Using Attuned as a family therapist

We’ve known since Maslow that all human beings have a need for safety, belonging, and self-actualization through realizing their talents and capabilities. But what happens when those needs are suddenly placed at odds? When teaching is your calling but you feel unsafe walking into the classroom? When you live alone but can’t meet your loved ones without breaking lockdown rules? And are we all likely to react similarly in such situations?

According to Maslow, our need for safety is supposed to trump our need for belonging and self-actualization. But the past year has taught us what psychologists have known for decades: that people are governed by individual differences and competing needs, with personal preferences determining the individual value hierarchies that drive our choices.

As such, some of us will find it paramount to keep ourselves and others safe, even if it means forgoing in-person human connection for long periods, while others may feel the exact opposite, and thus be more willing to accept small risks in order to feel truly connected and alive.

But what happens when your own system of needs, values, and preferences contrasts starkly with that of someone you love?

This was the situation I found myself in with my mother last November.

For her birthday, all my Mom wanted was for me and my sisters to come over, give her a hug and join her for a birthday lunch (at a time of the year when it’s too cold to spend much time outside). But all I could think about was the possibility that one of us might unwittingly be carrying the virus and infect her.

I felt a deep sense of frustration and helplessness over having to choose between two seemingly impossible choices. Should I disappoint my Mom on her birthday, or should I put her health—and potentially her life—at risk?

In the end, I did what dutiful sons the world over tend to do, especially on their Moms’ birthdays—I complied. We spent a day together as a family, as if things were back to normal, in her house without masks, having lunch together, eating cake, chatting about life, and then took a long walk in the forest nearby.

I sincerely hope she had a lovely day. But every minute of it—until the walk outside—felt dreadful to me. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and for the incubation period to pass so I could feel safe knowing we didn’t infect her. In the end, everything was fine—unlike another family who did the exact same thing and lost two loved ones as a result.

In the 40 years we have spent together, 16 of them living in the same house, my Mom hasn’t struck me as a particularly social person either. With her small circle of close friends that hasn’t changed much over the years, and her apparent happiness living alone in the three decades since my parents got divorced, I’ve always thought of her as a self-sufficient, independent woman who didn’t have a strong need for the company of others to feel at ease.

I’ve also long thought of her as a risk-taker. At various points in her life, she hasn’t been afraid to change the status quo when it wasn’t working for her. She’s changed jobs, embarked on new projects, moved from one city to another, and experimented with diets, sports, and stocks freely and without fear. I thought I was quite like her in that way, having changed schools and careers more often than usual, and having lived and worked in five different countries outside of my native Hungary.

It took me a global pandemic and a series of unexpected and unpleasant conflicts with my Mom to find out that I was wrong in some of my assumptions about her—as well as about myself.

At 30%, her Social Relationships score isn’t particularly high either. But in her own personal hierarchy of motivational needs, Social Relationships are nevertheless important, coming in fourth place—and certainly an order of magnitude more important for her than Security.

This observation prompted me to look at my own motivational profile, which I’ve known for years, in a different light.

Even though Security is not a particularly important value to me overall (I score 23%), it is certainly more important than Social Relationships. The doubt of not knowing whether I’ve infected my Mom on her birthday was significantly more difficult for me to bear emotionally than limiting our time together would have been.

For her, it was the exact opposite.

Our profiles reveal another way in which we are both similar (compared to the whole wide world) and different (compared to each other).

Rationality is a fairly important motivating factor for us both, with each of us scoring in the middle of the scale, her at 42% and me at 60%. We both read widely about the world, we both consult various sources, we both compare facts and opinions, and we both tend to approach decisions logically. But we both also take subjective factors, like our intuition and others’ feelings, into consideration.

However, with an almost 20% difference in our scores, we do have a subtle but important difference in our preferred mix of the objective and the subjective when making decisions. When facts and feelings collide, I am more likely to be guided by the facts, while she is more likely to be guided by feelings. The risk for me is that I might choose a course of action that seems perfectly rational to me (for example, not hugging my Mom on her birthday) without sufficiently considering its emotional impact on others—or myself. The risk for her is that she might choose a course of action that feels right to her but may be seen by others—or herself, eventually—as irrational, or, given her low need for Security, possibly risky (for example, when she invested all her savings in stocks and lost most of them in the financial crisis).

Now, with both our profiles at hand, we’re able to have much better conversations about how we are both alike and different from each other.

I now feel that I’ve sometimes unfairly labeled my Mom as irrational in the past while thinking of myself as more rational than I really am. Comparing our Attuned profiles has made me realize that we are more alike than I was willing to admit. We both strive to be driven by the facts but we both find it important not to stick to them until the bitter end—since human emotions, especially those of our loved ones, are important to both of us.

Comparing our profiles, I’ve also become more attuned to my own need for Security. Previously, I’ve prided myself perhaps a little bit too much on my relatively high tolerance for changes and ambiguity, without admitting—even to myself—that I, too, need a degree of structure and predictability to feel safe. I now find this observation makes it easier for me to communicate if and when I feel uncomfortable in a situation, rather than gritting my teeth and pushing through in silent frustration.

And most importantly, comparing our Attuned profiles has helped me realize, perhaps for the first time in our lives, that my Mom needs me—my actual, physical presence, the sound of my voice, my smile, my hug, my touch to comfort her—more than I need hers.

Instead of the sinking feeling of disconnect that I have sensed developing between the two of us ever since the pandemic started, I now find myself remembering the many ways in which she comforted me and my sisters when we were sick or sad or simply needed to feel safe. And for the first time in a while, I’m starting to feel something different.

I’m feeling connected.