By SUZANNE INNES-KENT
Have you ever watched apes socialising together? Their interactions seem to be a mix of grooming and cuddles interspersed with spats, chases and fierce protests. One research experiment, though it seemed particularly cruel, involved preventing the apes from fighting each other. The result was that the whole group became depressed and lifeless. It seemed that they needed regular conflict in order to remain mentally healthy.
While there is no automatic assumption that what goes for apes goes for us, it is easy to believe that the same is true for people.
If we can be allowed to have spats and if we know how to keep our spats within a code of conduct that does not compromise safety or self-respect, we are likely to be more vibrant, livelier people with more-satisfying relationships.
Not long ago, when my husband and I were running a course on conflict resolution in Italy, an Italian colleague commented that she did not think Italian people would need to learn such skills.
She explained that, at least within family and friendship circles, people said what they thought very openly, and then kept talking and arguing - heatedly, in my experience - until they sorted it out.
In New Zealand, on the other hand, it seems that we have two modes. We either avoid conflict like salmonella poisoning, or become completely hostile and aggressive, inevitably resulting in the kind of hurt we would prefer to have avoided.
Both of these styles, the aggressive and the suppressive, create distance and mistrust in relationships. Therefore the art of close relationships is fundamentally connected to the art of managing conflict.
Researcher John Gottman, who studied many marriages over a long period, found that this was a key ingredient of long-term, successful marriages.
So it is worth examining the conditions and skills which make conflict healthy rather than the overwhelmingly destructive force that the avoiders fear and the battlers discover.
Conflict concerns the managing of differences.
Differences become uncomfortable when what you want appears to be stopping me having what I want, and what I want matters hugely to me.
If you want to watch channel one while I want to watch channel two, it is probably easy to sort out, but if you want lots of people in the house constantly and I regard the house as my quiet and inviolable sanctuary, we may have trouble.
Or if you think children should be disciplined to show them right behaviour, and I think they should be understood and reasoned with, we may find we have a fairly emotive issue between us.
Over the next few weeks we will examine the nature of conflict and how to manage it healthily.
The art is not so much following rules for fighting. Many styles work, ranging from very volatile to very passive.
What does matter is that your style achieves the following goals: it creates, rather than threatens safety; it allows for listening and understanding; it recognises all points of view; the outcome is achieved through negotiation and not bullying; and the result increases trust in the relationship.
* Suzanne Innes-Kent is a relationships consultant and author.
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