Pursuer-Evader Syndrome

Explanation:

In this all too common syndrome, we are not talking about sex although sexual attraction will often be affected. Instead, we are referring to conflicting levels of desire and tolerance for emotional intensity. Where one partner desires more personal talk about feelings, the other may feel very uncomfortable with such and therefore avoid putting themselves in such a situation. There are several possible causes for this, the most common being the evader's fear of incompetence and shame when it comes to intangible matters of emotional experience. Very often, such people don't even have the necessary language let alone the insight for emotional expression.

Another possible cause is that the evader lacks necessary emotional defenses. They may not have adequately integrated anger such that they can easily assert themselves if necessary . Instead, they may only have a limited repertoire of either totally evading potential conflict or completely melting down into a rage. They may have never developed healthy anger to the point that they can respect their own use of it in their own defense. For this reason, they may sense that they cannot risk much vulnerability by getting too emotionally exposed. Such reactions are particularly common among people who were raised in the fearful shadow of a raging parent.

A third explanation may be that the evader has become overly dependent upon their other partner for making decisions. If the first partner was raised in an environment in which they did not receive a lot of positive attention to their desires, they may have accumulated a lot of shame around their need for satisfying self-interest. This can lead them to seek out a symbiotic relationship in adult life. In the symbiotic relationship, they can get their other partner to expose selfish interest while they go along for the ride. For them to be more openly "selfish" would evoke associated shame from their childhood. This dynamic is often seen in therapy as many patients become conscious of anxiety and shame associated with their exposure of self-interest. Unfortunately, a symbiotic solution for this does not work well. Often, the dependent person unconsciously gives up choices to their partner before they are even aware of their doing so. This high level of dependence means that the person already feels "joined at the hip" and too close to their partner. For this reason, they anxiously feel the need to keep more separate. They use emotional distance to try to accomplish this. What they actually need is more distance between their two psychological identities, not a lack of intimacy. However, they don't know this. Their symbiotic dependence upon their partner (for choice-making) is a loss of psychological boundaries. They have the self interest part of their own identity being vicariously experienced through their other partner. The technical term for this is "projective identification".

Because the pursuer-evader syndrome has several possible causes, no one single intervention is appropriate for all situations. However, it can be generalized that the pursuer does not necessarily have a responsibility to "tone it down". The person who has usually pursued does have to be careful to avoid intrusiveness. They should discard any sarcasm and shaming techniques. They also need to be sensitive to their partner's healthy assertions for privacy when desired. Nevertheless, most of the work is on the side of the evader. It is their boundaries and capacity for intensity that need strengthening.