A big part of what causes conflict in relationships are double signals. Double signals are when one person is consciously, intentionally communicating one thing (such as with their word choce) while unconsciously, unintentionally communicating something contractions (such as with their tone, body language or actions).
Process Work, perhaps counter-intuitively, believes in supporting the more unconscious communication to express itself. There can be a lot of inner and outer pressure contributing to keeping this signal unconscious. However, often in giving it the time and awareness to find its message and express itself, it holds the key about what is generating the conflict and the deeper truth about where the relationship wants to go.
There is the spoken one, the content of what people say to each other and what they consciously intend to say. This is the primary process of each person and of the relationship itself.
Then there is what might be called the dreambody language of the relationship. These are the unintentional signals that run alongside and beneath the words.
When both of these happen at the same time, we call it a ‘double signal.’
Gestures. Vocal tones. Unfinished sentences.
The way someone leans away while saying “of course I’m listening.” When someone says, “I want to go to the party with you”, but thier arms are crossed and their eyes are closed.
We feel and sense them, both consciously and unconsciously.
Most people bulldoze right past them or impose relationship tools and dogmas on top of them. But they are information. And the less people pay attention to the grunts, shrugs, sounds, eyebrow movements, sitting positions and other forms of this unintended language, the more powerful and disturbing they become to the relational fabric.
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creating distance, misunderstanding and ultimately escalating conflict if they go un-processed.
Process Work holds that these double signals carry the relationship’s dreaming process, the things that need to be said, the parts of each person that are trying to be known and the authentic path of the relationship attemoting to emerge.
Genuinely exploring whether the thing you’re being accused of might have a grain of truth that will help you get in touch with your secondary process.
When someone accuses their partner of being controlling, cold, absent, or selfish, the first impulse is usually to defend against it. And the defense may be partly justified. But Process Work invites a different question: not “is this accusation fair?” but “is there a part of me that the accuser is picking up, a secondary process that I haven’t owned?” The accusation, even when distorted by hurt or projection, is often tracking something real. It is pointing at an aspect of the accused person that is expressing itself through double signals without conscious awareness.
Intentional, conscious communication that goes along with an individual or relationship's current identity.
Unintentional, spontaneous, marginalized communication such as body language, tone, fantasies, that don't match the story.
Figures present in the relationship's field without anyone explicitly representing them: an absent parent, a past partner, a cultural ideal. Ghosts influence the field without being named.
Often mirrored in an early experience oin the relationship, the myth shows the central themes that unfold and what these people may be learning in thier dance together.
Maraya Karena is a Process Work Diplomate, Counselor and Consciousness Researcher based in Portland, Oregon.
“My passion is to study consciousness itself. To develop tools and models that support us to navigate everyday life. To make the reality we share more reflective of who and what we truly are. To find the pulsing, living heart of this life journey. And to engage with it fully and completely. I explore poetry, dance, embodiment, sex, social issues, futurism, philosophy, mysticism, joy and agony all to learn a little bit more about what is really going on and how we can most authentically express ourselves.”
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