In therapy, with experience, one comes across types of problems that become genuine poisons for a couple if they are not treated. Four broad ones stand out, sometimes grouped under the label of the “four I’s”, since each begins with that letter: incivility, immutability, infidelity and immaturity. This first instalment opens the series.

What we call incivility

Historically, the word used was rather impoliteness: the two largely overlap. The idea is this: some people appear not to have the elementary social codes of life in society inside their own couple. It is not that they are unaware of them, nor that they are incapable of applying them in the wider community: but within the space of the couple, it is as though they dropped the reins, as though everything were permitted there.

Often, these are people who experienced, as children, a place where they were allowed to do anything — the favourite child who gets away with everything. What then builds up, in their representation of the world, is the idea that inside the family one may allow oneself whatever one wants.

This shows in several ways: insults, lack of respect, lack of modesty, disregard for the cleanliness of the home or of one’s own body. And very often, all of it is done in the name of spontaneity: it would be inherent to the person’s nature. “That’s just how I am”, “in the couple you see me as I am, natural, spontaneous”. Gradually, this can lead the other person to feel disgust for that kind of behaviour.

When incivility enters the consulting room

These elements also show up in the therapeutic space. Someone who, without the slightest hesitation, stands up in the middle of the session, walks out, comes back, goes to make a phone call or answer a message: these are impolitenesses, small incivilities. It is extremely important to note them, and to name that this is a problem of impoliteness.

A classic reframing consists in shifting the argument: moving the behaviour from the side of spontaneity to that of lack of control. A sphincter metaphor is sometimes enough — as though there were a failure of retention, as though one could not keep inside what, once out, comes to soil others.

The underlying idea is simple: we may well think whatever we want, but we cannot say everything we think. Our words and our acts have consequences on those close to us. I cannot insult my partner or my children with heightened aggressiveness, and then explain to them that this is how I am, that I am spontaneous, natural, and that they know me.

The real danger: when the narrative colonises the family

The danger begins when this narrative comes to colonise every other member of the family. If one of them ends up recognised by all as being allowed to say and do pretty much whatever they want, and is not held to account because “it’s not their fault” or “it’s part of their personality”, then incivility has become the norm of the system.

Yet it may be important to recall that, whatever the life events, nothing justifies or validates being insulting, impolite, or exercising incivility on those close to us.

An educational and explanatory treatment

Treating this problem in therapy calls for a specific approach, both educational and explanatory: people may think what they want, but they cannot say what they want. What is at stake is transmitting a model of communication grounded in respect and in esteem for each person, and increasing the capacity for containment.

It is essential that the therapist be able to name this: otherwise they let themselves be drawn into the explanation the client gives of their own behaviour. Not spelling the problem out as impoliteness already amounts, in a way, to endorsing the state of things. That said — and it is more than obvious — the intervention must be carried out with tact and finesse: announcing that one observes a problem of incivility requires a great deal of subtlety.

One nuance deserves to be added: there may exist, within a family, a form of unconditional acceptance of others — but only insofar as it does not come at the expense of the dignity of one of its members. And it is very important that the therapist not accept straight away explanations of the type “I’m Mediterranean”, “I’m hot-blooded”, “that’s how we work in my family”, “it’s part of my personality”.

Unacceptable or inadmissible?

Two terms that are very useful to distinguish when working around the notion of respect.

As a therapist, being able to lean on this distinction is precious.

Leaning on moments of exception

Addressing the question of disrespect can be very fruitful in therapy, in particular because one can lean on moments of exception: those in which the couple or the family experiences that there is indeed respect between them. The whole idea will then be to extend that zone where respect is exercised.

One further issue is decisive: showing that no implicit alliance is being formed with one of the members at the expense of the others. If someone is disrespectful and the therapist says nothing, if they accept it, it is as though they were allying with that person — and when the time comes, working with the one who was the target of that disrespect will become far more difficult.

The second great dysfunction, for its part, makes no noise at all: it is immutability.