There are not many challenges that we face that are more important than forming effective and positive relationships with others. Ironically, for something that is so important, we are left in the dark as to how exactly to go about this crucial task of making relationships work. The truth is that if we have the means to acquire positive relationships, chances are good that we will be happy and well-adjusted individuals. It is also true that if we do not have the knack of interacting with others in ways that lead to satisfactory relationships, then we probably will not be as happy and will be at greater risk of being psychologically maladjusted.

Fortunately, we do have some knowledge of relationship process. First, we know that some skills, other than those found in intellectual ability, are related to relationship outcomes. This other set of abilities has been referred to, by some, as "emotional intelligence." Second, we know that relationships go through a process of choice, beginning, deepening and ending phases. Third, we know that the earlier in the process of relationship development that difficulties are encountered the more profound will be the impact on the person's life. Therefore, difficulties in the choice phase usually will have more serious consequences for relationship outcome than those at any of the other phases.

Most of us, though, get past the choice phase satisfactorily and have some idea of how to begin relationships. In fact, this is the only phase of the relationship process that is taught formally in our society.

By the time we are adults, we have been taught the behaviors that are necessary to begin new relationships. We shake hands with whomever we are meeting; accompany that firm handshake with a smile and direct eye contact; and follow with small talk about the weather or some other agreed upon topic.

In contrast to the direct training we receive on how to begin relationships, we receive little help to guide our efforts at deepening and ending relationships. Although some of us will have difficulty at beginning relationships, more of us have problems deepening them. Without the ability to deepen relationships, the most important intimate relationships of adulthood may be beyond our grasp.

Finally, almost everyone has trouble ending relationships. Rather than consciously considering how to end positively with those with whom we are involved, we usually become busy with other matters and/or find reasons to become angry with them. While both of these actions allow us to escape from relationships without experiencing the anxiety and stress generated by ending, they also prevent us from having the opportunity to look back over the history of the relationship to evaluate our own actions. It is only with such information gleaned from our experience that we can learn from our past mistakes and increase the likelihood that our next relationship will be better.

How do we effectively pass through the different phases of a relationship?

The answer is deceptively simple, we communicate; and the most obvious way we communicate is verbal. That is, we talk to one another. However, while the role of verbal communication in the relationship process is obvious, what is less obvious is the significant part played by nonverbal communication. The importance of nonverbal communication is reflected by the fact that we are more likely to believe its message even if it disagrees with the verbal one. If someone says they care for us, but do not say it with the appropriate vocal intonations, we do not trust the words.

By nonverbal social behavior, we mean all those human responses that are not described as overtly manifested in words (either spoken or written) and that convey meaning. Nonverbal responses include facial expressions, paralanguage or prosody, body movements or kinesics, gestures and touching, and proxemics or personal space and rhythm. Rhythm involves moving in time and speed appropriate to the interpersonal situation and it can combine with other forms of nonverbal communication such as in how quickly we talk or move.

As in verbal communication, there can be receptive and expressive nonverbal communication deficits. In 1994, Nowicki and Duke coined the term, dyssemia (dys = inability; semia = sign) to refer to receptive or expressive nonverbal processing deficits. Receptive dyssemias refer to an inability to identify nonverbal emotional cues in others. For example, we may misread someone's friendly facial expression as hostile and respond with behaviors consistent with that misperception. Expressive dyssemias refer to difficulties in sending nonverbal emotional cues accurately to others. For example, we stand too close to others while talking to them or move too quickly or slowly when walking with them.

There are several reasons why dyssemias should negatively affect relationship process. One is that they interfere with our use of nonverbal communication to determine how others and we are feeling and to regulate turn taking in an ongoing social interaction. Because nonverbal communication is more continuous, takes place more out of our awareness and its errors probably will have a negative emotional impact on others, it is likely that individuals with dyssemias could be making a continuously negative impact on others, but not even be aware that they are. (How can you stop doing something when you are not even aware that you are doing it?)

The idea that nonverbal communication is important in relationships fits comfortably within theories that emphasize an interpersonal approach to personality development and psychological adjustment. Among the earliest interpersonal theorists was Harry Stack Sullivan. Sullivan believed that individuals moved from infancy to adulthood through a graduated series of developmental stages.

Unlike in traditional analytic theory where development is seen as the result of biologically driven sexual instincts, in Sullivanian theory, progress through the stages is motivated by increasingly complex relationship requirements needed to acquire satisfaction (biological needs) and obtain security (lessened anxiety and heightened self-esteem).

The self-concept, Sullivan suggested, originates, from the "reflected appraisals of significant others" (most often the mother) and is first experienced during infancy. Since verbal language does not develop for years, the initial communications that form the early self-concept are nonverbal.

We must master increasingly complex interpersonal requirements at each developmental stage to progress socially. Although Sullivan suggested that personality is mutable and could change at any age, he believed that the following are the most important phases of development.

1. Infancy:from birth until the appearance of articulate speech - about 18 months.
   
2. Childhood: from the onset of articulate speech until the appearance of a need for close relationships with other children - about 18 months to four years.
   
3. Juvenile: from the initial need for close peer relationships to the development of an intimate same-sex, nonerotic "chum" relationship - about four to 10 years.
   
4. Preadolescence: from the initiation of a "chum" relationship to the beginning of physical sexual maturation - about 10 to about 12 years.
   
5. Adolescence: from physical sexual maturation to the development of a stable expression of sexual feelings through a mature sexual relationship - about 13 to 21 years.

The personality structure attained by adolescence was most likely to continue through adulthood, though change was always thought to be possible.
Thus, Sullivan's theory is one based on principles of human growth and development energized by progressively more complex relationship demands. Children are driven to form relationships first with their "parenting" ones and then, using what they have learned in those interactions, to form relationships with their peers.

Sullivan was among the first to give significant importance to nonverbal means of communication throughout a person's life.

A key concept within an interpersonal approach to therapy is incongruence, or when different relationship messages are communicated verbally (in awareness) and nonverbally (out of awareness). Because of the assumed importance of nonverbal communication and the fact that it takes place relatively out of an individual's awareness, incongruence can lead to situations where individuals think they are communicating one affective message when they actually may be communicating quite another. The possibility of incongruence makes interpersonal interactions difficult enough, but the chance of relationship failure increases dramatically when one or both parties have dyssemias.

Kiesler, building on the writings of Sullivan, Leary , Carson and Wiggins, has presented a therapeutic framework for understanding and treating psychological problems caused in part by incongruence between verbal and nonverbal messages.

The basic therapeutic approach is for the therapist to bring into awareness what is being communicated verbally and nonverbally by metacommunicating about what is transpiring in the relationship. For example, a client who comes into therapy with complaints of unsatisfying relationships, but speaks about such difficulties with a large smile on his or her face needs to be told what the impact of such divergent communications is on the therapist and others.
In addition to the formal psychotherapeutic approaches to treating difficulties in nonverbal communication, there are direct educational approaches as well. Nowicki and his colleagues have constructed both tests to assess nonverbal processing abilities, the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA, Nowicki & Duke, 1994) and a remediational procedure the R-DANVA (Nowicki, 1995) that focuses on correcting dyssemias in children and adults. The DANVA measures receptive facial expressions and tones of voice, and error scores can be reported by specific emotion and by specific intensity of emotion.

The R-DANVA is composed of a series of tasks that teach individuals to discriminate between two nonverbal stimuli, to identify the emotion in a nonverbal stimulus, to express emotion in a nonverbal stimulus and then to apply knowledge of what is being communicated nonverbally to a social situation. The R-DANVA focuses on the most basic of the social skills necessary for social interaction, reading and sending nonverbal cues accurately.

It is important to understand that dyssemias are not a cause for all psychological problems, but they probably play some part in a significant number of them. Awareness that dyssemias could be involved in difficulties experienced by some individuals is the first step toward helping them to gain the skills necessary for developing the kinds of satisfactory relationships we all need to be happy.

Steven Nowicki, Jr. PhD, ABPP is a professor of psychology at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

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