What are the invisible rules in your relationships? If someone loves you, should they call more? Remember what matters to you? Understand what you need without being told? Accept you exactly as you are? And what happens when the other person never agreed to those rules? In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan…
This episode is really asking a bigger question than how to resolve conflict. We often approach conflict like war: Who has power? Who wins? How do I protect myself? But the moment I see you as an opponent, I begin behaving differently—and my behavior changes you too. The strategy itself becomes part of the emotional…
Deleuze and the Emotional Architecture of Wanting What if the person we desire is only part of what we’re actually longing for? Drawing primarily from Gilles Deleuze’s idea of agencement—the configuration or assemblage that makes desire possible—this episode explores desire not as a simple line from me to you, but as an entire emotional landscape:…
How much of what we perceive in other people is actually there—and how much is the meaning we create around it? In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q explores Donkanryoku, a Japanese idea often translated as “the power of insensitivity,” reframed here as the power of not reacting to everything we notice….
Why can sexual tension feel so powerful—even when we don’t actually want a relationship with the person? In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q explores sexual tension through attraction, obstacle, uncertainty, projection, emotional regulation, the Emotional Operating System (EOS), and Identity Completion. Sometimes another person doesn’t create the romance, beauty, vulnerability, or…
Why can some people experience difficult emotions and hold them internally, while others need someone else to change, reassure them, or create distance before they can feel okay again? In Emotional Regulation: The Origins of Our Emotional Patterns, we explore how childhood experiences shape our capacity to regulate emotion, how our Emotional Operating System (EOS)…
“Projective Identification and the Emotional Architecture of Relationships” In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure with Susan Q, we explore the emotional architecture of projection and projective identification—what happens when feelings or parts of ourselves become too difficult to recognize, contain, or integrate, and begin shaping our relationships instead. Drawing on the ideas of…
Why do we cut people off—and when is distance actually freedom? In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q explores what happens beneath detachment in friendships and close relationships. Sometimes a boundary comes from clarity and self-respect. Other times, the same boundary can be driven by hurt, anger, rejection, or the need to…
Why can someone love us deeply—and we still feel anxious, uncertain, or afraid of losing them? In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q explores the psychology beneath attachment insecurity, reassurance-seeking, emotional dependency, and our difficulty tolerating separation. Drawing from the ideas of John Bowlby, Sue Johnson, Donald Winnicott, and Otto Kernberg, we…
You can know a relationship is over long before your body seems to understand it. In this episode of The Same Emotional Structure, Susan Q explores why we can feel restless, angry, or emotionally activated even after making the right decision to leave. Drawing on Antonio Damasio’s work on somatic markers and the Emotional Operating…
