What is Interpersonal Arts?
Interpersonal Arts is a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical methodology to enable the building and sustaining of healthy relationships.
From the moment we are born, our lives take place within interpersonal contexts. We live immersed in relationships. The level of joy and satisfaction in our everyday lives is highly conditioned by our interactions. These interactions shape our perception of the world and of ourselves. And they define our cognition, behavior, and the way we perceive and consequently shape our reality. There is no other factor that affects more significantly our mood, our sense of integrity and our self-worth than the interactions and relationships we experience and establish with others.
Psychological mechanisms that developed over millennia to protect human beings from external threats and predators are, in today’s modern society, manifested exclusively in interpersonal relationships. We feel threatened and become defensive in relation to other human beings. Our anxiety, anger, and depression are strongly related to our relationships with fellow members of our own species. Their prevalence in modern society indicates that we often lack the tools to skillfully defend ourselves, and as a result we are forced to activate resources that can be both harmful to ourselves and others.
We are nevertheless largely unaware of the massive impact relationships have on our wellbeing. And we often ignore how impactful our own interpersonal skills and abilities (or inabilities) are on our mental and physical health, and the way we live and define our lives.
Interpersonal Arts is based on an epistemology that integrates the most prominent, well established, and evidence-based theories of the human mind and behavior, including the theory of evolution, attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, and systemic-relational theory. Interpersonal Arts also draws upon a variety of approaches to psychology, such as cognitive-behavioral, psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, transpersonal, transactional analysis, systemic, humanistic.
Mastery of Interpersonal Arts is a lifelong pursuit. Like any other art, it requires practice, patience, and persistence. At the same time, learning the basics - as is often the case when we embark upon a new art or practice - paves the way to being creative and exploring new experiences and possibilities. No previous contact with other psychotherapeutic modalities is necessary – only a desire to learn and experiment.
Interpersonal Arts is all about:
- Building interpersonal skills, and strengthening your position, confidence, and aptitude within any interpersonal context
- Guiding you to develop greater self-awareness in the way you relate to yourself and others
- Teaching you to maintain balance and to effectively defend yourself from others without causing unnecessary harm
- Showing you how to protect yourself within adverse or toxic environments and how to survive them
- Understanding the interpersonal dimension more fully and learning the main components and dynamics of relationships
- Facilitating analytical capacities and appropriate interventions within complex interpersonal situations
- Promoting the best version of yourself and others, whether the other is a friend, a partner, a boss, a child, a parent, a teacher, a teammate, a peer, or an adversary
- Helping to create high quality, engaging, positive, stimulating, and meaningful life experiences