Dealing with Emotional Distance and Unhealthy Communication Patterns
Emotional distance and unhealthy communication patterns are addressed in various religious traditions through principles of self-control, discernment in relationships, and the cultivation of virtuous character. These traditions often emphasize the importance of managing one's own emotional responses and carefully choosing one's associations.
In Jewish thought, Maimonides' Mishneh Torah discusses the concept of finding a middle path between extremes in human dispositions. He illustrates this with the example of stinginess and generosity, noting that there are intermediate points along a spectrum, each distinct from the others. This suggests that emotional responses and communication styles also exist on a spectrum, and individuals should strive for balance rather than extreme reactions [3].
Christian traditions also highlight the need to manage emotions and communication. The Apostle Paul, in Colossians, urges believers to "put off all these" such as anger, wrath, and malice [1, 4]. This is understood as a call to shed negative emotional states and behaviors that are contrary to the gospel's message. John Gill interprets this as separating oneself from sins and vices, laying them aside as "dead weights" or "filthy garments" [1]. Matthew Henry further explains that these "inordinate passions" are "spiritual wickedness" and have significant malignity, emphasizing that the gospel promotes the dominion of reason and conscience over appetite and passion [4]. Proverbs 15:1 also suggests that moderating emotions and suiting them to the context helps others listen without reacting, indicating an awareness of how emotional expression impacts communication [8].
The concept of "evil communications corrupt good manners" from 1 Corinthians 15:33 is a widely cited principle regarding the influence of one's associates [6]. This saying, which was also a common proverb in ancient Greek literature, warns against the negative impact of associating with those who hold destructive beliefs or exhibit immoral behavior [6]. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown explain that "evil communications" refers to interaction with those who deny the resurrection, suggesting that intimacy with profligate society can lead to moral compromise [6].
Augustine, in his City of God, touches on the idea that spiritual matters are superior to material ones, and he expresses surprise that learned individuals would connect bodily contact with the blessed life, implying a need for discernment in what one allows to influence their spiritual state [7]. He also discusses the importance of adapting one's address to different classes of hearers, recognizing that the speaker's feelings and disposition influence the audience [10]. Furthermore, Augustine addresses the concept of "communication" with those who engage in "unfruitful works of darkness," stating that one should not consent to or approve of such deeds. He clarifies that true communication involves agreement of will or approbation, and merely reproving bad behavior does not constitute communication in the negative sense [9].
Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, discusses the lawfulness of communicating with unbelievers or excommunicated persons. He distinguishes between two reasons for forbidding such communication: as a punishment for the individual and for the safety of the faithful [2]. Aquinas also differentiates between minor and major excommunication, noting that minor excommunication only deprives one of sacraments, while major excommunication deprives one of the communion of the faithful. This scholastic perspective provides a framework for understanding when and how to maintain distance in relationships, particularly in a religious context, based on the spiritual health and safety of the community [5].
These various perspectives underscore a consistent theme: managing emotional distance and unhealthy communication patterns involves both internal self-regulation and external discernment in choosing one's relationships and interactions.
Sources
- Colossians (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Colossians 3:8: But now you also put off all these,.... Intimating, that now since they were converted and delivered out of the former state in which they were once, and professed not to walk and live in sin, it became them to separate, remove, and put at a distance from them all sins, and every vice, to lay them aside as dead weights upon them, and put them off as filthy garments; for such sins are never to be put on, and cleaved to again as formerly; and that not only those, the above mentioned, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part (Secunda Secundae), Of Unbelief in General, Art. 9: Article: Whether it is lawful to communicate with unbelievers? I answer that, Communication with a particular person is forbidden to the faithful, in two ways: first, as a punishment of the person with whom they are forbidden to communicate; secondly, for the safety of those who are forbidden to communicate with others. Both motives can be gathered from the Apostle's words (1 Cor. 5:6). For after he had pronounced sentence of excommunication, he adds as his reason: "Know you not that a”
- Mishneh Torah (Maimonides) (Jewish (Rabbinic)) “Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), Mishneh Torah%2C Human Dispositions 1:2: Between each trait and the [contrasting] trait at the other extreme, there are intermediate points, each distant from the other. 1 The Lechem Mishneh understands this as follows: Let us imagine a line drawn from one extreme to another - between the stingy and the freehanded, for example. All who are neither stingy nor freehanded stand between them. They are all intermediate, whether they tend towards stinginess or freehandedness. Each point along this imaginary line stands apart - "is distant" - from the others on that line. ”
- Colossians (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Colossians 3:8: As we are to mortify inordinate appetites, so we are to mortify inordinate passions (Col 3:8): But now you also put off all these, anger wrath, malice; for these are contrary to the design of the gospel, as well as grosser impurities; and, though they are more spiritual wickedness, have not less malignity in them. The gospel religion introduces a change of the higher as well as the lower powers of the soul, and supports the dominion of right reason and conscience over appetite and passion. Anger and wrath are bad, but malice is worse, because it is more rooted ”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Supplement (Supplementum), Of Communication with Excommunicated Persons, Art. 1: Article: Whether it is lawful, in matters purely corporal, to communicate with an excommunicated person? I answer that, Excommunication is twofold: there is minor excommunication, which deprives a man merely of a share in the sacraments, but not of the communion of the faithful. Wherefore it is lawful to communicate with a person lying under an excommunication of this kind, but not to give him the sacraments. The other is major excommunication which deprives a man of the sacraments of th”
- 1 Corinthians (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on 1 Corinthians 15:33: evil communications corrupt good manners--a current saying, forming a verse in MENANDER, the comic poet, who probably took it from Euripides [SOCRATES, Ecclesiastical History, 3.16]. "Evil communications" refer to intercourse with those who deny the resurrection. Their notion seems to have been that the resurrection is merely spiritual, that sin has its seat solely in the body, and will be left behind when the soul leaves it, if, indeed, the soul survive death at all. good--not only good-natured, but pliant. Intimacy with the profligate socie”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 17.--THAT TO OBTAIN THE BLESSED LIFE, WHICH CONSISTS IN PARTAKING OF THE SUPREME GOOD, MAN NEEDS SUCH MEDIATION AS IS FURNISHED NOT BY A DEMON, BUT BY CHRIST ALONE.: I am considerably surprised that such learned men, men who pronounce all material and sensible things to be altogether inferior to those that are spiritual and intelligible, should mention bodily contact in connection with the blessed life. Is that sentiment of Plotinus forgotten?--"We must fly to our beloved fatherland. There is the Father, there our all. What fleet”
- Proverbs (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Proverbs 15:1: 15:1 Moderating emotions and suiting them to the context helps others listen to what we say without reacting.”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 6: Augustine — Homilies on the Gospels — ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL, MATT. XX. 30, ABOUT THE TWO BLIND MEN SITTING BY THE WAY SIDE, AND CRYING OUT, "LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US, THOU SON OF DAVID." (part 18): ways the bad will not defile thee; if thou consent not to him, and if thou reprove him; this is, not to communicate with him, not to consent to him. For there is a communication, when an agreement either of the will or of the approbation is joined to his deed. This the Apostle teaches us, when he says, "Have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness."(4) And because it w”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 3: Augustine — On the Holy Trinity — CHAP. 15.--OF THE METHOD IN WHICH OUR ADDRESS SHOULD BE ADAPTED TO DIFFERENT CLASSES OF HEARERS. (part 2): person who has to speak to them and discourse with them, and that the address which is delivered will both bear certain features, as it were, expressive of the feelings of the mind from which it proceeds, and also influence the hearers in different ways, in accordance with that same difference (in the speaker's disposition), while at the same time the hearers themselves will influence one another in different ways by the simple force of their”