TRUST IS EMOTIONAL SAFETY
E Ulland, MD
Many families have questions about how to rebuild trust in relationships. Oftentimes, due to emotion regulation difficulties, emotionally sensitive individuals have engaged in behaviors that are frightening to their loved ones. Some of these behaviors cause breeches in trust. Parents may also have acted in ways contrary to how they see themselves, which is a common occurrence in emotionally reactive families, leading to breaches in trust. Work by Brené Brown can be helpful. She has a TED talk that's titled “The Anatomy of Trust” and it is worth a view on YouTube Brené defines trust as choosing to express something important in a relationship while being vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Trust is not something that can be built during high intensity conversations or quickly. Trust is gained by smaller, seemingly insignificant, day-to-day interactions. Usually, we are unaware of these small moments. Some examples of gaining trust might be someone holding a door open for you when your hands are full, remembering someone's birthday, someone reminding you to do something, etc. Mindfulness of these smaller events during the day are important because moments of trust can easily become moments of betrayal. Brené created an acronym for the ways we can build or loose trust. The acronym is BRAVING:
Boundaries
Reliability
Accountability
Vaulting
Integrity
Non judgment
Generosity
Boundaries
Another word for boundaries is limits. This means that we remember and respect each other's limits. Not accepting a limit corrodes trust. We recommend setting limits for oneself rather than others. Limits set for others are less likely to be followed and others will also feel controlled. For instance, for a curfew limit it would be to tell your child that you want them home before a certain time since you cannot sleep due to anxiety that they are not in their bed. Having a limit crossed will feel like betrayal and if we don’t follow our own limits then we are accountable to betraying only ourselves. Limits need to be respected to trust others.
Reliability
Reliability means we do what we say we will do. Humans place more weight on what we do rather than what we say. Lecturing on values is less important than action. Parents behaving within their own values is fundamentally important for their children. Why? Parents are then predictable in important areas such as rules, expectations, limits, and family values. Reliability also includes, making oneself available to discuss another's experience and following and holding our own limits.
Accountability
Being accountable is accepting responsibility. Accountability is being able to admit to our mistakes, apologize, and make amends. Being accountable does not suggest that one is 100% responsible; it is accepting whatever part of something one can accept. Being accountable to that percentage, whatever it may be, is not an admission of right or wrong. It is an admission of how we affect other’s emotions. If one finds themselves asking for clarification or disagreeing with some portion of what someone has said, then they are not moving towards accountability. An example would be when a parent is given feedback as to how their behavior is negatively affecting their daughter, and they state “I didn’t intend that to happen.” Even though much of the behavior is unconscious in origin and the parent is unaware, if the parent mentions intention, then they are avoiding accountability. Part of being accountable is to recognize that we may affect others by behaving in ways we are unaware. We believe parents are each 50% responsible for how the child has been impacted within the family system. This reminds both parents that we are all accountable, and assigning blame is counter-productive.
Vaulting
Vaulting is a metaphor for protecting information like a bank vault protects resources. Vaults are a place where important things are kept safely. We hold what others tell us in confidence. This respect needs to be held equally. Individuals in the family need to know they can trust the information shared within a relationship will remain within the relationship. If a family member is complaining about another person without them present, this is a violation of the vault. When we are with a person who is complaining about someone else not present, we begin to distrust that person. They could just as easily talk about anything we have shared in confidence with them.
Integrity
Integrity is choosing courage over comfort. Values are shown in behavior, rather than professing. We must be consistent with our values and do what is difficult rather than what is easy. If caring for others is a value, it is far more important that children see parents showing care for others in an obvious way. An example of not acting with integrity is to express compassion as a value, while venting about other people for their decisions. Venting is a common enemy of intimacy because it is a false connection with another by disapproving together of another person. In the moment this may feel like a connection, but it is a false connection. Venting might feel like quick connection in the moment, but it has significant aftereffects. It destroys trust, worsens mood for both persons, and provides a worse view of the other party. The shared perspective may be unwarranted, since each person only experienced firsthand a portion of what was shared. It is a form of merging where both individuals lose their own sense of identity as they become one through their judging behavior.
Non judgment
Non judgment helps pave the way for allowing others space to be emotionally vulnerable in relationships. Judgment is typically experienced as painful. If one is in a nonjudgmental relationship then they know they can be vulnerable and still be accepted. Individuals who express a high level of judgment are difficult to trust. They are more likely to argue in relationships because judgmental individuals imply they believe only their perspective is valid.
Generosity
Generosity in assumptions is healthy and effective for relationships. To be generous is to assume others have good intentions. Being generous is holding yourself and others as equal in the experience. If we see ourselves as loving, competent individuals, it is helpful to view others in the same light so that when things go awry we can assume it was an accident and not an offense, or “more of the same.” A generous stance within DBT is the assumption that everyone is doing their best and they can do better. Another key assumption is that everyone wants to improve. Following assumptions like these leads to trust because they minimize shame in relationships.
{Much of Dr. Brene Brown's research is useful, and relevant within dialectical behavioral therapy. Shame is a common human experience, and residents experience extreme amounts of shame. Most of us on the treatment team believe that the treatment refractory depression that residents experience is not depression per se, but being stuck ineffectively in the emotion of shame.}