The website www.defintionofwellness.comdescribes social wellness as including:
- Positive interactions
- Communicating feelings and needs to others
- Intimacy
In order to achieve social wellness, I believe that an understanding of social structure and function is necessary. How does the constructive mindset become an integral component of the process? Is it possible to have a concept of social wellness training?
Part 1 of our discussion pertains to structure. Social structure has to do with uniqueness. A person is interested in seeing themselves as unique and seeing others as unique. Being unique includes the freedom to have one’s thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. The constructive mindset is about knowing the difference between a person and a problem. You are free to see yourself as unique and distinct, with your unique thoughts and emotions, and others as unique and separate, with unique thoughts and emotions. You are not who others say you are; you are who you are. Others are not who you say they are; they are who they are.
An identified problem has to do with a sense of justice or truth. A problem is only a problem if it is not in alignment with justice or truth. The social reality of our existence is the relational dimension of what it means to be human. People are relational creatures. Within the constructive mindset, you are able to develop a relationship with justice, letting justice have a sense of uniqueness as well. That is, justice is not what you say it is; it is what it is on its own merit. Your understanding of justice is according to how you understand your relationship with it.
O ———– O
Justice \ / Other
(Problem) \ /
(Potato) \ /
O
You
That the circles are separated from each other displays uniqueness. When you form the constructive mindset, you derive a sense of identity by virtue of relating with Justice in which Justice is unique and separate from you. Your identity is therefore maintained when you relate with others and see others as unique with their separate relationship/identity with Justice. This structure gives you the ability to form a sustained positive interaction with others, that is, you are you and he/she is who he/she is. There are clear boundaries.
If, on the other hand, you derive your identity from another person, the result is that there is no sense of uniqueness and no unique identity. You either are who they say you are or you relate with them according to how you say they should be. There follows an unhealthy master-slave or co-dependent relationship, with no boundaries and with loss of ability to sustain a positive interaction. This structure is illustrated by overlapping circles:
OÐ (imagine these are interlocking circles)
You Other
Notice that Justice is missing from this illustration. This is due to you allowing the other to represent and therefore replace the role of Justice to derive your identity. Many people believe close, intimate relationships, such as spousal relationships, are illustrated by the overlapping structure above. However, such structure leads to lack of unique identity and lack of healthy boundaries and therefore unfulfilled social wellness. Without the foundation of a healthy social structure, there is a deficiency in your ability to nurture true intimacy. I will discuss intimacy as part of the functional component of social wellness in the next installment of Dr. Sinn’s Bin.