How Supportive Relationships Contribute to Our Well-Being

Do you find yourself feeling sad or anxious because you are lacking a supportive social network? Do you want to deepen your present relationships but don't know where to start? Perhaps, you've thought you could benefit from developing new social contacts or social outlets but are afraid you'll be rejected and or neglected based on your past experiences.

There's no doubt that we thrive when we have reciprocal, emotionally supportive relationships. The American Psychological Association's 2022 Stress in America report found that emotional support is linked to lower rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness and higher rates of well-being.

What Does a Supportive Relationship Look Like?

You might be wondering, "What exactly is a supportive relationship?" Essentially, supportive relationships are relationships that meet our emotional needs for attention, affection, care, and support. A few examples of the hallmarks of a supportive relationship include:

• Feeling respected.
• Not feeling judged.
• Providing reassurance and understanding.
• Unconditional affection and care.

In a nutshell, supportive relationships create within us feelings of renewal, positive energy, and a sense of aliveness.

Conversely, emotionally neglectful relationships are linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and physical illness.

What Is an Emotionally Neglectful Relationship?

Emotional neglect is a consistent pattern of behaviors and attitudes that fail to meet another's need for attention, affection, care, and support. Emotional neglect can occur in a variety of relationships such as parent-child relationships, friendships, professional relationships, and/or intimate partnerships. Emotional neglect can be more difficult to detect since it encompasses failures to act versus overt neglectful actions such as criticizing or yelling at a partner, friend, or family member. Not everyone is consciously aware that they are neglecting their partner's, family's, friend's, or colleague's needs. And for many, their neglectful tendencies and behaviors were something they themselves experienced as a child, making it a cyclical and trans-generational way of relating to others.

Examples of emotional neglect include consistently ignoring another's emotional needs, dismissing and ignoring their feelings, failing to provide comfort during distressing situations, and not expressing affection or positive reinforcement. In adult relationships, emotional neglect can manifest as an absence of communication, indifference toward a partner’s emotional well-being, and/or consistently disregarding their feelings and concerns. In friendships, emotional neglect can include unresponsiveness or availability when a friend is going through a difficult time.

Emotional neglect can have both long-term and short-term effects. Short-term effects of emotional abuse fear include confusion, shame, muscle aches and pain, and moodiness. Long-term effects of emotional neglect include symptoms such as social withdrawal, loneliness, anxiety, depression, guilt, and insomnia.

How to Form Supportive Relationships

As with most things psychological, healthy behaviors and attitudes start with first learning how to take care of our own emotional needs. For example, it’s impossible to provide for another their emotional need for affection when we aren’t able to meet our own needs for affection. All too often, I hear in my practice people being overly concerned about and focused on others’ needs while completely neglecting their own.

But it’s not all bad news. With work and effort, relationships can get better, stronger, more gratifying, and more supportive. Below are a few suggestions for transforming your relationships:

1. Active listening. One of the hallmarks of a supportive relationship is the desire to truly understand another person, especially when they are going through a difficult time or transition. When we are engaged and actively listening to our friends, family, or co-workers, we are communicating to them that they matter to us and we care about them.
2. Open communication. Grudges, neglect, and misunderstandings arise when hurt feelings are not openly communicated and discussed. No one is capable of reading another person's mind. So open communication is a crucial ingredient for creating supportive networks.
3. Reliability. Consistency is the benchmark for cultivating secure relationships. Knowing that we can depend on the support of our social networks during our highs and lows is the glue that binds supportive relationships.