Congruence: the Energy of Connection from Authentic Communication

This article introduces the concept of congruence. Congruence is the energy of our connection with other people when we communicate in ways where our inner world of experience and our outer world of expression are matching. It is a way of being real and recognizing our worth as individuals and together in relationship. It is when our emotion, thought, words, body, and expression is congruent.

Virginia Satir (an American psychotherapist recognized for her pioneering family reconstruction approach in family therapy) wanted us to understand that congruence is about “being all of who we are at a given point in time with another human being.” She also said that it is a “committed, active pursuit of clarity of meaning with another person.”

Many of the rules we learned about how we’re supposed to be in life have their origin in the learning we picked up from our family system – usually the original triad formed between us with our parents. We learned how to feel about what we’re feeling. Some feelings were okay and other feelings were not okay.

Satir wanted us to understand something about being fully human and how our communication in relationships tends to be incongruent because of the rules we learned and are continuing to practice in our daily lives. Incongruency follows a rigid pattern formed from old learning in childhood based on how we coped with stressors that threatened our self-esteem.

Congruent communication is a living, breathing, dynamic, and interactive process that gives energy to our lives and relationships. We are not neutral observers, but active co-creators who manifest life through communication. We can choose to engage in ways of being with connection that are life-enhancing or ways of being with disconnection that are life-endangering. When both peoples’ feelings count and matter, and we value the context or task in a relationship situation, we are being congruent in our communication

Sources

Brothers, B. J. (2013). Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas. Routledge.

Mearns, D., Thorne, B., Lambers, E., & Warner, M. (2000). Person-Centred Therapy Today:

New Frontiers in Theory and Practice. SAGE.