Russian Dolls

Now why do you suppose I would title this topic “Russian Dolls”?

No, I’m not referring to Russian ladies. I’m referring to those nesting dolls where a smaller dolls sit inside slightly larger ones and so on. I think that these Russian Dolls are a good metaphor for how we get on with one another on various occasions as follows:

Let us take someone who is 30 years old for example. In a funny sort of way you can think of this person as having 29 Russian Dolls inside them. What I mean by this is that the person we were when we were 5 years old can be thought of as still being part of us, and the person we were when we were 10 years old can be thought of as still being part of us and the person we were when we were 15 years old can be thought of as still being part of us.

Why is this useful?

When we are having an argument with our partners we often start to function very much like our 5 year-old self for example (or even earlier). That is, we forget all the understanding, learning, experience and common sense we have gathered over the next 25 years and resort to behaving like a 5 year-old. This may not matter if we can understand that that was how we were behaving, retrieve our 30 year-old self and restore our relationship to its usual equilibrium (i.e. kiss, make-up, hug, apologize, etc). However sometimes it happens that we continue to behave like 5 year-olds and this can be destructive for our relationships.

The other advantage of the Russian Doll metaphor is that in thinking about ourselves in this way we can recognise that we have other options in terms of how we choose to behave, although we don’t tend to think or ourselves as having any choice in the matter.

If we do behave in a way more appropriate to a much younger age level it generally indicates that we feel we are otherwise unable to get through to the other person. In such instances it can be helpful to relate to our partners with the care, respect, consideration and politeness that we would with someone we didn’t know very well. They may then be able to relate to us in a similar way.

Daniel Chable currently practices at:

Mitcham Private Hospital Consulting Rooms
Telephone: (03) 9210 3146

MMC Consulting Suites, Templestowe
Telephone: (03) 8850 0456

Boroondara Consulting Suites, Hawthorn
Telephone: (03) 9819 9877