What is Healthy Conflict? 5 myths & 10 tips.

In my work as a therapist, whether with adults, teens, couples, or families, I have noticed often that there are so many misconceptions about conflict. For example…

People believe that healthy relationships don’t have conflict (they do) or that conflict always involves yelling (it doesn’t have to). 

One of the main reasons that people come to see me is that they don’t really understand what healthy conflict looks like, or how it’s meant to function in relationships. 

This is generally because we haven’t had healthy conflict modeled for us when we were kids - either our parents didn’t fight in front of us or they did fight and it was awful. 

So let’s clear up 5 myths and provide some guidance in 10 tips about what healthy conflict can look like (in any type of relationship). 

Myth #1: Healthy Relationships Don’t Have Conflict. 

This is a biggie. The thing is, anytime two people interact for long enough, they are going to disagree on something, or even more likely, there is going to be a miscommunication resulting in some kind of hurt feelings. Conflict doesn’t have to be the enemy though, in fact, areas of disagreement or moments of miscommunication are actually opportunities to deepen your relationship. Think about it - if you don’t understand where your partner is coming from, that is an invitation to try and know them better. 

Myth #2: Conflict = Yelling

This is one that is common with people from high conflict households and can also be influenced by culture. But the thing is, conflict doesn’t have to involve yelling. Yelling is something that we do when we feel like we aren’t being heard. First off, our brains don’t understand the difference between not being understood for physical reasons versus emotional/mental reasons and second off, yelling is a response to our fight or flight systems being activated - we are trying to make ourselves seem bigger and more intimidated so that the other person will back off. In reality, when you hear your voice going up in volume during a conflict situation that is a cue for you to recognize that you aren’t receptive to productive conversation and it’s time to take a break. 

Myth #3: You Have to be Therapist Calm to be Good at Conflict

This just isn’t realistic. To start with, not even therapists are always ‘therapist calm’ (therapists have big feelings too!) and second off the reason that therapists are even good at that to begin with is that we are the objective parties observing conflict from the outside. The truth is, conflicts are inherently emotionally triggering situations. You are going to feel lots of different things. The trick to getting good at navigating conflict isn’t shutting that down - it’s learning to recognize your emotions as they come up and respond appropriately. 

Myth #4: Never Go to Bed Angry

This one is common with couples and as a therapist it drives me up the wall!! If you are getting nowhere in your conflict, I strongly encourage you to take a break that is a minimum of 20 minutes away from each other but up to 24 hours! And if you are tired, then trust me, you are not in the mental headspace to try to understand each other better. Go to sleep. I almost guarantee you that it will be easier to navigate your conflict (on both yourself and the other person) once you have some rest. 

Myth #5: Every Disagreement is Argument-Worthy

Sometimes we can get in a trap of thinking every little annoyance or disagreement needs to be ‘talked out’. This just isn’t true. Some things just aren’t worth it. For example, when I lived with my first roommate, she would leave kitchen cupboards open all the time. This is something that is many people’s pet peeve, however I liked most other things about living with this person so I decided it wasn’t worth a discussion. Instead, I simply shut the cupboard doors when I noticed they were open. Problem solved. 

10 Tips for Healthy Conflict...

1. Recognition of Emotions: conflicts either are born out of hurt feelings or because of hurt feelings but either way, feelings are there. The first step to being able to move through conflict (and to move through your emotions) is to recognize and name your feelings. Common conflict feelings are: fear/insecurity, shame, disappointment, embarrassment, overwhelm/stress. 

2. Identify if now is a good time to talk about it: for example, it’s not a good time if any of the following applies to you or the other person: you are so upset/emotionally flooded that you can’t talk, it’s late and you’re tired, you haven’t eaten in over 4 hours, or you are on any substances (alcohol or drugs). 

3. Gentle Approach: the way we begin conflict conversations is so powerful - it sets the tone for the whole interaction. Try to start gently with your words and tone.

4. Mutual Respect: healthy conflict means approaching from a place of respect, not respect as in ‘treated like an authority’ but respect as in ‘treated like a person’. This means we don’t name-call or reduce people down to one trait ‘you’re so selfish’. 

5. Behavior>Identity: Focus on behavior not identity when you are speaking (ie. “I feel like when you made that choice, you were acting kind of thoughtless” instead of “just admit that you are thoughtless and that’s why you did that”). 

6. 2 Goals: Approach the conflict with 2 goals - try and help the other person understand why you are upset (this usually comes naturally) AND try to understand the other person's perspective (emotionally and cognitively). The second goal is the really difficult one and if you are in a fight or flight state, it’s not possible. 

7. Values Alignment: Accomplish the 2 above goals by identifying values that you feel were threatened in this scenario AND identifying the values that motivated the other person. 

8. Take breaks when needed: if you feel you are getting emotionally overwhelmed and you are noticing warning signs like vocal volume going up, feeling hot, feeling out of control, stonewalling (completely shutting down), then take a break for a minimum of 20 minutes where you can’t see the other person(another room, walk outside) with a plan to come back and talk about it when the break is done. Breaks are most effective when you give the other party notice and when you state a plan to return to the conversation “hey I’m getting really overwhelmed I’m going to take (20 min to up to 24 hours) to collect myself then we can talk more”. 

9. Connection amidst conflict: just cause you are in a conflict doesn’t mean that you can’t connect. If you see the other person getting upset and you are the calmer one, try to do something to help support the other (offer a glass of water/cup of tea, provide a hug or hand to hold). You can also try to insert humor where it feels appropriate to lighten the tone of the conflict. Just because you feel angry at someone doesn’t mean that you can’t choose to be intentionally kind. It’s difficult yes, but it can be done. 

10. Acceptance: part of healthy conflict is recognizing that the problem and/or the hurt of the scenario might not ever go away. There may never be satisfactory resolution or ‘closure’ to this issue. Sometimes the best we can do is say our piece, try to understand the other person's perspective, and then move forward with life. Occasionally the end of your conflict might look more like “okay well I’m sorry you didn’t like that I did that, next time I’ll let you know ahead of time before I have to do something like that again” instead of “I will make this right, I will undo that”. And even if it is something that someone can ‘undo’ it doesn’t change the initial hurt. Healthy conflict involves accepting that. 

At the end of the day, healthy conflict isn’t something that many of us are taught or that many of us have had modeled. There is no shame in seeking out support from a therapist or other qualified professional to learn and practice these skills. Nobody is perfect in conflict (or outside of conflict for that matter) so don’t be too hard on yourself. Have grace for your emotional responses and for those of others, and try to remember that at the end of the day, in any relationship worth fighting for, it’s the relationship against the problem, not you against each other. 

Interested in working together? Check out my website sageandvinecounseling.com to inquire about openings and waitlist status. If I don’t have availability right away I will do my best to find you a referral that works for what you need!