Transcripts

December 9, 2002:
The Importance of Close Friendships
Interview with Dr. Will Miller, author of Refrigerator Rights

Dr. Will Miller:
The kind of people that are close enough that they can just go into your refrigerator without needing to ask permission. Or in reverse, people with whom you feel so comfortable, you can go into their refrigerator without asking permission.

Psychologist Dr. Will Miller, author of the book Refrigerator Rights, says you can likely determine in an instant who those people are, and there likely aren't very many.

We move away from our homes and families at a staggering rate in this country. We move every five years. Between the ages of twenty and forty, one out of three move every year. We wind up losing contact with those close relationships and then here's the rub: we generally fail to establish new relationships that go beyond anything more than just an acquaintance.

So what? Why are refrigerator rights relationships so important?

Americans have record, nearly, epidemic levels of mood disorders, depression, and anxiety. And we are living lifestyles that are very private. We don't have refrigerator rights relationships. Americans need to understand that those two are connected problems. Lack of fulfillment, a sense of loneliness, a sense of disease, whether it expresses itself in depression or worry and anxiety, is directly connected to being too alone, not having enough people with refrigerator rights relationships in your life. When you tend to the relationship problem, you will make yourself feel better.

Tomorrow, what it takes to develop refrigerator rights friendships. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's "Something You Should Know."