Inviting Autonomy Back to the Table: The Importance of Autonomy for Healthy Relationship Functioning

Autonomy, or self-determination, is a key ingredient in promoting relationship flourishing. Although autonomy has long been an important concept in the family therapy field (labeled differentiation; Family therapy in clinical practice, 1978), definitional confusions and the ascendency of attachment theory and attachment-based clinical approaches to treating couples have relegated autonomy to a minor role at best and a caricature of rugged individualism and antirelational separateness at worst. Given recent research showing the importance of autonomy for the development of secure attachment in children and the key role autonomy plays in healthy intimate partner functioning, the concept of autonomy needs to take a more central role in our research and clinical practice with couples.