Emotionally distinct is the ability to be in close contact, even when you are different.
To be true to yourself - even when you love someone else.

It's not protection. It's not isolation. It's the ability to feel yourself even when there are two of you.
The ability to be in touch without giving up your voice, your boundaries, yourself.

 

 

What is distinctive?

 

Differentiation is a mental infrastructure that allows us to stand within a relationship, without losing ourselves.
This is a concept coined by psychiatrist Murray Bowen, and deepened through the work of therapists like David Snares and later, in Israel, through the clinical work of Amitai Meged.

Distinction is not an innate trait but a movement that is built in therapy. It is the ability to feel your emotions without overwhelming the other, to listen to the other without being swallowed up in their world, and to live within an intimate connection without shutting yourself down.

 

 

Why is this important?

 

When distinction is lacking, we move between two extremes:

• Fusion: A relationship in which I disappear into the needs of the other.

• Avoidance: A relationship where I move away so as not to get lost.

 

In both situations there is no real encounter.
When there are distinctions, the possibility opens up for living closeness, for free choice, for intimacy that has room for two different people.

 

 

What does it look like in practice?

 

• When you allow yourself to say, "I need space," without fear of disappointing.

• When you say "I disagree," without breaking the connection.

• When you learn to contain different emotions, without being frightened by them.

• When each party in the relationship takes responsibility for themselves, without giving up an empathetic presence.

 

 

Distinguished in a relationship

 

Within a relationship, being distinct creates a more complete space for love:

• You no longer need to maintain the relationship through control or appeasement.

• There is room for fighting without falling apart.

• There is a possibility for closeness that does not suffocate and freedom that does not distance.

• Everyone brings themselves, not their own version of the service.

 

When there are differences - there is no need to prove your value through others.
There is trust. There is presence. There is partnership.

 

 

How do you work with differential diagnoses in treatment?

 

In individual or couples therapy, we will practice:

• Listening to myself - without filters of what I "need."

• Separating emotion from responsibility - to feel, without blaming.

• Courageous speech - expressing a need or pain, even when it's scary.

• Accepting difference - seeing the other as they are, not as I would like them to be.

 

 

Why is this a method in my toolbox?

 

Because I've seen couples time and time again who can't talk, not because they don't love, but because they're not distinguishable.

Because good people keep themselves to a minimum, just to "maintain the connection."

Because sometimes love fails to bloom - because there is no room to breathe within it. Distinct restores that breath.

It does not separate - it enables.
It doesn't create distance - it creates a closeness that doesn't ask you to give up on yourself.

 

 

Distinguished is not being alone.
It is the ability to be together –

Without losing your voice.