Accountability is the ability to take into account how we are impacting others and how others are impacting us.  We want to distinguish our meaning from what is generally meant by the phrase “to hold someone accountable.”  To hold someone accountable they have to have authority which they are seen to be misusing in some form.  This is a much more narrow way of thinking about accountability then we are hoping to create.

In a fiduciary relationship, the one who is entrusted with the power must use it for the benefit of the one being cared for.  Using the power for their own enrichment is abuse.  It is corruption.  It corrupts the relationship. It is a failure of accountability.

In a reciprocal relationship the parties must each do for the other what they are contracted to do. A breach of the contract is an abuse of the relationship and a failure to be accountable.

In a mutual relationship each party is mindful of the actions of the other. Each must be able to take into account the impact they each have on each other. When we do that we are being mutually accountable.

Page 309 in Just Conflict: Transformation through Resolution offers an extended introduction to this discipline.

Mutual Accountability as a quality of relationship which fosters healing from trauma:

We often flinch in the face of conflict especially when we don’t think we can respond to it creatively and most especially when we have tried to address it before and we feel stuck. This feeling of being stuck now is often connected to and, in some sense, caused by having been stuck in the past.

When we are stuck and can’t move, either physically or emotionally or cognitively, we experience trauma. We are always trying to make sense of what is happening to us, to know how to feel about it, and what to do about it to create what we need. When we can’t do any of these we are traumatized. This may not be something those around us can see when it is happening to us. We may be having these thoughts and emotions only within us and so others may not be able to validate our experience.

We all carry within us the effects of past trauma and we are all likely to reexperience the traumas when current circumstances arise which resonate with the traumas of our past. While this is disorienting and even painful when it happens to us, it is an opportunity for us to address a current difficulty and, in the process, heal a past wound.

This healing is available to us in all of our relationships but it is most available in the relationships we have with those we are closest to. Our most intimate relationships are a crucible for burning off the junk from our past but are, thus, also the context for our greatest turmoil. Our intimate partners can be mentors and they can be tor-mentors.

To use these relationships for healing we have to talk to each other about the relationship while we manage our own anxiety and address our own issues. For us to do this we each must have some skill at making each of the five crucial distinctions. As we make the distinctions we construct conversations in which we can each work toward our own healing as we identify and address our own responsibility for the problems which occur in our relationship.

As we construct the space in the relationship to do this work we are creating a radical mutual accountability. This is not about blame but about the ability to keenly know how we are affecting each other and how we are being affected and create a shared understanding of the relationship we both need and trust that we will both work to create it.

Details of the Discipline

Injunction [What to do]:

Think over the choices that you have made in your life and select one

• that was harmful to others
• that you regret.

While there may have been several things that you have done, start with the one that you most regret that was the most harmful to another. [If you cannot think of any choice you have made that was harmful to others, or can only think of things that while harmful, you don’t regret the choice, then you will not be able to do this discipline. See rationale below.]

1. Clarify the choice. Get very clear about exactly what it was that you chose that you regret.

2. Identify the consequences to others. How did this choice that you made affect others and your relationships to others?

3. Name the patterns that permitted this choice. Since this is something that you regret, there were things going on with you at the time that allowed you to do something that you would ordinarily not do. What were all of things that were true for you at the time of the choice that gave you permission to act in this way?

4. Identify the strategies that you have now for addressing these patterns.  In order to ensure that we won’t again do the thing that we regret that was harmful to others, we have to have strategies for addressing the ways that we permitted ourselves to make the poor choice in the first place.

Rationale [Why do it]:

We all make choices that are harmful to others. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to identify these choices or to feel regret for having done them. If you are able to identify the choice and to know that you have done harm and to feel guilt for the choice, then you are able to address the choice in a way that will help you avoid such behavior in the future.

Oftentimes we will simply assure ourselves that we know better now and will never do that again. This is not a safe strategy.  For one thing, if someone had asked you before you had made that choice if that were something you were likely to do, you would no doubt have said you would not. “Knowing better” was something you had in place before you did it. Still, you did it.

Further, there are those things that come up for you from time to time that give you permission to do the things that you don’t want to do. Ignoring them won’t make them go away.  Addressing them holds out the promise for improving other areas of your life as well.

Promises [What it will get you]:

While this is a fairly straightforward discipline, it is very hard to do for emotional reasons. It is hard to admit, even to ourselves, much less to others, that we have made choices that seriously harmed others and our relationships with others. Nevertheless, this discipline is well worth the effort. There is a lot that we can learn about ourselves by looking at what we have done when we were at our worst.

These most regretted choices tend to be a sort of “perfect storm” in which several sets of influences come together around a single event. For example if I have too much to drink and have a fight with my wife when I am scared about losing my job shortly after my mother dies, the fear and anger and grief may be released by the inebriation in ways that permit me to make some very bad choices. Each of these issues demands my attention, but I may not see the need to attend to them without the consequences of my regrettable choices to focus my mind. I have not fully grieved the loss of my mother. I have not attended to problems at work. I don’t have good ways of addressing conflicts in my marriage. And I have a tendency to drink too much when I am anxious. All of these are problems worthy of my attention. Thus the central promise of the Statement of Accountability is that by using the energy in the guilt that I feel I can transform my behavior into constructive action.

Suggestions [How to do it better]:

The key to this discipline is to pick the thing that we really regret, rather than what we think we ought to regret or what others believe we did wrong. The energy for transformation comes from the shame that we feel about who we are when we behave badly. The process is to take the energy from the shame, turn it into guilt about what we did [thus getting very clear about the choice that we made] and then fully addressing the aspects of our behavior that allow for us to behave that way so that we can really be confident that we have fully addressed the issues that allowed for the harmful action.

For this to work we have to be careful to:

• Be very specific about the choice. A general description of what happened won’t do.
• Be clear about all of the consequences to the other and to the relationships with others. While it is helpful for other reasons to note the consequences to you, for the purposes of the Statement of Accountability, those aren’t really relevant.
• Identify all of the patterns, even the most subtle. Squeeze all of the benefit out of this process that you can. See if you can name at least half a dozen patterns that you can see coming up in other areas of your life as well.  Be very clear about the strategies. These should be observable behaviors.  “Being careful that I don’t drink too much” is not as good as “attend my AA meeting every week and talk to my sponsor every other day.”

For a challenging statement of what it means to be accountable, check out this Credo of Accountability.