the producers and they know they are going to enter. for a 3 hour long anonymous therapeutic conversation, okay, that's a very, very important clarification, there is no ethical breach or mixing of metaphors when I say thousands, I'm talking, there are currently 8,000 applicants, you start to make a good sense. many times we, then there is an intake that they write to us, then the producer calls them and it is a long intake that follows the model of what I would use if they were patients and we call them because the story matters because we believe that there is something to learn for many others listening to this situation and because I have the feeling that in three hours I can do something, so I don't take on a situation where I think maybe it would be even more harmful or certainly not useful because there is too much Well, thanks for clarifying all that about the process, but what I found most interesting about that particular selection was that we then heard you reflect on the process of your participation in the therapy session and as I'm listening to this again.

I realized myself that he was doing to her what he was doing to her.saying what she was doing to him and that's when I knew I'm inducted into the system. I am speaking to them with the same tone in which they speak to each other. This is where. I felt like I had lost some of my therapeutic stance, so what interests me is that in our debates when we are live on a stage with people who are arguing with each other. My role is to listen very carefully to each of them and encourage them to explore their points of conflict more deeply, but without getting involved in the sense of not entering into the discussion. and that is a very, very difficult maintenance or position to maintain.

I work very hard at it and I think for the most part I will criticize a debater not for the substance of their argument but for the fact that they are ignoring the point or that they have moved on to another topic when we try to discuss A and B, but it is a very, very delicate position and I heard you say in that one that you felt like you lost your balance and I'm curious to know how I experienced that, so I trained myself by having my teachers and my colleagues watch me behind a one-way mirror.

I trained myself by watching hours of myself on video so I could see because it's so easy, what you do is really an incredible skill not to understand. absorbed you are listening to the process and the content me too and here I realized that in the process I began to scold her in the way she scolded him, that is what we call being induced and it is very important, I mean, I. I think it's a skill as a therapist to just say oh, I didn't realize that, I was too quick here, I missed it there, what I said was important, but the way I said it now, what happened is I wrote to them if They really wanted to know and I told them I really want them to know.

I realized from hearing that I did this and this and this and I think that's not what it didn't serve them very well and the response I got was the opposite, you were actually the first one to tell us things as they were and it was very helpful. that was so direct now. I think it was a good way to do it. No. I still think I could have done it. better, but it was surprising that they just said what are you talking about? This was exactly what we needed. It's very interesting. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it went off the rails in any way.

I have seen debates, not in my own participation, but in debates. They go off the rails when the moderator thinks that the debater has said something so bad that the moderator talks and they go back and forth and it becomes a side debate that is a waste of a lot of time and gives the impression of a foul. about something that is important in the situation which is impartiality, um, but I also wanted to ask you about the nature of your clientele in general and what differences are involved. You mentioned that culture is important in this.

Is there anything you bring differently to a session? with, say, a heterosexual couple and a same-sex couple or an Indian couple and an Irish couple, differences come into play on those things or you're saying yes right away. I can see that no, yes, I think I think there is a variety in cultures of the centrality of the individual, first of all, how important is the eye, the self, versus how important is the collective, is the group, the family, relationship harmony, how much do people come up with the notion? Of free will, how much do people come with the notion that I deserve to be happy, which is a fairly Western concept?

What would you say John if you were raised for loyalty and interdependence or would you say you were raised more for autonomy and self-sufficiency? I would like to mix the two and put four adjectives in there and I think I would say loyalty and self-sufficiency and put them in separate fields, but I did. I found boxes on the list that I would check now, of course, if we had the time, I would say, tell me more, where was the self-sufficiency? Was it the messages or was it the circumstances in which you grew up and had to learn to stand up for yourself?

Messages safely, yes. I had a lot of support, yeah, what was the message about loyalty? Know? Think about the effect of your behavior on others. Your family comes first. Do you know what sets of values ​​are very important and often very culturally reinforced and sometimes determined? I speak nine languages, so I translate a lot. I have a feeling you know what the power is. Dynamic around gender, age, birth order. You know, these are very clear laws and that people contribute what you know, to the extent that you are allowed. to say to what extent are you allowed to leave a relationship versus you have to make it work at all costs because that's the value that's the belief um so it's endless you know, kids, you know, do you have the right to speak? democratic system in the house, does everyone's opinion matter or is there a much clearer meaning?

Vertical line of authority Are you allowed to express emotions and which ones do you know? sadness is allowed but not anger anger is allowed but not too much idleness because you have to do it be practical, be busy all the time and be productive, so it's a wide range of it's a big map, the cultural map Do you research culture when you meet people from a culture? I know nine languages ​​cover a lot, but but uh, would there be specific cases where you would go out and read some books about the culture or talk to people who are actually in that culture or talk to them or talk to other people or colleagues who are from that culture just to get an idea?

Are there practices? Are there rituals? Are there certain ways to understand grief? Are there certain ways to understand trauma? Are there ways to understand repair? Since we are talking about conflict, we have to talk about reparation in your debates. People don't need to repair as much afterwards. They say goodbye and leave, each one goes home to their own places. Well, the interesting thing in some of our debates is that afterwards, after they come off stage, only afterwards, in front of the audience, do they say, "You know you really made a very good point." and I'm going to have to think about that in the future, but the performance somehow undermines it, so imagine that in a family or in a couple just when you're fighting for you know for your point of view for your experience for recognition of what you think really happened last night or what your mother really meant or know and be able to say I hear you spread things so powerfully you know I made a mistake, I know I lost it and this is In my opinion, I I refer to these levels of responsibility.

You're right. I spoke too fast. You know, recognition of the other and recognition of self, responsibility, not shame, responsibility, helps a lot in working with conflict, so I want to talk in a couple of ways about going beyond the binary of a man and a woman in a romantic relationship to some other types of relationships, same-sex couples. I would like to talk about whether there is something different in that sense within a singular culture or is it the same and um, I'm also interested in not your work on non-romantic relationships um, I'm glad that you are mother to son, for example, like this which speaks to those two for us, so I think the big difference in working with same-sex couples is that the legacies of norms one receives in a heterosexual context are not less, the scripts are not instantly available, so, on the one hand, you lack the institutional message and, on the other, you have the freedom to create more of your own. power distribution gender distribution you know levels of similarity of identification you don't fall into the same traps but fundamentally the different levels of distress or conflict in a relationship are not so separated now that we talk about other couples.

I love working with friends. I love working with co-creators, co-founders and family members of all these relational systems and part of it is because I think we have entered a period of social atrophy reinforced in part by the pandemic and further reinforced by our contactless existence at this time when we have less and less direct face-to-face interaction with other people, would you say like we are doing now? In other words, we're not even in the same city right now, right, and we think we have eye contact, but we don't. Not really, but I ask the audience how many of you have grown up playing freely in the street and, depending on your age, a large number of people will say yes.

How many of you have children? Do they play freely in the street now? a very small number of people will raise their hands and what I'm saying is that it used to be that you grow up and have a lot of social negotiation experiences, you make rules, you break rules, you make alliances, you break them, you make new friends, you learn negotiation. spontaneous and unchoreographed social events, that ends, you go to the store, you don't have a cashier, you go, you have a contactless existence and that creates a situation in which you are less and less prepared for conflictive situations, it is a situation much freer of frictions.

The On Demand app life is wonderfully efficient but it doesn't help you in relationships relationships have inconsistencies relationships have contradictions relationships bother you there are frictions in relationships and you need the skills to do it we have organized a series of discussions that are in the The question is whether, um, I would say that what you're talking about is the interposition of technology in the communication process and just the cascade of data, information, opinions and opinions is actually destructive of the cohesion in the culture and Many debaters have argued very strongly that I'm curious if some of the tensions that we've explored in this area, left versus right polarization, Democrat versus Republican, we've had debates where people have argued that "Where are we, are we?" withdrawing even to our own cities, to our own villages to distance ourselves from each other because of these political attitudes?

Do you find that those dividing lines actually interfere with one-on-one relationships? Have you seen an increase in couples or couples of people who are stressed about political issues, who are disagreeing about immigration rights or abortion rights, something like one in four Americans right now is separated from a member of the family that is enormous and that often has to do with political opinions. Views on sexuality Gender views on the big issues of our time Yeah, you know. I used to remember when someone first started exploring this with me, a situation where we were fighting at my house over politics on a Friday night over dinner and yelling.

It was like I was a 16 year old fire and at some point someone would say that the cake is delicious and we all remember that we are at home with family and it is with family that you can scream like that and then the next day. you still trust those people as your family and you still want to help them and be there for them and them for you, no matter what this is not happening right now, there are cuts, there is a kind of conflict avoidance, there is a situation. a feeling that it's not safe for me and that I shouldn't have to deal with this right now there are groups of people that don't interact with each other anymore just because they're part of this group or part of that group um and I think it really fractures a society and this is true within families and this is true in larger groups and in society.

Do you think your course can help people address these types of differences? Yes, there are principles when you look especially at the far right. The course basically says what conflict is what is the difference between conflict that highlights the uniqueness of each person the differences that we all need to have a diverse system versus destructive conflict that basically destroys the relationship what are they are not so different between two? people and between two groups, and if you look at research on intractable conflicts that has worked globally around the world with political conflicts, it highlights that you know what generates polarization.

I am right and you are wrong. I am in contact with the essence and you. are totally out of line are these positionings is the contempt that people bring is the competition that people bring is the feeling that you know if I recognize yours then I'm basically denying mine is the fundamental attribution error where I know that you are simply one dimensional, but I understand the multiplicity of things, it is those elements that make the conflict intractable and every investigation says the same, basically you start talking, there are two D's, there are two points of view, or you speak according to what you really you have in common. share about you two care about your kids you both care about the neighborhood you care about straight roads you know you care about the food desert there are things you both care about or the other point of view says don't instantly go for dialogue and this is also true in couples, don't instantly try to get people to have compassion, empathy and understanding, let them discuss and really understand that this difference means that they care deeply about some things and stand out, don't rush into dialogue.

People are too angry to suddenly want to like each other, and if that's true for couples, it's true for neighborhoods, too. Now we're bringing in some new voices to further the conversation. First I want to welcome Kis López,who is a queer journalist. and their lifestyle editor is K Nas lgbtq plus publication caspe thank you very much for joining us in open discussion and coming with your question yes of course thank you very much for having me so Esther I would love to come back to talk about the idea. of relationship scripts simply because I've been thinking a lot about this in the context of gender and relationship behavior, so over my many years covering the relationship section, I've often found that, whether explicitly or implicitly, the way that we talk about conflict tends to focus. two ideas, one that everyone is straight and two men and women because those are typically the genders talked about in mainstream relationship advice are inherently different and therefore the conflict is affected by the fact that Jenz is the most queer generation today, with almost 20% of us identifying as queer um and we are also credited with deconstructing and challenging our current notions of gender and gender roles, so I'm wondering if you think the way that we address conflict in relationships and how it can change according to these trends not only for queer people, but for people in general, as people question their sexuality, their genders, all of that and get further from this idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, you still remember that title, so Chris, I think if I had to say something about generation Z and the conflict, maybe before we look at the queries and the redefinitions gender, I would.

I think one of the first things that the conflict has changed is the digitalization of genz life and social isolation and the fact that relationships are started and broken online without having to see the person's face without having to do it. see the emotional consequences of what you do um and I think that for me that is a source of information about how conflict is handled more than some I don't know if more, but it's the first thing that comes to mind, it's more or less how Do you have a difficult conversation? I don't know if I need a gender construct for that, of course people come with a different idea about what aggressive is.

You know what can be said. What should be said. What are the circumstances in which it is possible? We say certain things like security is an important need and framework for relationships for Generation Z. Why is that? Because we have lost the great lost Marcos. We also removed some of them that needed to be removed, but we have basically lived for centuries. with big scripts, religious hierarchies, gender constructs that basically gave us very little freedom, but they gave us a lot of clarity and people knew how to understand things at this time. I can create my own meaning out of everything, but that means I need to do this. alone and the burdens on G Z's self are much heavier to try to figure out what this means and how I want to react in response to this because everything depends on me, so I have freedom, but I don't have much certainty and I often have a lot of doubts and that's also what conflicts, so that's a different way of answering your question, but I'm curious how you hear that.

I think it makes a lot of sense in terms of clarity and security. the kind of those two things that are at odds with each other. Thank you very much K for your question. Next, I want to welcome Lauren vopel Lauren is a journalist who covers mental health and relationships, so Lauren, please open the discussion. Thanks for joining us. uh the word is yours, hello, it's good to be here, um, you already touched on this, um, but I wanted to ask more directly about how technology, specifically smartphones, have potentially made us much more black and white in our conflict, specifically how to be. being able to get immediate validation seemingly from our phones has maybe given us impractical expectations about human beings yeah so I wanted to ask about that so I think there are a few things going on at the same time on the one hand we are more socially isolated .

At the other extreme, our expectations, especially in romantic relationships, are unprecedented and skyrocketing. Not only do we want financial support, companionship, family, a best friend, a confidant and a lover, but we also want a person who becomes that helps us become the best version of ourselves and what is also happening is that basically our apps tell us where to go how to get there what to listen to what to look at where to eat we are increasingly in a frictionless situation that is very polished and it makes it more difficult when we suddenly find ourselves in interpersonal situations that are more conflictive, since You know, people have been rejecting each other for centuries, there's nothing new, but ghosting is a different level.

Until that point. Our expectations of other people in conflict are too high and perhaps our expectations of ourselves too low just because we can get out of there so quickly. I think our expectations are not too high, but they may be too high to put on a person we need. community, we need groups, we need friends and we need different levels of friendship and different levels of acquaintances and different levels of associations and mentors and man, you know, we need a lot of people. What's really happening right now is that I said that. out of every four people in the U.S. is disconnected from a family member, but among Generation Z and younger, half of people don't have a best friend.

That is a very new social panorama. EST, you and I were born in the 1950s, so it says you know it tells us where we are now in our lives we have clear memories of a world before technology Lauren my question for you is do you have the feeling that there was a time before when things worked better? You experience it yourself or you are young enough not to live in that era and you look back on it with nostalgia and regret it. The better question is how old were you in 20 8? I was B. I was born in the '80s.

So I'm an older Millennial and I'm in the interesting position of having had both, but that most of my romantic relationships take place in the kind of tech space we're talking about, but also being able to see the difference in my parents and in my relationships throughout childhood as well, so that's a very interesting place to be in when you asked me, Lauren, about the decline of personal responsibility. Me and I have a card game that's a story game and two of my favorite questions are who do I owe a phone call to and who do I owe an apology to, yeah, and I think a lot of people in my generation immediately go to who. owes me an apology and who owes me a phone call and doesn't take care of those other steps, so I think that's really great feedback, but it's less technology or maybe not less, but technology is one thing.

I think the level of individualism, the level at which you write about mental health, is the focus on self-care, is the focus on the self, yes, that has made it easier for us to say who owes me versus who I owe to is the same as when people say I want to find a partner who is this and this and this and I tell them which partner you want to be Lauren thank you very much for joining us in open discussion I really appreciate it thank you very much I really appreciate it it's my pleasure before we move on to our next question um I just want to ask you about this card deag yeah The game is called Where should we start a story game?

Same name as the podcast because I wanted to not only have therapeutic interventions but also fun, playful interventions where people tell stories because stories are bridges for connection and cultivate intimacy without having to sit in an office. and talk to a therapist about intimacy, just when you tell a story, you reveal a lot, but in a fun and playful way, so it's a box with 200 cards and a die that gives you a set of different prompts so you can never tell the story twice um you find it on my website you find it on Amazon everywhere you know you said at the beginning of the show the importance of curiosity in a debate.

I think the next thing I would say is that it's all in the quality of the question which is a great announcement DT Shant is a reporter from CNBC announcement thank you for joining us in the open debate hello of course thank you for inviting me so my question is about you saying that pairs are your favorite unit and you said that a lot of conflict comes from not being able to handle awkwardness and handling differences between us and our partner is a little tangential, but do you think all this talk about non-monogamy has to do with a couple's inability not to sit awkwardly in their own union and even if that discomfort isn't a big fight, yelling, just maybe under stimulation.

I feel like there's been a lot of attention lately on non-monogamous structures in relationships and I want to know why you think that might be the case, so I think the Search for Non-Monogamous. - monogamy and polyamory right now is the recent one that starts in the 60s, if you want to follow a historical trail, it is part of a general social movement to dismantle restrictive structures and the power of disruption, the power to think outside the box. The power to renegotiate social systems and relationships is one of those, so this is where non-monogamy really proliferates.

It puts the individual at the center and says that personal fulfillment, personal development is important for non-monogamy and people living. For this reason, I have also embraced the ideas that it is good for the relationship, it makes you depend less on a single person, it is actually strengthening the family, so it is very interesting, breaking the norm to the limit, but with arguments of the conservatives in the background. At the same time, it is very progressive, but it is explained with quite conservative arguments as well and the main argument is that you know the importance of Mak to keep a relationship fresh and understand that our emotional needs do not necessarily coincide with our erotic needs and that we need Community, etc., so all this thinking goes into non-monogamy more than just and I mean, the boredom can be there or Li, you know, having to face the limitation of having chosen one person and not another, etc., etc., but there are many voices for the discourse on non-monogamy, I don't think it's just a maneuver to avoid conflict, I think it goes beyond that and thank you for the thoughtful reflection and thank you for joining us in the open debate and We have one more question and it comes from Monica Tes, senior reporter at huff post who writes about the workplace Hi Monica, thanks for joining us Hi, thanks for having me, you talk a lot about our need for stability and it shifts a lot in your work towards conflicting emotions. and I think that's something that many of us struggle with at work.

Studies have found that many of us are disengaged at work and secretly want to be somewhere else, and I wanted to ask what you would say to an employee who is struggling with a lot of internal conflict: should they do it? stay at my job or should I leave and the next sentence would be should I stay because and I should leave because I should stay because it's like stability and I should leave because there is a new change I think the first thing I do is draw an echo map Tell me about your life in this moment Do you need stability?

Do you need a stable income? Do you think this has actually given you a structure to your life that was really necessary if you have always sought stability and not change? You might think that maybe you should continue with the change, but if you've been making changes non-stop every six months and for the first time you've lasted 18 months somewhere, then maybe let's talk about stability. I basically don't answer the question through the microscope. of the question with the question right in front of my nose because you can't see your finger when it's that close, so you move it back a little bit and bring in the rest of the person's life.

Are you taking care of people? You are responsible for your siblings, for your parents. Basically I won't answer, but I will ask a lot of questions that will help you answer your question. Monica. Thank you very much for your question. Really we appreciate. That's a great question, Sarah, we only have a few minutes. I'm gone but I've wanted to ask you all the time why this is your calling why this is your job where did it come from for you I've been interested in human beings and the way we relate to each other the way we um help each other. we trust each other we betray each other we abandon each other all the beautiful things and the nasty things that people do to each other um I'm interested in the connection between the micro and the macro because I don't know Maybe you know that I often think that I'm son of Holocaust survivors, of two parents who were the only survivors of their entire families and um and who basically survived because they understood the connection with other people, what do you mean by that meaning that you maintain? hope because you think you are going to meet someone again you maintain hope because there is a person next to you who is suffering more than you and you are trying to help them you maintain hopehope because when you give you have more for yourself because in the depth of connection, giving and receiving, you need to rebuild hope after a world is destroyed and then you are interested in how nations confront each other.

So I grew up in a very political house but in a house that also really looked at the fundamental values ​​of humanity. It is relating in a relationship. It's a level. Relating across today's biggest divides is finding a way to continue humanizing others because that's what maintains a Humanity in yourself, but you could have it. You pursued the same kind of passions that you know in law or medicine or as a writer or as an artist and I know that in some ways you are doing all of those things at the same time, but you are very, very specialized in Psychotherapy, so what did you find? did it pave the way for psychotherapy and understanding the mind in all of this?

I think that is so often the case for many of us when, as a teenager, you start reading the books that are meant to help. you understand yourself and you study psychology to understand yourself to understand you know I also knew that I had a special ability people came to me from very early when I was children I I I I I had a I liked to solve these types of problems I don't really read legal documents well, but I He does very well reading people's personal stories. We have reached the moment. I just want to share why I wanted to do this and also some of the questions that come up from the card game just to give people an idea.

I'm going to go over a list of what they would take out of the box. Please talk about an experience that shaped who I am and that few people know about. Please talk about the last time I was there. Ghost talk about a risk I took that changed my life. My closest encounter with death. I need to fight harder for the blank today. I care a lot less about white space. My social media presence would have you believe what your answer to that question is. There are my social networks. I would have you believe that I actually spent a lot of time on social media, but it is a public space that is very new to me and I am learning when it is the right place to speak and talk about what I think it is.

In reality, it is a space that is often very challenging for topics that require complexity, that require patience, that require listening for more than 9 seconds. thank you so much EST for participating in this conversation with us about open to debate uh and reminding people that your course can be found on your website sell.com. It's called Turning Conflict into Connection. I also want to thank our questioners kis López Lauren vopel adti chant and Monica Tes, but once again for you, EST parel, thank you very much for joining us, thank you, it's a pleasure and I want to thank everyone for listening to the open debate, already you know, as a non-profit organization that works to combat extreme polarization through civil society.

Debate Our work is made possible by listeners like you, the Rosen CR Foundation, and Open Debate supporters. This program is generously funded by a grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture Philanthropic Fund. Robert Rosen crch is our president, our CEO is CLA Connor. Leam was our content director. This episode was produced by Alexis Pangrazi and Marlet Sual. Editorial and research by Gabriela Mayer and Andrew Foot. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. M Shaw is director of audience development. The team open to debate also includes Gabrielan Chelly. Rachel Kemp Linda Lee and David Shermer Damon Whitmore mixed this episode.

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