Not all humans are good people, or safe contacts. Some people are toxic and or abusive.

This page is a brief explanation for the contents of Social & Interpersonal. Links are on the right, summaries are below.

Table of Contents

Social is one of the components of the Bio-Psycho-Socio-Spiritual model. Social is an important component of mental health and wellbeing.

Here we cover some basic principles to work out the health of your social sphere.

Friendship Types
How to visualise the interaction
Self Esteem
When it is toxic

Relationship Basic 5

Relationship Basics

Humans are social creatures. We survive better in groups of like minded, cooperative people. When we form bonds with people who are not cooperative, like minded or communal, mistaking them as friends, we do poorly. Sometimes the modelling we have for how to be a good person is based on poor examples of cooperative and supportive people – that is, they weren’t. To address this, I present this basic guide.

5 Principles for a Good Relationship

Breaking Up is fine.
1 Love, showing it
2 Honesty & Transparency
3 Hearing them (charitable listening)
4 Consistent Evolving Rules (even for both)
5 Own your Sh!t (not theres)

Social Scripts and Social Contracts

Social Scripts are a good way to shape social behaviour and small talk. Social Contracts are agreements that you feel obligated to uphold. Each of these allow society to be civil with low effort. Errors in either of these can cause social awkwardness. Additionally, some people exploit Social Scripts and Social Contracts for their own gain.

Conflict

Humans are social animals. When our desires and the desires of the other’s in our group align, we work together well to create *waves at the human wonders* this. When we don’t align, there is the scope for conflict. Conflict can be as simple as a disagreement that is passionately and logically worked in to a solution, an agreement to disagree, and sometimes this is due to someone being toxic – perhaps a Bully, Self Centred or Abusive.

This is a summary page for all that is below here.

Bullying, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Bullies are generally sad individuals who feel good by trying to show dominant power over you. They are often found in schools and workplaces. Understanding what they are trying to do helps empower you to defeat them.

Sometimes we need to get away from them, especially when the system is either ambivalent to bullying or is part of the problem.

Bullies often grow up to become toxic, abusive and or narcissistic.

Consent – Fundamentally Easy

You have the right to say “no”.

You don’t have to explain why.

In the absence of a clear and enthusiastic “yes”, the answer is “no”.

Not everyone finds it easy to say “no” and there are some grey zones around where it can be hard to know whether you do have the right to say “no”. The article explores all of these details.

Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence is the repeated violence that occurs within a relationship, often between intimate partners. This is often characterised by a Cycle of Violence that has some fairly predictable steps. Different areas may refer to DV as “relationship violence”, “the cycle of violence”, “intimate partner violence” and other names.

While the pattern of cyclic violence often happens within a domestic relationship (intimate partners, parent to child, adult child to parent, sibling to sibling etc), cyclic violence can also happen at work (between colleagues, from a boss, from an underling), or in social groups (peer in the social group, admin of the social group).

This article is a quick summary of the concepts behind DV.

Domestic Violence Primer

This Primer is an in depth look at Cyclic Violence and its components.

Escaping Abuse

An in depth look at how to escape from cyclic abuse, and how to stay away from your abusive ex.

DV Perpetrator Reformation

The illusions of reforming a toxic person, and the illusions of when they claim to “be better”.

Fundamentally, they can’t change, especially if the victim continues to interact with them.

Narcissism and NPD

Many people misuse the words Narcissism and NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). The Narcissism concept covers a spectrum of presentations, some of them normal / healthy, some very concerning. Here we are going to briefly look at the original myth that the name is derived from, look at four position on the Narcissism Spectrum, take a peek into the mind of the Narcissist, and debunk Narcissistic Psychopath.

Grey Stoning

“Grey Stoning” also known as “”Grey Rocking” or “Going Neutral”, is a strategy used to disengage from toxic or abusive individuals by becoming uninteresting and unresponsive, aiming to make them lose interest in engaging with you. Toxic people, often some variant of narcissistic, crave emotional feedback. Grey Stoning effectively starves them, de-identifying you as a source of their emotional food. Grey Stoning requires you to work out how to give a Grey kind of emotion back to them – not happy, angry, disgusted, sad or scared – which is not how most people interact with others. Grey Stoning is a learned skill.

Schrödinger‘s Douchebag

Some people say mean things, and when they get chastised for it, will say it is a joke. But the “mean version” is likely what they meant – they just want to change it into a joke to avoid being in trouble with you.

Testing for Toxic

Toxic people are generally abusive and may be narcissistic (Narcissism and NPD). There are a few easy ways to tell if you are with a toxic person, although working out which kind of Toxic person can be a bit more complex. Either way, testing for toxic allows you to work out enough to know to get away or, at worst, try to manage them.

The “No” Test
Reflecting on Your Limits
Trapped Test
Comfort Test

The Traffic Light System

While predators come in many types, they are generally targeting similar prey who operate in similar ways – us. We have similar weaknesses, certain traits, and vulnerabilities which are used to exploit us. We can learn to spot these exploits and armour ourselves against them. More, we can learn to spot when people are moving beyond fair use of our generous traits and into abuse. Here at Joshua Davidson Therapy, we have developed the Traffic Light System, where Green is good, Amber is a caution, and Red is concern.

There are four interconnected parts to this system. We’ll briefly look at them here, and there are links to the full description in each break down.

Flag System:
- How to rate isolated behaviours as fine, caution or concerning .
Trust Zones:
- How to rate people based on their behaviours.
Toxic People – Mind Toolset
- How to figure out if you should continue to default to charitibly assuming an individual is fundamentally good, or recognise that they have proven themselves abusive and your default should be “malice” from them.
Three Pillars
- How many chances to give people.

Understanding Social