This is interesting . . . ‘Self-Silencing’ May Affect Women’s Health . . . when involved in a domestic dispute, most folks will sometimes censure themselves, that is suck it up and not express their true emotions during an argument in order to "preserve the peace" or the like.  This is called self-silencing and it turns out that there are some interesting gender differences in how this behavior affects us.  When women suck it up and repress the expression of their emotions, they can end up with health-related side effects.  That’s right, when a woman holds her tongue and does not honestly express her emotions during a time of crisis, she may adversely affect her health.  On the other hand, this sort of self-silencing does not seem to affect men in the same way, at least not nearly to the same degree.  Makes sense when you think about it, men are culturally and biologically conditioned to be competitive and to hold reign on their emotions while women are taught and wired to be empathic and communicators.  The Mars and Venus metaphor is simplistic but has a lot going for it at the core.  So, men need to develop strategies that allow their mates to freely express without damaging long term relationships and women need to develop strategies to express core emotional responses while continuing to preserve the peace that self-silencing is intended to preserve but in ways that do not adversely affect the relationship or their health.  Swish pattern or parts therapy anyone?

All the best,
Brian

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Performance Hypnotist, Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, English Dept., NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com