The Soul Mates Model

Abstract

This article presents the integrative soul mates relationship development model, which provides the helping professionals with a conceptual map for couples’ relationship development from dating, to intimacy, to soul mating, and long-term flourishing. This model is informed by a holistic, a developmental, and a positive psychology conceptualization of the individual and the relationship. It integrates select concepts from narrative therapy, Gottman method, and Jungian analytic psychology. Two pictograms derived from 17th century alchemy are provided to facilitate the visual and metaphorical conceptualization of the model. The soul mates model applies to all individuals and couples interested in optimizing their relationship, regardless of marital status, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation. The model may be applied to counseling, therapy, and coaching interventions, as well as relationship education, research and measurement, courses in higher education, and couples’ workshops and retreats.

Keywords

soul mates model relationship development model positive psychology alchemy

Most contemporary helping professionals and relationship educators continuously adapt their practices to serve the changing needs of contemporary couples, yet the conceptual frameworks and therapeutic modalities that inform their interventions are still largely based on the 20th century’s marriage-centric, problem-centric, remedial models. In the last few decades, however, couples circumstances have drastically changed, and many of the 20th century’s couple’s relationship scripts and therapy models may no longer suffice to adequately address the needs of contemporary couples living in the 21st century’s individualistic, postmodern, consumerist, multicultural, and global society. While the 20th century’s models are useful to help couples change their behaviors in the short term, they often fail to provide practitioners with the comprehensive, big picture, holistic, integrative model and relationship map they need to guide couples on their journey to positive, long-term relationship development, and flourishing.

In this article we propose, that in order to help contemporary couples navigate the challenges of the 21st century’s relationship environment and succeed in the long term, helping professionals and the couples they serve, now need a new holistic, developmental, and positive model for long-term success and flourishing, a model that we call the soul mates model of relationship development. We selected the three words comprising this title to imply the following: “soul” to denote the holistic approach that focuses on developing the partner’s and the relationship’s interconnection, positive core, and internal locus of control, “mates” to underscore the equal and committed nature of the partnership, and “model” to reinforce the conceptualization of this approach as a broad blueprint, or plan of action, for long-term relationship success. We present the model by addressing the following topics: historic background, rationale, conceptual and therapeutic frameworks, pictograms for the model, the model’s seven stages and their tasks, the model’s main characteristics, its limitations, and its applications.

Historic Background Informing the Soul Mates Model

In the past, couple’s unions were mainly defined by marriage. Family, society, religious dogma, and law conspired to establish the sanctity of marriage and prevent divorce. The marriage agenda centered on securing the couple’s survival, acquiring property, and raising a family. Same-sex unions were mostly taboo, and spirituality was largely addressed within religious dogma (Long & Young, 2007; Serlin, 2005). Today, however, couple’s circumstances have drastically changed. The life expectancy, for example, has almost doubled; rising from an average of 40 years in the early 1900s to near 80 today. This remarkable increase in life expectancy offers couples several more decades of intimacy building and relationship development after their most pressing needs of securing a living and raising a family have been satisfied, and their children have left the home (Cherlin, 2009; Coontz, 2005; Penn & Zalesne, 2007). While society’s scripts for relationship success, influenced by consumerist attitudes (Illouz, 1997), and celebrity worship remain largely focused on the young and the beautiful (Kenneth Gergen, Ph.D., personal conversation, February 2010), mature couples, who may realize that they can no longer rely on their sexuality to generate the relationship coherence it may have provided during their younger years (Batthyany-De La Lama & De La Lama, 2008, 2011; Schnarch, 2009), have no viable model to guide them as they work to infuse meaning and intimacy into their union.

Throughout the 20th century, advances in medicine, technology, and civil rights have increased the status and freedoms of women and minorities, effectively unsettling traditional gender and cultural roles. For example, the availability of safe and reliable birth control, as well as the steep decrease in infant mortality has freed women’s time and efforts from focusing on raising a large number of children, to getting an education and joining the workforce (Coontz, 2005; Tyack & Hansot, 1992).

Moreover, the wide-ranging historic changes of the 20th century, which have ultimately led to the current attitude of expressive individualism, have also intimately affected couple’s relationship dynamics and drastically changed the contemporary couple’s own psychological and philosophical outlook on what it means to be a happy and successful couple at every stage of their relationship. These changes have been so drastic that today the external locus of control historically provided by the convergence of society, traditional family values, religion, community, and law can no longer be counted on to help couples stay together as was the case in the past. In fact, the power of religious dogma and societal norms has continuously decreased (Thornton, Axinn, & Xie, 2007) while atheism, agnosticism, and individual spirituality have become more popular and politically correct (Cherlin, 2009; Koepsell & Mercurio-Riley, 2008). Following the sexual revolution in the early 1970s, divorce has become increasingly commonplace, with families now consisting of a variety of arrangements based on reciprocal commitments in addition to their legal and/or kin bonds (Cherlin, 2009; Penn & Zalesne, 2007). Meanwhile, for those couples that still wish to get and stay married, even the institution of marriage has undergone constant changes in the last 100 years, transforming itself from the largely traditional marriage to the companionate marriage (Coontz, 2005) and ultimately to the individualistic marriage so prevalent today (Cherlin, 2009). As a result, marriage has now come to mean different things to different couples, even as some committed couples choose not to marry at all (Thornton, et al., 2007). Some, worried about the rising divorce rate, argue that marriage is in demise, even while many committed same-sex couples, who want to be married, are still barred from legal marriage in their state or country (see Van Acker, 2008 for an overview of this debate). As a result of these changes, relationship stability and success are now more difficult to come by than ever before. Couple’s are largely left to adapt to new circumstances on their own, trying as best they can to avoid making the relationship mistakes that they believe their parents made, even while they attempt to develop new scripts and story lines to help them succeed in contemporary society without a viable model for long-term success (Coontz, 2005; Serlin, 2005; Van Acker, 2008).

Rationale for the Soul Mates Model

Despite the advent of expressive individualisms, the high divorce rate, and the consumerist attitudes toward relationships common in Western society, research still shows that long lasting, stable relationships tend to be healthier, more rewarding, and fulfilling for the individuals involved, their children, and their extended families regardless of marital status, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation (Cherlin, 2009; Van Acker, 2008). Yet while helping professionals are versed in techniques to help couples change their behaviors in the short term, and help them to stay married and prevent divorce, many of the marital and couples therapy models these therapist work with lack a clear plan on how to promote a couple’s long-term, holistic, positive relationship development and flourishing once the couple’s most pressing problems are resolved and divorce has been avoided (Batthyany-De La Lama & De La Lama, 2008, 2011; Cherlin, 2009; Coontz, 2005; Long & Young, 2007; Serlin, 2005). Therefore, it becomes clear that individuals, couples, and the helping professionals who serve them now need a new integrative, positive, developmental, present, and future-oriented relationship model to guide couples long-term flourishing.

Conceptual and Therapeutic Frameworks Informing the Model

Successful couple’s relationship development has become very complex, as it touches upon all areas of a couple’s life, from the successful fulfillment of their most material and financial needs to the development of deep intimacy, all the way to their most abstract ideologies, values, beliefs, and spiritual orientations. Therefore, a contemporary model for successful couple’s relationship development should be holistic and integrate a variety of conceptual and therapeutic frameworks, the most relevant of which we are briefly describing below.

Conceptual Frameworks

Developmental

This orientation posits that individuals and their relationships are continuously engaged in a natural, developmental, growth process through time that extends beyond the body’s functional maturity and proceeds in a series of stages throughout the life cycle (Crain, 2005; Newman & Newman, 2007; Papalia, Wendkos Olds, & Duskin Feldman, 2004; Santrock, 1999). Adult development is defined as “a process of qualitative changes in attitudes, values, and understandings that adults experience as a result of ongoing transactions with their social environment” (Taylor, Marienau, & Fiddler, 2000, p. 10), and as following a cycle of differentiation and integration (Kerr & Bowen, 1988; Schnarch, 2009) that varies for each individual and results in an increasing capacity to reframe and make meaning out of experience (Taylor et al., 2000). Adult development theory posits that developmental stages continue in the inner, intrapsychic world of emotions, mind, meaning, and spirituality/consciousness once the individual’s body is fully grown at the stage of young adulthood. Couple’s relationships are developmental, in that they grow and develop along a relationship life cycle that may run parallel to but does not always coincide with the individual partner’s life cycle. The soul mates model provides a developmental positive psychology perspective (Nakamura, 2011) in which problems are seen as opportunities to seek out new resources and develop new strengths and skills that serve as springboards to a new developmental level. The model’s seven stages delineate this relationship life cycle, and the stage’s tasks point to the strengths and skills partners need to develop in order to successfully navigate each stage.

Holistic

The holistic outlook states that the whole (the whole individual, the whole relationship) is greater than the sum of its parts, that the parts of the whole are in a dynamic, fluid relationship to one another, and that, for optimal functioning of the whole, the parts must be individually addressed and intentionally integrated (Batthyany-De La Lama & De La Lama, 2008; Shannon, 2002). A holistic conceptualization of the couple’s relationship development posits that each partner be viewed through the lens of the inherent body–emotions–reason–mind–spirit interconnectedness which most people believe in and value (American Holistic Medical Association, 2008; Pargament, 2007; Pargament, Desai, & McConnell, 2006). Atheists and agnostic partners may substitute the concept of spirituality with that of soul, core self, higher meaning, ultimate purpose, self-transcendence, and self-transcendent cause (Covey, 1991; Koepsell & Mercurio-Riley, 2008; Northhouse, 2009; Quinn, 2004) or some other relevant construct (Batthyany-De La Lama & De La Lama, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011).

Positive/positive core

This conceptual framework, inspired by the tenets of appreciative inquiry ([AI] Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2008; Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010), positive psychology (Nakamura, 2011; Seligman, 2011; Snyder & Lopez, 2005), and narrative therapy (Payne, 2006; White, 2007) states that, to a certain extent, individuals and couples can make deliberate choices about how to shape their lives; they have choices of quality, attitude, and meaning. If this is true, they can select a positive core to expand and then creatively envision and narrate how to best grow this core. Couples may ask, what is the innermost positive core or soul of our relationships? When is it most present for us? What gives it life? What helps it grow? What creative and artistic tools do we have at our disposition to reinforce our positive core? What mental, emotional, and physical props and scaffolds can we utilize to strengthen it every day?

Thus instead of focusing mostly on minimizing and remediating existing problems and preventing future problems, couples working with the soul mates model intentionally choose a positive core that works (such as developing their talents, intimacy, love, or soul) to expand. They ask “What strength (from the positive core) can be born and grown out of this problem? How can this growth be encouraged?”

Postmodern

Within the context of successful couple’s relationship development the postmodern orientation—which is particularly salient to helping professionals trained in multicultural and diversity competence (ACA, 2005; Sue & Sue, 2007)—becomes one of inclusivity and embrace of the diverse and variegated nature and dynamics of the contemporary couple’s relationship. From this philosophical vantage point, the traditional, positivist, marriage-centric (Del Rio & Mieling, 2010; Gurman, 2008), heterocentric, sex-essentialist, and at times religiously inspired models for couples dynamics and long-term success of past centuries are seen as increasingly insufficient to guide contemporary relationship development. The soul mates model, in contrast, provides an alternative designed to serve all couples, regardless of age, culture, marital status, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation.

Constructivist/developmental

This philosophical orientation, which is based on constructivist (Neimeyer, 2009) and constructivist-developmental theory (Guiffrida, 2005; Isopahkala-Bouret, 2008; Kegan, 2000; Kegan & Lahey, 2009; McAuliffe, 2011; McAuliffe & Ericksen, 2002; Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2006; Mezirow, 2000; Taylor, 2008; Tsoi-Hoshmand, 2004), posits that adult individuals perceive the world through the lens of the assumptions and mental constructs (Neimeyer, 2009) they have developed about their world. This applies to individuals and couples in committed relationships in that through self-reflective and critically self-reflective practices, they may uncover and evaluate these assumptions (Brookfield, 2000, 2005; Cranton, 1994, 2006; Taylor, 2008). After careful evaluation, they may choose to discard assumptions that no longer serve them and embrace new ones that more readily advance their goals (Cranton, 2006; Kegan, 2000; Kegan & Lahey, 2009), long-term vision, and narrative of choice.

Social-constructionist

This conceptual framework posits that there is no universal, actual, objective truth “out there” to be uncovered and known, but that instead all truths are socially constructed, cocreated by individuals in relationship, communication, and interaction with each other (Gergen, 2009; McAuliffe, 2011). This conceptual framework is relevant to successful couple’s relationship development because it underscores the power a couple has to shape their inner world of attitudes, beliefs, expectations, shared symbols, celebrations, and meanings through their ongoing interactions and communications, for better or for worse, as they engage in developing intimacy and the relationship’s and family’s unique culture (Gottman, Driver, & Tabares, 2002; Gottman & Schwartz Gottman, 2008).

AI

The AI orientation, designed by David Cooperrider and his associates as a group inquiry process for organizational development (and long-term couples’ relationships can effectively be conceptualized as small organizations with distinct organizational “cultures”) states that “co-inquiry into the true, the good, the better, and the possible will lead to faster, more democratic and energized change than will deficit-based inquiry into the broken and the problematic” (Cooperrider, cited in Watkins, & Mohr, 2001, p. XXIX). AI is a philosophy of change and a practical application (Watkins & Mohr, 2001) focused on revolutionizing the old paradigm based on the unwritten rule “to fix what’s wrong and let the strengths take care of themselves” (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005, p. 2). It focuses instead on “past and present achievements, unexplored potentials, innovations, strengths, elevated thoughts, opportunities, benchmarks, high point moments, lived values, traditions, core and distinctive competencies, expressions of wisdom . . . that inspire and motivate participants to develop their relationship’s positive core” (Cooperrider et al., 2008, p. 3) and thus promote positive change in themselves, their relationships, and the world at large. The soul mates model includes this framework in that it provides practitioners and couples with a blueprint or conceptual map ready to guide the application of AI’s 4-D cycle intervention (Cooperrider et al., 2008) to work on expanding a selected positive core and privilege stories of what worked in the past, what works in the present, and what positive possibilities may be actualized in the future.

Therapeutic Frameworks

Narrative therapy

The narrative therapy orientation (Freedman & Combs, 2008; Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2004; White, 2007), when applied to couple’s lives, asserts that the stories individuals, couples, families, and society tell about what it means to be a couple have immense power to shape the couple’s identity and experience (Cooperrider et al., 2008; Long & Young, 2007; Payne, 2006; White, 2007; Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010). Consequently, it is essential that partners actively work to uncover, deliberately develop, and privilege positive narratives of what works best in their lives. Practitioners of the soul mates model inquire what stories are we telling about ourselves, about each other, about us? What stories do we want to tell and why? What stories do we want to be a part of? What does this say about us? What social narratives about our relationship do we want to privilege and why? What does this say about us?

Gottman method

The Gottman method for couples therapy (Gottman, 2011; Gottman & Schwartz Gottman, 2008) includes several useful concepts that inform the soul mates model’s tasks, including (a) creating a love map of one’s partner’s inner world, (b) honoring one another’s life dreams, and “building the [couple’s] shared meaning system by establishing formal and informal rituals of connection, supporting one another’s life roles, creating shared goals and values, and common views of symbols” (Gottman & Schwartz Gottman, 2008, p. 140), and (c) responding positively to the partner’s bids for connection, and turning toward the partner emotionally (Gottman, 2011), which is important to soul mates model practitioners because this feeds and nurtures the relationship’s interactive field (Schwartz-Salant, 1998) with positive meaning.

Jungian analytic psychology

Although Jungian analytic psychology is best known as a psychodynamic orientation in that it focuses on bringing unconscious forces into conscious awareness, it is also inherently developmental (Crain, 2005) and holistic, in that it provides a road map for adults to develop into fully individuated and holistically integrated individuals who endeavor to know and integrate all levels of their self, from the most material and mundane to the most abstract, archetypal, and spiritual (Feist & Feist, 2002; Jung, 1968, 1983, 1990). The core concepts of Jungian analytic psychology that are most relevant to successful couple’s relationship development include (a) the integration of the inherent masculine and feminine intrapsychic duality, represented within the Jungian framework as the countersexual image, the inner feminine or anima in men, and the inner masculine or animus in women (Crain, 2005(Feist & Feist, 2002), and how this leads toward greater wholeness and individuation; (b) the concept of the shadow, a psychodynamic conglomerate of “traits and feelings we cannot admit to ourselves . . . [and which is] opposite to our ego or self-image” (Crain, 2005, p. 338), that should be consciously explored, addressed, and integrated into the self-concept; (c) The concept that a committed relationship between two partners invariably constellates an interactive field, in which the inner opposites and shadows come alive, interact, and generate the powerful dynamics that fuel the relationship (Edinger, 1994, 1995; Jung, 1966/1992; Schwartz-Salant, 1998).

Jung’s mythopoeia and the soul mates model

Throughout his career, Jung worked on deciphering the hidden archetypal meanings of the symbols, teachings, and metaphors of the Western esoteric tradition, including renaissance alchemy, and combined his findings with select psychodynamic and developmental concepts, successfully integrating them into 20th century psychology and psychotherapy (Jung, 1968, 1983, 1989). His work, in combination with the rich imagery of renaissance alchemy thus provides the contemporary practitioner with a wellspring of visual symbols, metaphors, and images to help guide individual and couple’s growth and development, such as the metaphor of the alchemical conjunctio about the integration of the inner masculine and feminine opposites (Edinger, 1994), which leads to the creation of the philosopher’s stone, a metaphorical substance that turns metaphorical lead, or the dross of life, into the gold of spiritual achievement and the completion of the great work or magnum opus. These three metaphors are relevant to couple’s long-term relationship development because they suggest that the ultimate goal of a couple’s union is its inner marriage or conjunctio, the “great work” of building an integrated inner world of love, intimacy, and meaning, in dedication to a cause that may include but also transcend self and family, an inner union the couple builds and sustains throughout their entire lifetime, of which the outer commitment ceremony or marriage is but the humble yet necessary beginning (Edinger, 1994; Jung, 1989; Schwartz-Salant, 1998).

Pictogram for the Soul Mates Model

Descriptive images or pictograms are helpful to engage both sides of the brain in memorizing complex models. Renaissance alchemist count Michael Maier’s emblem XXI, Squaring the Circle provides a useful pictogram for the soul mates model, if the words man and woman in Maier’s corresponding motto are taken to denote the archetypal masculine and feminine forces, predominantly expressed by each of the partners, regardless of their biological sex (Figures 1 and 2; Tables 1 and 2).

Figure 1.

Pictogram for the soul mates model.

Figure 2.

Pictogram for the relationship’s Magnum Opus, its positive completion and flourishing.

Table 1.

Correlating the Soul Mates Model to Maier’s Pictogram

(Please note that most 20th century relationship models focus on the first four stages and provide little guidance for the crucial relationships phase that ensues after survival and family building needs are met.)
	Stage 1: Dating: the man and the woman
	Stage 2: Commitment, the pair draws the circle of commitment around their relationship
	Stage 3: Intimacy, the pair fills the circle of commitment with intimate knowing and love
	Stage 4: Building a life, the pair draws the square, grounds their vision in physical reality
	Stage 5: Integrating the shadow, the pair stuck in the square, must integrate shadow, rise upward.
	Stage 6: Renewal, the pair draws the upward pointing triangle of higher aspiration, transcendence.
	Stage 7: Completion, sustainability, flourishing, the pair draws the larger circle of completion, sustainability, and flourishing around their relationship, engages in the great work.

Table 2.

The Soul Mates Model’s Seven Stages and Their Tasks

Stage 1: Dating

Find an appealing partner who is interested, willing, and capable to mate not only physically and emotionally but also intellectually, ideologically, and spiritually

Stage 2: Commitment

Reciprocally commit to an exclusive relationship

Begin to develop the relationship’s internal locus of control (What are we about? What do we want to be about?)

Create the relationship’s vision, mission, and goals

Balance the autonomy and the togetherness drives and the stability and developmental/growth drives

Stage 3: Intimacy

Develop intimacy of body, emotions, mind, meaning, spirituality, and self-transcendence

Develop the interactive field by exploring and mapping each other’s inner worlds

Engage in self-reflection, critical self-reflection, and self-revelation to the partner

Build meaning by tying events in the landscape of action to the landscape of identity

Stage 4: Building a life

Secure survival, build a home, and create a family.

Learn to make adaptive life, relationship, and family building and sustaining choices

Explore the outer world individually and jointly; process these experiences by reflecting and critically reflecting on these experiences individually and jointly to create “positive entanglement,” further develop the interactive field, and strengthen the relationship’s internal locus of control

Build the relationship’s culture and emotional coherence through couple and family activities, symbols, and rituals

Stage 5: Integrating the shadow, rising from the square

Reframe emotional stalemate and meaninglessness as developmental crisis calling for inner work

Disentangle from distracting and counterproductive ideologies and unexamined cultural beliefs

Take an existential stance, forgiving self, partner, others, and life at large

Address and treat psychological dysfunctions, seek professional help where needed

Free energy and resources by letting go of physical, emotional, conceptual, and ideological baggage

Start to focus on a cause greater than self and family to serve individually and jointly

Stage 6: Renewal

Focus on serving a cause greater than self and family, individually and jointly

Follow main tenets of posttraumatic growth: Reevaluate close relationships, philosophy of life, and spirituality. Reevaluate relationship vision, mission, and goals

Rebuild the interactive field with new awareness, content, love, and care

Reevaluate resources and devise a new path for individual and joint action

If spiritual or religious, renew spiritual practice

Stage 7: Soul mating completion, flourishing, and sustainability

Apply the strengths and skills developed in earlier stages to ensure the relationship’s long-term success, sustainability, and flourishing

Deliberately direct body/actions, emotions, mind, and creativity away from what is unwanted, toward what is desired and wanted in the present and in the future.

Continue to serve a cause greater than self and family to participate in the great work and leave a legacy.

Characteristics of the Soul Mates Model

This model has salient characteristics that set it apart from other models:

It is holistic, developmental, positive, strengths based, and future oriented.

It addresses gender dynamics from a subjective, flexible, nonessentialist perspective.

It focuses on a reciprocal commitment of the couple’s choice that may or may not include marriage (instead of privileging marriage).

It is present and future oriented as it focuses on actively developing intimacy, the internal locus of control, and the interactive field (instead of focusing on processing psychological issues stemming from attachment problems, childhood traumas, or family of origin issues from the past).

It focuses on promoting the development of higher meaning, deeper mutual knowing, and a meeting and mating of the heart, mind, and soul (instead of focusing predominantly on upholding marriage vows, and preventing problems and infidelity).

It addresses the spiritual or religious couple’s spirituality, and the atheist/agnostic couple’s need for self-transcendence as a strength to develop and apply.

It is inclusive in that it applies to all committed couples’ unions, regardless of marital status, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation.

Limitations of the Soul Mates Model

Due to the model’s inclusive and postmodern orientation that focuses on a reciprocal commitment of choice instead of privileging marriage, this model may not be suitable for religiously oriented therapists, or for religious fundamentalist clients whose religion dictates that intimate couples be married and heterosexual. Moreover, due to the model’s predominant present and future orientation, it may be unsuitable for those therapists who rely on interventions that focus largely on attachment theory and the psychodynamic processing of difficult and unresolved childhood and family issues.

Discussion, Application, and Conclusion

The soul mates model for couple’s relationship development provides a broad and integrative view of the cotemporary couple’s relationship life cycle, its stages, and tasks. It also points to the challenges couples must face and overcome to succeed and flourish in the long term. Counselors, therapists, and coaches may use the soul mates model as a tool to organize and focus the therapeutic strategies and interventions they already use and to develop new interventions derived from the model’s stages and task. Researchers in counseling, marriage and family therapy, and other helping professions may use the model to inform qualitative and quantitative research designs. The model can be used to inform the development of measurement scales to assess the skills and strengths couples may need to develop in order to complete the developmental tasks delineated by the model and thus help practitioners better target their interventions. Due to the model’s positive orientation, it is well suited to inform relationship coaching, marriage education programs and interventions, graduate level courses, wellness and positive psychology-oriented research, as well as couples’ workshops and retreats.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

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