Interpersonal Communications
The worst words I know!
05/05/08 17:19 Filed in: Psychology
So what are these words?
Here they are:
”I thought you felt…” and sometimes they are:
”I know what you feel”
They look harmless enough, don’t they?
They are insidious.
What they say is “These are my meanings that I bring to your feelings.” And another person is simply not able to do that. Feelings can only be understood within their own personal frame of reference, by the person feeling them. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It is not simple at all.
We all have meanings that we attach to our feelings. They are our very own.
In some of my recent blogs (in farrago), I have talked about consciousness and the difference between mind and emotions. I have even used words like “I know what I feel” that means for me “I understand and am aware of my feelings and the meanings I attach to my feelings for most of the time.” Sometimes a negative feeling may arise in me that I don’t properly understand. They always take me a little by surprise but (some of) my good friends and I are sufficiently conscious (usually) to be able to see when this happens. Sometimes my friends will help me discover the meanings (usually negative and apparently irrational) that I attach to these worrying feelings. More often, I will see them for what they are and seek to understand them for myself.
But only I can be aware of what I feel and only I can know.
It is easier for me since I am probably more conscious than many others I know. I do not say that boastfully as all it means is that I have done much more on my inner resolution of pain and difficulties and understanding what arises from my unconscious than most. I have done it because I had to in order to survive, to set myself free of past pain, some of which was massive and traumatic.
I can still get it all badly wrong. I can make attribution errors, for example, when unconscious feelings come up in me. I might feel, for example that my unconscious is throwing this feeling up because of something happening in a present relationship. It does not necessarily mean that my feeling belongs to my present relationship, but perhaps something in that relationship has triggered a feeling in my unconscious from my past.
What is important to me is that I do not take that feeling (usually negative) and project it on my present relationship. That can be very damaging. So in becoming conscious I will try and look at this feeling and work out what it is saying, where it comes from and where it belongs.
This is not that easy at all, as these feelings might exist in multiple dimensions, and have relevance to both my past and present. They might, for example, be an old ghost feeling, a negative feeling that has arisen because of other stimuli or my re-experiencing an emotion to which I had formerly attached some negative meaning when I had felt hurt or upset. The act of understanding even my own feelings is so complex, how on earth might someone else “think” they can do it?
I am going to try and summarise what I believe the practice of decent psychotherapy to be about as it’s relevant (even though I don’t believe in it!).
Again I am going to over-simplify and focus on one element of what I believe psychotherapy is: Psychotherapy is about the empathic (loving?) facilitation of helping another to become conscious of (seemingly irrational) negative meanings that they attach to distressing, persistent, troubling emotions and behaviours, such as anxiety, depression, insecurity, irrational fears and obsessions. By helping the other discover the meanings they attach to their feelings, they might be able to understand their feelings better and see what is real for them and what is not. The goal of this process of self-determination is to assist the other in enhancing their understanding of feelings and the meanings they attach to them in order that they might see whether they are appropriate or not to the real situation in which they find themselves.
The process of facilitating discovery is what is difficult. There are many ways of doing that through talk, dreams, story writing and other means. That is where the real skill of the therapist lies. Why this is important in this context is that the therapist does not understand the feelings of the client by going along and imposing some set of rational analysis and abstract theories on another, their role is to help the other discover their feelings and the meanings they attach to them for themselves.
The role of the psychotherapist is not to tell someone what they feel but to enable them to discover those feelings for themselves. They will never say “I know what you feel” or “I thought what you felt”. They might help by pointing out and helping the client to discover and understand contradictory feelings that they might be bringing to the same situation but they will never use the words I “thought what you felt” in the absence of hearing those feelings from the client.
Also it is important for a psychotherapist to be able to understand any transference or projection of their own feelings onto the client (and vice versa). It does happen. Transference often happens in love too. We all do it.
I have talked about psychotherapy because it is a metaphor for how we might love and the importance of relating feelings as they are; seeking to understand them for what they are, listening, hearing them properly and truly knowing another person.
To know another one must always hear their feelings exactly as they are; making assumptions about them, thinking what another feels, or making abstract rational analyses of another’s feelings are downright harmful. It can also be the thing to send a relationship off the rails and quickly into the graveyard.
If you do not or cannot hear the feelings of a loved one you will end up in deep trouble. Likewise if you assume that you know what another feels, you will end up in deep shit too. If you take your meanings to another’s feelings, chances are you will end up in conflict. If you are so committed to projecting your meanings or your feelings onto theirs and refuse to do anything other than hold onto an anxiety that is supported by your false assumptions of the other’s feelings, you will threaten the relationship itself.
This is not uncommon. I have seen it many times. I have seen it happen in my own intimate relationships too. I have seen it happen in a failed marriage. In my marriage, it was a little different since my ex-wife’s habit was to express her deep personal insecurity through her distrust of me, then move to a position where my behaviour was the real problem and not her insecurity and anxiety. What she said of my behaviour was completely imagined, it was a projection of her anxiety. Her projected belief about my behaviour, supported the irrational anxiety as it made it “real” for her and so it went on, round and round in circles.
I am really labouring this point. But in love it is so important to listen, hear, and understand your own and another’s feelings for what they truly are. It is so important to be conscious of fears and anxieties, to accept that they do not need to be threatening, to see them for what they are and seek to understand what they are telling you.
If you play the game of “I know what you feel” or “I thought you felt”, you will end up in trouble time and time again.
And I can tell you what I feel, if you're willing to listen and hear...
Rant over!
Footnote
There is a very important distinction to be made here between the type of therapy I am describing and the classic psychoanalytic mode of therapy. In common, with cognitive behavioural therapists, I may believe that the meanings that one attaches to one’s emotions, no matter how incongruous they might be, are within common sense and are accessible to one’s own cognition and understanding.
The psychoanalyst, however, believes that they might put some special interpretation on feelings in given contexts. Psychoanalysis has explained, for example, a woman’s feeling faint when away from home in terms of unconscious meaning: Being out of doors stirs up a repressed desire such as a wish for seduction or rape. (Fernichel 1945) The wish arouses anxiety because of its taboo nature.
What a lot of nonsense! I do not relate to this stuff at all.
For a behaviourist, eliciting a person’s cognitions (meanings) becomes important when we attempt to understand their relationship with incongruous emotional reactions. It is about discovering an individual’s emotions based on that person’s peculiar appraisal of an event or experience. (Beck 1976)
Here they are:
”I thought you felt…” and sometimes they are:
”I know what you feel”
They look harmless enough, don’t they?
They are insidious.
What they say is “These are my meanings that I bring to your feelings.” And another person is simply not able to do that. Feelings can only be understood within their own personal frame of reference, by the person feeling them. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It is not simple at all.
We all have meanings that we attach to our feelings. They are our very own.
In some of my recent blogs (in farrago), I have talked about consciousness and the difference between mind and emotions. I have even used words like “I know what I feel” that means for me “I understand and am aware of my feelings and the meanings I attach to my feelings for most of the time.” Sometimes a negative feeling may arise in me that I don’t properly understand. They always take me a little by surprise but (some of) my good friends and I are sufficiently conscious (usually) to be able to see when this happens. Sometimes my friends will help me discover the meanings (usually negative and apparently irrational) that I attach to these worrying feelings. More often, I will see them for what they are and seek to understand them for myself.
But only I can be aware of what I feel and only I can know.
It is easier for me since I am probably more conscious than many others I know. I do not say that boastfully as all it means is that I have done much more on my inner resolution of pain and difficulties and understanding what arises from my unconscious than most. I have done it because I had to in order to survive, to set myself free of past pain, some of which was massive and traumatic.
I can still get it all badly wrong. I can make attribution errors, for example, when unconscious feelings come up in me. I might feel, for example that my unconscious is throwing this feeling up because of something happening in a present relationship. It does not necessarily mean that my feeling belongs to my present relationship, but perhaps something in that relationship has triggered a feeling in my unconscious from my past.
What is important to me is that I do not take that feeling (usually negative) and project it on my present relationship. That can be very damaging. So in becoming conscious I will try and look at this feeling and work out what it is saying, where it comes from and where it belongs.
This is not that easy at all, as these feelings might exist in multiple dimensions, and have relevance to both my past and present. They might, for example, be an old ghost feeling, a negative feeling that has arisen because of other stimuli or my re-experiencing an emotion to which I had formerly attached some negative meaning when I had felt hurt or upset. The act of understanding even my own feelings is so complex, how on earth might someone else “think” they can do it?
I am going to try and summarise what I believe the practice of decent psychotherapy to be about as it’s relevant (even though I don’t believe in it!).
Again I am going to over-simplify and focus on one element of what I believe psychotherapy is: Psychotherapy is about the empathic (loving?) facilitation of helping another to become conscious of (seemingly irrational) negative meanings that they attach to distressing, persistent, troubling emotions and behaviours, such as anxiety, depression, insecurity, irrational fears and obsessions. By helping the other discover the meanings they attach to their feelings, they might be able to understand their feelings better and see what is real for them and what is not. The goal of this process of self-determination is to assist the other in enhancing their understanding of feelings and the meanings they attach to them in order that they might see whether they are appropriate or not to the real situation in which they find themselves.
The process of facilitating discovery is what is difficult. There are many ways of doing that through talk, dreams, story writing and other means. That is where the real skill of the therapist lies. Why this is important in this context is that the therapist does not understand the feelings of the client by going along and imposing some set of rational analysis and abstract theories on another, their role is to help the other discover their feelings and the meanings they attach to them for themselves.
The role of the psychotherapist is not to tell someone what they feel but to enable them to discover those feelings for themselves. They will never say “I know what you feel” or “I thought what you felt”. They might help by pointing out and helping the client to discover and understand contradictory feelings that they might be bringing to the same situation but they will never use the words I “thought what you felt” in the absence of hearing those feelings from the client.
Also it is important for a psychotherapist to be able to understand any transference or projection of their own feelings onto the client (and vice versa). It does happen. Transference often happens in love too. We all do it.
I have talked about psychotherapy because it is a metaphor for how we might love and the importance of relating feelings as they are; seeking to understand them for what they are, listening, hearing them properly and truly knowing another person.
To know another one must always hear their feelings exactly as they are; making assumptions about them, thinking what another feels, or making abstract rational analyses of another’s feelings are downright harmful. It can also be the thing to send a relationship off the rails and quickly into the graveyard.
If you do not or cannot hear the feelings of a loved one you will end up in deep trouble. Likewise if you assume that you know what another feels, you will end up in deep shit too. If you take your meanings to another’s feelings, chances are you will end up in conflict. If you are so committed to projecting your meanings or your feelings onto theirs and refuse to do anything other than hold onto an anxiety that is supported by your false assumptions of the other’s feelings, you will threaten the relationship itself.
This is not uncommon. I have seen it many times. I have seen it happen in my own intimate relationships too. I have seen it happen in a failed marriage. In my marriage, it was a little different since my ex-wife’s habit was to express her deep personal insecurity through her distrust of me, then move to a position where my behaviour was the real problem and not her insecurity and anxiety. What she said of my behaviour was completely imagined, it was a projection of her anxiety. Her projected belief about my behaviour, supported the irrational anxiety as it made it “real” for her and so it went on, round and round in circles.
I am really labouring this point. But in love it is so important to listen, hear, and understand your own and another’s feelings for what they truly are. It is so important to be conscious of fears and anxieties, to accept that they do not need to be threatening, to see them for what they are and seek to understand what they are telling you.
If you play the game of “I know what you feel” or “I thought you felt”, you will end up in trouble time and time again.
And I can tell you what I feel, if you're willing to listen and hear...
Rant over!
Footnote
There is a very important distinction to be made here between the type of therapy I am describing and the classic psychoanalytic mode of therapy. In common, with cognitive behavioural therapists, I may believe that the meanings that one attaches to one’s emotions, no matter how incongruous they might be, are within common sense and are accessible to one’s own cognition and understanding.
The psychoanalyst, however, believes that they might put some special interpretation on feelings in given contexts. Psychoanalysis has explained, for example, a woman’s feeling faint when away from home in terms of unconscious meaning: Being out of doors stirs up a repressed desire such as a wish for seduction or rape. (Fernichel 1945) The wish arouses anxiety because of its taboo nature.
What a lot of nonsense! I do not relate to this stuff at all.
For a behaviourist, eliciting a person’s cognitions (meanings) becomes important when we attempt to understand their relationship with incongruous emotional reactions. It is about discovering an individual’s emotions based on that person’s peculiar appraisal of an event or experience. (Beck 1976)
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