Category: Name calling

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Psychiatric Name Calling: Is Science to Blame?

labelledA couple of weeks ago I raised the question, “Name Calling by Psychiatrists: Is it Time to Put a Stop to it?”  In response, some blamed the insurance companies and other third party payers for the name calling. Because it is true that these payers do require the pathologizing of people seeking mental health services, in last week’s article, I took a close look at that issue.

Others responding to my question argued that diagnosing mental illness is based on the principles of science. So, let’s look at this line of thought.

The Nature of Science

Science enquires what is the nature of something?  what is its constitution, origin, and history?  Human beings also make enquires of a different sort, What is the object’s importance, meaning, significance, or value now that it is once here?  Neither judgment can be deduced immediately from the other.  They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines them only by making them first separately and then adding them together.

Professor Gould
Professor Gould

As Steven Jay Gould, professor of zoology and geology at Harvard University, explains it:

“The net of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory).  The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.  These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).  To cite the usual clichés, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.”

pathology textbookIn the natural sciences there is a branch called pathology that classifies tumors, lesions, bone fractures, tissue tears, toxic reaction to a chemical, blockage of blood flow within the circulation system, blockage within or to an organ, and microbe infections.  Pathologists have reliable ways of identifying and categorizing these naturally occurring entities.  When we take a science view of each of these entities of interest to pathologists, it is not a value judgment if they exist or not. If ten pathologists look at a tumor, they can all see it, describe its color, density, weight and what each of the tumor’s cells look like under a microscope.

Pathologists, as scientists, have been studying these entities and sometimes they found that some of them are associated with certain physical complaints.  For example, some people complain about headaches and vision problems.  When they died, autopsies were carried out and often a tumor was present that was pressing against the optic nerve.

This finding led to a theory that for people who expressed this type of physical complaint, if an operation was carried out while the patients were still alive and this type of tumor was indeed pressing on the optic nerve, perhaps removing it would alleviate the complaint. Studies were carried out and it led eventually to a valued treatment.

The connections between the research findings of pathologists gave doctors some understanding of what was causing some of the physical complaints of their patients. But often doctors could not find evidence that any of the entities of interest to pathologists were the cause of the complaint.  When this occurred, most doctors merely changed the expressed complaint into some medical jargon that sounded somewhat like those concerns that had been shown to be due to a pathological condition.  In such cases, they offered some treatment that was often based more on the commercial art of medicine rather than science.

These doctors usually called both types of physical complaints (those with pathological findings and those without) “illnesses” or “disorders.” By doing so, the science of medicine and the art of medicine became blurred. And then, business interests became wrapped up in the various treatment options and principles of science began to become more and more murky when applied to the medical world.

Disorders and Psychiatry

psychiatric persuasionIn a book titled Psychiatric Persuasion by Elizabeth Lunbeck, there is considerable documentation that back at the turn of the 20th century when the main job of psychiatrists was running insane asylums their professional organization decided to expand their market by doing two things.  1. Persuade the public that more and more normal behaviors are pathologies that require psychiatric treatment, and 2. Develop a category system that converts all psychological concerns that a person might want to get help for into a language that sounds like a pathological condition.  This would legitimize the treatment of anyone who came to their office, thus the argument that the current psychiatric “diagnosis” system has become a business tool while being promoted as science.

Now, it is certainly possible to create a categorical system consistent with science for the problems that come to the attention of psychiatrists and other mental health service providers that don’t confuse conditions that are associated with pathological findings and those that are not.  Such a system would classify “mental health concerns,” rather than calling people names. A mental health concern occurs when a person seeking mental health services expresses to a mental health service provider a concern about any of the following topics: behavior, emotion, mood, meaning of life, managing chronic pain, work, relationships, education, eating, cognition and sleep. Two classes of mental health concerns are concerns expressed about oneself and concerns expressed about someone else.

One benefit of classifying “mental health concerns” rather than “mental disorders” has to do with inter-rater reliability.  Consider being in a room with 100 psychologists, or even 100 average Joes and Jills, and a person in front of the room says she has been feeling depressed.  A questioner asks the client, “Are you concerned about feeling depressed?” and the person says, “Yes.”  If you asked for a survey of how many people in the room thinks the person has expressed a concern about being depressed, you would get, I believe, 100 percent agreement.  Expressing a mental health concern is a specific action that people do, and therefore it is clearly observable.

Research on the inter-rater reliability of the mental disorders classification system has demonstrated that its inter-rater reliability is very problematic.

Science is Not to Blame

It is not science that is to blame for psychiatric name calling; it is the psychiatric business tool that is cleverly designed to capitalize on the public’s respect for science.

When we begin to use a classification system that does not clearly separate principles of science from values involved in business interests, other values start to slip into the classification process as well.  Early on when the pathologizing of human experience was just getting underway, William James made a number of relevant comments about this.

William James
William James

James argued that experiences that are commonly viewed as unhealthy or morbid are really “an essential part of every character” and give life “a truer sense of values.” To support his contention, James first provided three examples of famous individuals who expressed concerns about melancholy.  Such experiences today, if expressed to a psychiatrist, would probably be converted into a so-called “diagnosis” of “major depressive disorder.” St. Paul, the religious figure of the New Testament, Cesare Lombrosa, a late 19th-century Italian criminologist, and Immanual Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher, became, according to their biographies, better as a result of their troubling experiences.

Although hallucinations can mean madness to some, James presented the case of Socrates who “once stood motionless for many hours in the cold and spoke of having a guiding demon.” Attempting to counter the association between pathologies and hallucinations, James stated,  “Even if this demon [of Socrates] were really meant hallucinations of hearing, we know now that one in eight or ten of the population has had such an experience and that for insanity we must resort to other tests than these.”

James stated that there is no end to the possible types of obsessions that we see all around us. What benefit can such experiences have? James wrote about Henry Borg, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866; Charles Henry Parkhurst, a Presbyterian clergyman and reformer who held a New York City pastorate from 1880 to 1918 and who launched a furious attack on organized crime in state government that led to an official investigation; Dorothea Dix, a mid-19th-century humanitarian who visited the insane asylums and successfully advocated for legislation to improve the care for those labeled mentally ill.

Later, James stated, “Individuals are types of themselves and enslavement to conventional names and their associations is only too apt to blind the student to the facts before him.”

James concluded that,

“Any peculiarity that is of use to a man is a point of soundness in him, and what makes a man sound for one function may make him unsound for another. Moreover we are all instruments for social use, and if sensibilities, obsessions and other… peculiarities can so combine with the rest of our constitution as to make us the more useful to our kind, why, then, we should not call them in that context points of unhealthiness, but rather the reverse . . . The trouble is that such writers [pathologizers]. . . use the descriptive names of symptoms merely as an artifice for giving objective authority to their personal dislikes. The medical terms become mere appreciative clubs to knock a man down with. . . . The only sort of being, in fact, who can remain as the typical normal man, after all the individuals with degenerative symptoms have been rejected, must be a perfect nullity… Who shall absolutely say that the morbid has no revelations about the meaning of life? That the healthy minded view so-called is all?”

Virginia WolfTo illustrate what James means here, consider an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry (May, 2004), titled “Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).”  Although she is described by psychiatrists as having bipolar disorder, her diaries and letters, document movingly, her emotional extremes and her capacity to savor the “ordinary rhythms of life.”  At times Woolf railed against her distressing emotional experiences, felt frustrated and impeded by them, and at other times she felt it was essential to her.  In diaries and letters, she returned to the question repeatedly without reaching a resolution: were her emotional experiences a terrible obstacle to her art, or were they the necessary condition for it?

For those trying to sell psychiatric drugs, a simplistic answer to this question is eagerly promoted.  Science has not provided a definitive answer to this question as far as I am concerned, and throwing around phrases such as “the brain is malfunctioning in depression,” or “the brain has a chemical imbalance in depression” goes way beyond the available evidence.

peanuts and suffering

Psychiatric labels are like masks held on by rubberband straps.  They hide some of the characteristics of an individual.  Wearing such masks may serve some purposes, but after a while they start to get uncomfortable for many, particularly around the ears.  Let those who want to wear these masks be free to do so.  But let those who want to meet us face to face, also be free to do so.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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Name Calling by Psychiatrists: Is it Time to Put a Stop to it?

central parkOn one fine spring day, I was sitting on a Central Park bench and two women were sitting one bench just to my right reading their newspapers.  Suddenly, one of them cried out, “Sophie, can you believe this!  The story I’m reading here, oh my God!  This young boy, seventeen years old mind you, the same age as my Jonathan, he’s struggling with ideas about suicide.  Seventeen years old, his whole life before him and he wants to kill himself.  What would lead a boy to this?”

“Such a young boy, Bessie?”

“Yes.  My God.”

“He must have some type of mental illness.”

“Oh, you’re right, Sophie.  I just glanced at the next paragraph, and a psychiatrist explains that the boy has a mental illness called major depressive disorder.”

HamletWith that explanation, the two women nodded to one another, and continued on to another story, seemingly satisfied that they now knew why the boy was dealing with this issue.

This notion that when a psychiatrist says someone has a mental illness, or some type of mental illness, that this offers a valid explanation for why the person is struggling with personal difficulties is, as far as I’m concerned, a bunch of nonsense.  Just before the incident in the park, I had seen a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which tells the story of a boy about the same age as the one in the story Bessie was reading and is also struggling with feelings of committing suicide.  As Shakespeare’s story unfolds, the audience is presented with a character that has motivations, conflicts, frustrations, disturbing situations and emotions. In the end, I left with some insights into why a character such as Hamlet might struggle with feelings of suicide.

In my opinion, even a play, which lasts but two or three hours, can only provide in its narrative a simplified account of what real life stories are all about.  And yet, in today’s world, for many people a very different type of play is sufficient for providing the reason why someone is dealing with a challenging concern.  This new type of play begins with the curtain rising.  A character says to the audience he is struggling with feelings of suicide.  A psychiatrist then proclaims the character has the mental disorder known as major depressive disorder, and then the curtain comes down.  That’s the whole play. And people walk away fully satisfied that an adequate explanation has been provided.

psychiarty1When psychiatrists start calling people names, they get them from a book called The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  They claim that they are not just calling people names, but, instead, they are making a diagnosis.  Diagnosis, as it is defined in Wikipedia, “is the identification of the nature and cause of anything” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis).

psychiatry5It would be reasonable to assume, therefore, that the DSM would assist in identifying the nature and causes of the types of personal concerns that come to be called mental disorder. But the DSM uses a descriptive approach that attempts to be neutral with respect to theories of the nature and cause of the various “disorders” that it describes. Therefore, referring to the DSM as a “diagnostic” manual is contrary to reason.

My Personal Understanding of the Nature of Diagnosis

When I was fifteen years old, I was tackled hard in a football game. After the pile of tacklers got off of me, I found that when I tried to put any weight on my left leg I felt excruciating pain. Shortly after this unwelcome discovery, I arrived at the Coney Island Hospital. A doctor asked a few questions and decided to take an x-ray of my left leg. Minutes later, he showed me the x-ray, and pointed to where a bone in my leg was broken. His “diagnosis” was that my left leg had a fractured fibula.

broken legNow, what if the doctor did not take an x-ray, but instead just said to me after he asked me a few questions, “Your problem is that you have ‘Major Inability to Stand Disorder.’” Making such a statement, as far as I am concerned, is quite different from what the doctor did when he took an x-ray, looked it over, and declared that my left leg had a fractured fibula. To refer to both types of statements as examples of the same thing—that is, a diagnosis—makes it more difficult to see this difference.

auto mechanicConsider, if you will, another situation. A few years ago I had trouble starting my Ford Pinto. I brought the car in and the mechanic provided me a theory that perhaps I needed a new starter. This, it seemed to me, was his initial theoretical diagnosis. He then inspected the starter and found that it was in fine shape. Thus, his original theory of what was wrong proved incorrect. He then theorized that my spark plugs were dirty. He took a look and found that they were indeed dirty. He cleaned them up, put them back in their proper place, and the car started right up. In the end, as far as I was concerned, he “diagnosed” what was wrong with my car as having dirty spark plugs. If the mechanic had instead just asked me a few questions, and then told me that the problem with my car was that it had “Major Non-starting Disorder,” then this to me is something very different than “diagnosing” my car’s problem.

psychiatry3The DSM, by claiming it is a manual for making diagnoses, masks the difference between the following two statements:

1. “You have a fractured fibula.”
2. “You have ‘Major Inability to Stand Disorder.’”

Similarly, the DSM, by claiming it is a manual for making diagnoses, masks the difference between making the following two statements:

1. “My theory for why your car is not starting is it has dirty spark plugs.”
2. “Your car is not starting because it has ‘Major Non-starting Disorder.’”

psych labelsIn both of these examples, the number “1” statements offer some theory for understanding the cause for what we believe has gone wrong. The number “2” statements just restate the expressed concern about something we believe has gone wrong in some technical terminology.  The DSM actually is just a classification system for expressed mental health concerns, and it would be far more accurate if it honestly said so.

Classification

A major reason why scientists classify is to speed up the process of obtaining useful information. The classification, when useful, is a labor-saving contrivance. Let’s look at an example that makes this vividly clear.

Biology Example

whaleSuppose a biologist named Steve comes upon a whale for the first time. He has never seen such a creature before. He wants to learn more about it. He observes that it is a vertebrate, gives live birth to its offspring, and uses mammary glands to feed its offspring. Once this is observed, Steve can see if other biologists have collected any information on this creature by looking in a book that uses a certain classification system. By looking in the book under mammals, which has a pretty clear definition, he can save an enormous amount of time because he will not have to bother looking at all the insects, birds, and reptiles. This saves him from needlessly examining millions of specific listings—a clear time saver.

I hypothesize that there would be no significant difference between the so-called diagnosis system called the DSM and a classification system that simply classifies expressed personal concerns in retrieving valued scientific information. In an article that I published in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, I fully explain this concern alternative (see HERE).

Briefly, with the concern approach individuals would not be classified, only their expressed concern.  If I want to find out about any scientific studies that looked at different ways that addressed concerns about depression, in Google Scholar I can now simply put in the search engine— “depression, treatments.” Without adding the words “major” and “disorder” in the search engine, I can currently get numerous relevant hits. If the new concern classification system was adopted, soon the term “addressing concerns” would be receiving the same number of relevant hits that I now get by using the search term “treatment.” Thus, this scientific requirement would be amply fulfilled without using the search terms of “major depressive disorder” and “treatment.”

psychiatry2The DSM and the concern classification system would both serve a valuable scientific function—the retrieving of relevant scientific information in a time- saving manner. The accepted term for such a system in science is “classification,” not “diagnosis.” If “diagnosis” was clearly recognized as a perfect synonym for “classification” then it wouldn’t matter which term was used. But “diagnosis” indicates that something more than classification is being provided in the DSM, whereas the concern classification system would make no such claim. The concern system would not seek to present itself as something that it can’t back up as accurate.  And it avoids the negative name calling of people that so many find offensive and stigmatizing.

Another Problem with Psychiatric Name Calling

Furthermore, when psychiatrists provide a so-called “diagnosis” of a mental disorder it indicates that there is something wrong with the person. This masks an alternative possibility. It is very possible that the experiences typically being diagnosed as mental disorders are more aptly construed as tools. That is, a hammer can be used to drive in nails in the construction of a life-preserving shelter or to bludgeon an innocent person to death. A car can be used to rush a child to an emergency room so that life-preserving treatment can be administered, or it can be used to tragically end a prom night.  Similarly, there are numerous people who have had the experiences that are said to be diagnosed in the DSM as a mental disorder, who report that the experience ended up helping them to achieve enormous benefits; whereas, others became ambivalent, and others agree that they proved to be all bad. It may be very true that it is up to each one of us to find the wisdom to use these tools for good.

psychiatry4The percentage of people who report that the experiences now referred to in the DSM as mental disorders turned out to be good, bad or mixed is a question for science. Mental health practitioners when using the DSM participate in proclaiming that all of these experiences are all bad, thus masking these vitally important variations of experiences.

A scientific classification system is better when it helps us to see things of interest more clearly, rather than to mask them. The classification system of mental health concerns would serve to break us out of the DSM cloister of words and reopen us to the source of our experience.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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On Responding to the N-word

Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. is a columnist, author of three novels and winner of numerous awards including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.  When I heard that he was speaking at Flagler College, having enjoyed reading his insightful column for many years, I eagerly went to see him.

Mr. Pitts’s formal presentation was well received.  Then, he began to take questions from the audience. His responses to each were like a laser in that his answers were precisely on point–that is, until I asked my question.

My Question

When I first stepped up to the mike, I explained that I had worked with teenagers for many years, and sometimes a white student would seek to insult a black student by calling him the N-word.

Often the response was a physical fight that would lead to a school suspension.

Before returning to school, in some cases both students were asked to meet with me.  I saw each separately at first and usually I’d discuss Martin Luther King, Jr. For the black students, at some point in our discussion I would ask, “Do you understand that Martin Luther King, Jr. was all about non-violence when dealing with injustice?”

“Sure, I know that, man!” was a common reply.

Then I would say something like, “When you were called the N-word, you started to physically attack the guy who called you that.  That’s a violent approach to the injustice you had faced.  If it happens again, can you think of some other way to deal with this, some way that would respect Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory?”

I would then typically get the following type reply: “If Martin Luther King, Jr. lived in my neighborhood, he’d have realized that if anyone called him that, the only way to respond is to bloody the guy up good!”

Having had experiences like this, I asked Mr. Pitts, “As a respected black man, how would you respond to someone who called you the N-word, and how would you advise black people to respond in the event that someone called them the N-word?”

Mr. Pitts’s Response

As I had said before, prior to my question, Mr. Pitts’s answers to questions that were being presented to him were right on point.  Now, his reply wandered off to related issues, never directly answering my question.

hip hopHe spoke, for example, of how he objected to hip-hop’s embrace of the word.  He related it to how many women in the women’s movement have now embraced the phrase, “She’s my bitch,” as a form of flattery, despite the fact that historically it was used in an unkind manner by sexist men seeking to put down women.  And he spoke eloquently about why he personally found the N-word so offensive.  I didn’t write down his exact words, but it seemed to closely match the words he used in some of his earlier newspaper columns.  For example, in a column published on November 30th, 2013, he wrote:

The N-word is unique. It was present at the act of mass kidnap that created “black America,” it drove the ship to get here, signed the contracts at flesh auctions on Southern ports as mother was torn from child, love from love and self from self. It had a front row center seat for the acts of blood, rape, castration, exclusion and psychological destruction by which the created people was kept down and in its place. The whole weight of our history dictates that word cannot be used except as an expression of contempt for African Americans.

Now, I do want to avoid a too simplistic presentation of Mr. Pitts’s position on the N-word.  He does believe that the word can be rightly used in certain situations.  For example, in a column titled, “Don’t Censor Mark Twain’s N word” he defended how it is used in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

huck finn It is, perhaps, the seminal moment in American literature.

Young Huck Finn, trying to get right with God and save his soul from a forever of fire, sits there with the freshly written note in hand. “Miss Watson,” it says, “your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/09/2007730/dont-censor-mark-twains-n-word.html#storylink=cpy

Huck knows it is a sin to steal and he is whipped by guilt for the role he has played in helping the slave Jim steal himself from a poor old woman who never did Huck any harm. But see, Jim has become Huck’s friend, has sacrificed for him, worried about him, laughed and sung with him, depended upon him. So what, really, is the right thing to do?

“I was a-trembling,” says Huck, “because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ — and tore it up.”

Mr. Pitts wrote this column in response to a publisher who had decided to put out a new edition of this classic story that replaced all 219 occurrences of the N-word with words such as “runaway slave.”  Although Mr. Pitts acknowledges the publisher means well, he states that, “…it is troubling to think the state of reading comprehension in this country has become this wretched, that we have tweeted, PlayStationed and Fox Newsed so much of our intellectual capacity away that not only can our children not divine the nuances of a masterpiece, but that we will now protect them from having to even try.”

I liked what Mr. Pitts had said in reply to my question but as I left the auditorium, I wondered why he appeared to avoid answering my question more directly.  And I wondered what he would say about the approach that I have been recommending for responding to insults (see for example, “Insulting Criticism: What Can We Do About It?”).

My Alternative to Violence When Responding to the N-word

Although I have given a number of different types of examples of people responding maturely to insults in past posts, I have never described specifically what my approach would look like in the type of a situation we have been discussing today.  I, of course, recognize that since I am not an African-American, I lack much legitimacy in offering my opinion on this topic.  Nevertheless, just to spur a deeper discussion, very tentatively I am tossing out one alternative to violence.

In the scenario presented below, this is the first time Fred is calling Leroy the N-word.  In my view, Leroy’s response would be very different if Fred has begun to repeatedly taunt him.  Concerns about how to handle taunting are addressed in my post titled “The Art of Playful Teasing”.

black and whiteLeroy, an African-American teenager is called the N-word by Fred, a white teenager.  Leroy replies by looking firmly into the eyes of Fred and says,”You just called me a nigger.  I want to make certain you clearly understand that that word was used in the past by people who believed in slavery and that African-Americans are less than human.  Is that what you are trying to say to me, that you believe in slavery, and I’m less than a human being?”

“Yeah, you nigger!” Fred replies.

Leroy pauses to think about this for a moment, looking down in a sad manner.  Then, looking squarely into Fred’s eyes, he says firmly, “Why are you trying to insult me, Fred?”

“Because I hate niggers!”

“Fred, I’ve met some black guys who strike me as pretty hateful characters.  But from my experience, there are a lot of great black guys out there. I hope in time you’ll change your mind.  Anything else you want to say to me?

“Yeah, go to hell!”

“I understand that you’re trying to insult me, Fred. I’m always interested to hear you out.  I’m sorry to hear how you feel about black people.”

Well, those are some thoughts I have for you this week.  I encourage readers to continue the discussion by posting comments.  I know these issues bring up for many of us some very strong emotions.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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RESOLVING RECURRING CONFLICTS

One day Beetle Bailey and Sarge have a conflict:

Beetle aAs you can see, eventually the conflict is resolved.

But a few days later, the two have another conflict.

Beetle fix the blameAgain and again other conflicts spring up between these same two individuals.  These recurring conflicts come about with a distinctly higher frequency than usual for two people in the types of situations in which they live and interact.

When we see two people having an unusual amount of recurring conflicts, at some point we might want to dig a little below the surface to figure out why.

Using the DIG Conflict Model to Help with Challenging Conflicts

From time to time on this blog, we have been using the word DIG to remind us of a simple way to briefly summarize any conflict.  The letters in the word “DIG” reminds us to look for a desire, what is interfering with achieving the desire, and if someone feels that the person who is viewed as interfering with the desire is guilty of doing something wrong.  We also noted earlier that the word “DIG” is a useful memory device because sometimes we have to dig below the surface to understand a conflict (see DIG FOR THE CONFLICT and DEALING WITH CRITICISM BY DIGGING DEEPER).

In an earlier post, I discussed two digging tools that help us to find ways of improving our style of providing criticism and resolving conflicts (see WHY IS CRITICISM SO HARD TO BEAR?).  There, I mentioned that it is helpful to stay mindful that when people are criticized, their desire to be liked and to maintain their freedom may become threatened.  By keeping this in mind, we can often come up with less threatening alternative styles to engage people during our disagreements.  During recurring conflicts, these tools for digging can be very helpful.

Today, we are going to look at three other digging tools because they are especially helpful when we notice that we are dealing with recurring conflicts.

Three Digging Tools Especially Helpful for Resolving Recurring Conflicts

The three digging tools we will focus on today are in the form of questions:

1.  What desire might be motivating the conflict?

2.  What other desires might be motivating the conflict?

3.  Why do the people involved in the problem have this desire in this situation?

To familiarize yourself with this aspect of conflicts, please consider the following Beetle Bailey comic:

Beetle 1From this comic, we might get the impression that Sarge views this situation as a conflict he is having with Beetle, a conflict that we might describe from his perspective as follows:  Sarge desires Beetle to wait in a certain spot and interfering with his desire, Beetle wants to wait in a different spot.  Sarge believes that if Beetle doesn’t follow his order, he will be guilty of insubordination.

Suppose we ask Sarge if, from his perspective, these two sentences capture a conflict he is having with Beetle, and he replies, “Yes!  That lazy bum is trying to goof off again!”

At this point, something strikes me over the head, urging me to dig a little deeper than the two-sentence conflict description Sarge has said captures his conflict with Beetle.  It seems to me that Sarge and Beetle seem to be having far more conflicts with one another than is usual between a sargent and a private under his command.

Hmmm.  To begin digging into this conflict, I put my tools out there where I can easily get at them.  In bold letters I write out the following three questions.

1.  What desire might be motivating the conflict?  2.  What other desires might be motivating the conflict?  3.  Why does the party have this desire in this situation?

As I begin to think about this a little more, I wonder if the desire that I identified in my first attempt to describe the conflict is the best that I can come up with.  Is this really about Sarge’s desire to have Beetle wait in the exact spot that he has pointed to?

In this situation I don’t see how Sarge thinks Beetle is likely to behave in a manner that is interfering with what Sarge says he desires.  Beetle just asks if he can wait sitting in the shade.  Sarge knows Beetle well enough by now so that he must realize that once he orders Beetle to wait where he tells him to wait, he isn’t likely to be insubordinate.   Moreover, it wasn’t any problem for Sarge to figure out how to get Beetle to wait where he wanted him to wait.  All he had to do was bark orders at Beetle, something he’s done numerous times.  Perhaps Sarge has some other desire that is part of the reason he is getting so worked up here.

My memory scans over the other recent conflicts I’ve seen happen between Sarge and Beetle.  I recall, over and over again, situations that had Sarge perceiving Beetle as lazy.

Beetle 2I also recall seeing many times over the years Sarge becoming furious about Beetle’s laziness.

Beetle 3OK, so in most of the situations that conflicts spring up between the two, laziness is an issue.

Let’s pretend, for instructional purposes, that I can explore with Sarge whether or not we can reword the original conflict description as a recurring conflict.

“Sarge, I’m gonna describe your conflict a little differently than before because I don’t think the original description is as good as we can make it.  If you don’t mind, let me know if it is more or less accurate.  Earlier I described it from your perspective as follows: You desire that Beetle wait in a certain spot and Beetle interfered with your desire when he indicated that he wants to wait in a different spot.  You believe that if Beetle doesn’t follow your order, he will be guilty of insubordination.  You agreed that it is pretty accurate.  But what if I describe it instead like this: You have a desire to have privates under your command that are energetic go-getters, and after Beetle was assigned to your outfit you have found his laziness has been interfering with this desire.  You believe Beetle is, and will continue to be, guilty of laziness.”

“Yes, that is a much better description of my conflict with Beetle than your original description.”

“I thought it might be.  Beetle has been in your outfit for years.  Specific conflicts arose.  To deal with his laziness I’ve noticed that you have yelled at him, given him KP duty that required that he peel potatoes up to his ears, and used all manner of threats and physical attacks.

Beetle 4Beetle at least listens to your orders, though sometimes taking them a bit too literally.  But, nevertheless, he is never blatantly insubordinate.   Although Beetle continues to be lazy, you found that with a little assertive hollering (“I SAID WAIT HERE, AND I MEAN RIGHT HERE!”) he usually complies even if he has to stand in place while a steam shovel comes roaring by.”

“Yeah, but he keeps acting lazy.  It’s driving me BERSERK!”

“I can tell it’s starting to really get to you.”

“You’re telling me!!!”

“This last conflict you had with Beetle was resolved with so little difficulty that it really didn’t qualify as a conflict or even a problem.  And yet, Sarge, you remained angry.  And this kind of troubling interaction with Beetle has been happening in one situation after another.  Something else has to be going on.”

Beetle 5“Sarge, I noticed that in each situation that you get angry with Beetle Bailey, it usually has to do with his laziness.”

“You’re right about that!”

Once Sarge clearly understands the nature of his recurring conflict, he is in a better position to seek out a resolution.  Before he understood this, when he would complain to his fellow sergeants about Beetle not doing this or that, they would ask, “Well, did you get him to do it?”  When Sarge would answer yes, they would shrug, and say, “At least he’s not insubordinate.”  But now Sarge tells his fellow sergeants, “See if you can help me with this problem.  I want privates under my command to be energetic, hustling team members, and after Beetle was assigned to my outfit I’ve found his laziness has been interfering with this desire.  Beetle continues to be guilty of laziness.  Any of you have any ideas to fix this?”  

“Well, I had a recruit once by the name of Bob,” says one of the sergeants, “and he was the laziest bum I ever saw in my life.  Well, what I did was, I told this here Bob, the next time you do anything that strikes me as lazy, I’m gonna put you on KP duty until you go a whole two weeks without my catching you acting lazy.  Then I’m gonna let you off KP duty until I catch ya being lazy again.  We’re gonna keep doing this until you stop being lazy.  Anyway, it worked like a charm.”

Now I’m not saying this plan is ideal or that it will work every time.  I simply lay it out there as a part of a parable designed to give you an example of a recurring conflict and to suggest that by digging a little to better define a conflict, we are oftentimes better positioned to seek more specific, helpful advice.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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PUTTING DOWN NON-GROUP MEMBERS

calvin argumentOn this blog, I have often discussed various reasons why someone might throw insults at you, and, depending on the reason, how to maturely deal with these challenging experiences (see for example, “Insults: A Comic Strip Guide“).  If John is throwing an insult at you because he is in a bad mood, just asking in a concern manner, “Is everything OK, John, you sound like something is bothering you?” might be a useful way to begin to respectfully deal with this type of situation.  You might want to respond differently, however, if you see that John is insulting you because he hopes it will encourage you to make a change he thinks you need to make.  In this type of situation, beginning your response by initially ignoring the insult and instead summarizing his concern could be more helpful than asking if everything is OK or making a big thing about the insult.

In earlier posts, we have discussed eight different reasons why people throw insults at others, and mature responses to deal with each of these situations. Today let’s focus on some ways to deal with situations in which you might find yourself being insulted by those in a group because they view you as a non-group member.

Putting Down Non-group Members

Many people have a desire to join together in a common cause.  This can dramatically increase their own personal power.  And it is one of the big reasons why playing a game like baseball can be so much fun.  Hit a homer or even a ground ball that brings in the winning run, and your group is patting you on the back and cheering.

When immature people join together, however, because of their lack of empathy, they often join together to put down and humiliate non-group members–particularly if the non-group members are a minority or viewed as too powerless to defend themselves.

Sometimes we see this sort of behavior occur when a new girl starts a new school.

When someone faces these types of difficult situations, what is a respectable way to respond?  No single blog post can fully answer this question, but I would like to throw out some ideas for your consideration.  Let’s begin with a parable.

The Parable of Jason and Ron

As you look at the four pictures of this parable, let me add some details.  When Jason says, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ron,” he looks squarely into Ron’s eyes.  Then he gives Ron a slight nod of his head and goes on his way.  Throughout the interaction between Jason and Ron, Jason remains friendly, while at the same time, self-assured.

When I was in school, one day I noticed a boy handle a similar situation like Jason.  The other students seemed to respect how the boy handled the teasing.  So I began to rehearse this style in front of a mirror over the course of a few days.  The next time one of the older students teased me, I gave it a try.  It ended up working just fine.

The “Give The Teasers What They Want” Approach

Now I understand that the approach described in “The Jason and Ron Parable” might not work perfectly in every situation.  Acting self-assured might actually increase the desire by group members to prove that they are powerful and the person being insulted is nothing but a pile of trash.  To try to prove this, they might insult you even worse than if you said nothing, or they might even physically attack you.  Because of this risk, many people faced with insults from a larger, more powerful group choose to give the teasers what they want–to feel they are more powerful than others.  People using this approach, when faced by these teasers, keep their eyes down toward the ground, and try to walk away as quickly as they can without saying anything. In this way, they don’t challenge the teasers sense of power in any way.

I’ve seen people use the “Give the Teasers What They Want” approach and it sometimes works to a certain degree.  The immature group members, with their lack of empathy toward others, after saying a few mean things, let the teased person walk by, and there is no more of these incidences. The group members feel that they had a little fun and the teased person gets away without any physical harm.  His or her feelings might feel hurt, but this passes before too long.

I must admit that I used this approach a few times when I was young.  It bothered me that I didn’t stand up for myself in a more “manly” manner, but at the same time I was glad that I got home safe.

The “Physical Attack” Approach

Now in contrast to the approach used in the “Jason and Ron Parable” and the “Give The Teasers What They Want” approach, some people have made the case that if anyone insults you, the only proper way to deal with this is to start swinging with everything you got.  It doesn’t matter if you end up getting ganged up, beaten severely, or evenbeing killed, you must physically attack to maintain your dignity.  Consider Mike’s story.

Mike’s Story

One day, I received a comment on my blog by a young man who recalled an incident that he had had when he was a new kid at school.  “On the school bus,” he wrote, “I began to get picked on.  I was not the kind of mature kid who ignored the situation and so I ended up getting into fights as a result. I’d like to preface my next statement with the following–I am not condoning fighting and do not recommend fighting as a solution to any type of verbal altercation. That being said, after showing the bullies that I’d stand up for myself, not only did the bullying come to an abrupt end, but I ended up becoming friends with several of them and seemed to garner the respect of many of the other kids on the bus. Again I’m not condoning fighting but am suggesting that in some cases a show of strength can be an effective way to resolve conflict.”

Here’s how I responded to Mike:

Hi Mike,

You are absolutely right. In some situations a kid who starts to get picked on will physically go at those doing the tormenting. The tormentors end up backing down, others end up respecting the kid who shut the tormentors up, and the kid even ends up making friends with the tormentors. This is a real possibility. Now, let’s consider other possibilities of a kid physically going at his tormentors so all of us can make an informed decision about how best to handle these types of situations.

In one case that I’m familiar with, a boy that we will call Cal, went to his dad and complained in a choked up voice of a bully picking on him on the bus. The dad, having had a very similar experience when he was young that you had, Mike, began to holler at his son. “If someone picks on you, you go at him with everything you have and that will shut him up. That’s how I handled that type of situation and it worked every time. I can’t believe you didn’t do that. Here you are crying over it. I’m ashamed of you!”

What the dad didn’t know at the time was that Cal had already witnessed another kid on the bus who was bigger and stronger than him try to do just what his dad had said to do. The bully quickly grabbed the arm of this kid, twisted it behind his back until it was excruciatingly painful. After the kid tried his best to get free, the twisted arm was twisted tighter and the kid let out a scream. The bus driver yelled to quiet down. The bully then loosened his grip on the kid, slapped him on the side of his face, and said, “If you ever start in with me again, I’ll catch you after school and you’ll really be sorry.”

Cal, seeing this happen to someone he knew was stronger than he is, became increasing depressed and when he began to talk about killing himself, he ended up in my office. Before long he blurted out all that he was going through.

Now, here’s another possible outcome of a kid going physically at bullies. The kid ends up winning the fight, or at least does enough harm to the bullies, that they settle down for the remainder of the trip. But the bullies belong to a gang, and having embarrassed the bullies on the bus, the gang decides to get revenge. The kid gets attacked and ends up with serious injuries, or even dead.

Or the bullies, seeing that they can’t get the kid to kowtow to them, end up working up their fury until they begin to get revenge by doing some things behind the kid’s back. The kid discovers his backpack has been slashed and in the crowd that is looking on, he sees the bullies smirking. Then the kid’s bike is stolen. Again the bullies have smirks on their faces. The kid tries to get even, the conflict escalates, and before long someone gets knifed or a gun explodes.

These are just some of the other outcomes that have occurred when someone has decided to physically attack bullies. Each person has to consider the situation and decide what is right.

Since writing the above reply to Mike, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Outliers.  In one of his chapters, I learned that communities that have a higher than average percentage of people who hold the attitude that the only way to deal with people being disrespectful to you is to physically attack them tend to have higher than average murder rates.  Is that the type of community you wish to live in.  Some of the bullets that fly by in those communities end up striking people who are not even involved in the anger arousing situation, including children.  And so, I think people should think seriously about this issue.

Making a choice between which type of approach to use in any given situation requires some deep thought.  I hope this post gives you some useful material as you go about deciding for yourself what makes the best sense.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE’S USE OF INSULTS

In earlier posts on this blog I have advocated that it can be helpful to become familiar with five levels of maturity for responding to negative criticism and five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism (see for example Providing Negative Criticism: Five Levels of Maturity).  In those posts, I have contended that when responding or providing negative criticism the use of insults tends to lower your level of maturity.  Moreover, people who are less mature tend to be less liked and respected.

If the arguments that I have made in those earlier posts are accurate, how then can I explain the successful career that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has had?  Here is a man who is well known to use insults when he is criticized and when he is criticizing others.  Here is a man who likes to characterize his use of insults as his way of being “blunt and direct” even though a person can surely be blunt and direct without seeking to insult people.  Here is a man who has managed to get himself elected as a county legislator in New Jersey’s Morris County, appointed as United States Attorney for New Jersey, elected Governor of New Jersey twice, and viewed as one of the front runners for the next U.S. presidential election.  Here is a man that many people have come to admire.

By addressing this apparent paradox between my proposed levels of maturity and the success of Gov. Christie, readers will have an opportunity to come to a more refined, precise understanding of how to utilize the levels of maturity as a guide for dealing with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.

Explaining the Paradox

First of all, as I have explained in earlier posts, the five levels of maturity for responding or providing negative criticism are most relevant to your interpersonal relationships and your intrapersonal relationships.  As I define these terms, your interpersonal relationships are your interactions with people with whom you have direct, face to face interactions on an ongoing basis; your intrapersonal relationships involve interactions that you have with yourself.

The relationship that Gov. Christie has with his voters is best viewed as an intergroup relationship, rather than either an interpersonal or intrapersonal relationship.  This intergroup relationship involves the group of people who might potentially vote for him, the group of people who have a vested interest in getting the governor elected, and the groups of people who are working to get someone else elected.  Although the five levels of maturity are relevant in intergroup relationships, other issues often become more important.

In an interpersonal relationship, if you attempt to insult the person whom you are interacting with, that person might insult you back and the interaction can escalate into violence.  When we see Gov. Christie seeking to insult someone, he almost always has a group of supporters standing behind him and a team of armed security personnel well trained to intervene if an insulted party makes any moves at all that can be viewed as violent.  Under this set of circumstances, it is far safer to play the part of a tough guy who doesn’t take any crap from anyone than if you, personally, seek to insult someone with whom you have an interpersonal relationship.

Here’s another difference between what typically happens during your interpersonal relationships and the intergroup interactions that involve the governor.   When someone directly seeks to insult you, unless you are well trained in handling this in a peaceful manner, you are likely to take the insult personally.  The emotions that arise in this situation are more likely to be stronger than if you see on TV, or in a large arena, the governor throwing insults at someone you are not likely to personally know.

The governor, moreover, is not seeking to develop a sound interpersonal relationship with you.  He is, instead, seeking your vote.  He knows very well that not everyone is going to vote for him.  If he angers 49 percent of voters, but 51 percent end up voting for him, he’s achieved his goal.  In the last election, the governor managed to get 60% of the vote and not only did this mean that he was reelected, but the media repeatedly described his win as a landslide victory.  This victory meant that 40% of the voters voted for someone else.  Now, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, if you act in a manner that leads to 4 people out of 10 not liking you, this can lead to far more direct problems for you then if 4 out of 10 people don’t vote for you in a statewide election. Those who don’t like you can begin to say things behind your back to people who actually personally interact with you. Some of what get says can be untrue and very unfair.  You may find that when people that you like have parties, you no longer get invited.  When you used to be invited to go bowling, now someone else is getting invited.  These types of consequences have far more direct effects on your personal life than anything that is likely to happen as a result of a New Jersey election.

When people decide on who to vote for, they consider many issues, not just whether or not the candidate insults anyone.  When Gov. Christie insults someone, many voters are apt to say to themselves, he isn’t doing anything different than all the other politicians.  They therefore decide to choose a candidate based on other issues.  If some voters recognize that Governor Christie insults others a bit more than other candidates, they may feel that his stand on keeping taxes low is a far more important issue for them.

Gov. Christie’s popularity, in my opinion, is largely based on his positions on the issues and, indeed, on some of his personal characteristics.  Although the media plays up, and repeatedly show instances in which he insults people, if you really follow his career, you find that the vast majority of the time he conducts himself in a manner very consistent with the highest levels of maturity.  When someone criticizes him, most often he listens without getting defensive, clearly shows that he understands the criticism, and when he agrees with the criticism, he says so.  When he disagrees, in a warm and friendly style he very articulately explains why he disagrees.  People who have not made up their minds on a particular issue have an opportunity to see his take on the issue and a significant amount of undecided voters end up becoming convinced that the governor’s position is correct.

Gov. Christie has demonstrated that he knows how, when he is criticized or when he criticizes others, to act in the most mature manner.  When he does choose to throw an insult at someone, in the vast majority of cases he is very careful to do so when it is unlikely to harm him politically.  You can be sure that when he was the United States Attorney for New Jersey, any time  he disagreed with one of the judges involved in a case he was working on he never chose to directly insult the judge.  If he had, his career would have taken a tailspin.

The governor knows full well that there are voters in New Jersey who will never vote for him no matter what he says.  And so, when he chooses to insult someone, it is almost always directed at that group of people or the positions that they tend to believe in.  By doing so, his supporters come to see him as a leader who will be a strong defender of the positions they hold dear.

In recent events involving some lane closings on the George Washington Bridge into New York City that created gridlock traffic in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Gov. Christie began to use his style of insults in a very different manner than I had become accustomed to, and it has landed him in a heap of trouble.  The lane closings appeared to some reporters as a “get back” strategy designed to punish someone who didn’t support Gov. Christie in his latest run for reelection.  When questioned about this, the governor became sarcastic, and he sought to insult the questioners, saying they were “obsessing” over a minor issue, and claiming that the questioners must “having nothing else to do.”

This incident does demonstrate that using the most mature levels of dealing with criticism can be important even in the political arena.  If the governor, when he was being criticized for how he was handling the bridge lane closings incident, instead of responding with insults, replied in a manner consistent with a 4 or 5 level of maturity, his response would have looked something like this:

“I understand your concern.  Those lane closings led to thousands of people being inconvenienced for several days.  If it was one of my kids who ended up missing two hours of school for no apparent good reason, I would have been very upset, and as someone who cares about my fellow New Jersey citizens, I am very upset.  Making this situation worse was that police and ambulances had difficulty getting to where they were needed.  This is a very serious issue, and I am bound and determined to get to the bottom of what happened.”   

Such a response would have shown the questioner and all that listened in that he shared their concerns and had empathy for those who were involved in the mess.  Because of his more immature responses, a few days ago, after it became more and more apparent that his administration was indeed involved in a “get back” scheme, the governor had to apologize for his insulting actions.  In his nearly two hours of addressing the criticism in a national televised press hearing, the governor did not even once attempt to insult those who were publicly criticizing him as they asked their questions.  Instead, the governor modeled the most mature levels of responding to criticism.  Will it be enough to overcome all that he created when he responded at the lowest levels?  We’ll have to wait and see.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE

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DEALING WITH SUBTLE FORMS OF CRITICISM

If you have been following this blog, you know that from time to time I have been discussing insults and criticism.  In earlier posts, we looked at situations in which people end up feeling insulted because someone provided negative criticism.

peanuts opium

dilbert criticism 1

I have argued that rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism, as well as words that might come off as insulting.  When we learn to respond skillfully to negative criticism and insults, we develop a confidence in these types of situations.  This dramatically reduces our defensiveness.

An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring.  If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t be able to know when to apply the brakes on the car, and you are likely to end up in a serious accident.

Illustration by Lois Hubertz

Illustration by Lois Hubertz

Similarly, if you can’t identify when criticism is occurring, you won’t be able to know when to begin to put in place the plans that effectively deal with criticism.

male criticismfemale-criticsm

Although some forms of criticism are as easy to recognize as a red light, some forms of criticism are far more subtle and therefore often go unrecognized as criticism.  I therefore have presented posts that discuss dealing with direct and implied forms of criticism.  I’ve noted that when someone makes a suggestion, this usually implies some negative criticism.

Subtle 3I also explained how recommending that someone get some additional education also usually implies some negative criticism.

Illustration by Lois Hubertz

We also took a good hard look at certain forms of levity, in which negative criticism is designed to be charmingly provocative.  It seeks to get people to think more deeply about an issue.  As George Bernard Shaw put it in his provocative book, Back to Methuselah:

George Bernard Shaw 2“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
Shaw, to ward off defensive reactions to his quips, often created fictional plays and had the characters in the plays say them.  Great examples are:
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“
“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Today we will spend a little more time practicing enhancing our skills for recognizing subtle forms of criticism.  This will help to improve our ability to know when to start using our dealing-with-criticism skills.

More Examples of Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism

As we move forward, please keep in mind that for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as negative the evaluator has made a negative criticism.

FIRST EXAMPLE

subtle 1In the above Calvin and Hobbes scenario, Miss Wormwood politely asks Calvin to put his tiger, Hobbes, in his locker.  Calvin objects to this request by crying out—“In my locker?!  He’ll suffocate!”

Calvin’s response to Miss Wormwood’s request is an example of indirect negative criticism.  He doesn’t directly state he has evaluated her request and found that there is something wrong with it, or that it is bad, or something of that sort.  Nevertheless, he indicates that if he did what she asked, his tiger would suffocate.  To recognize this as a form of negative criticism, it helps to notice that in addition to Calvin’s statement there are other indications that he thinks there is something wrong with Miss Wormwood’s request.  The exclamation marks after Calvin’s statement, the drawing of Calvin with his mouth being wide open as if he is shouting, and the fact that he is practically flying out of his seat while he is shouting, all add up to indicate that Calvin’s reply is rightfully classified as a form of negative criticism of Miss Wormwood’s request.

Although Miss Wormwood takes Calvin’s negative criticism in stride, other teachers might become defensive, and yell something like, “Don’t you talk back to me, young man!”  This might silence students, but leave them seething with anger that is expressed by a rejection of the school enterprise; or it might lead to shouting back at the teacher, creating an escalation of conflict that takes valuable learning time away from the class.

If Miss Wormwood would have become defensive and started to yell at Calvin in response to his negative criticism, this would, according the the DIG Conflict Model, be rated an immature level of responding (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity). Instead, she steers in the direction of Calvin’s criticism by offering the compromise of putting his “tiger” under his desk where it will be at least out of the way.  This, according to the DIG Conflict Model, is one of the most mature responses (see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level).  We see, in this example, that Calvin quickly complies and his teacher can now go on with her lesson without any further delay.

SECOND EXAMPLE

Here’s a Sally Forth comic that illustrates that whenever there is a transaction involving a request or demand, we would be wise to anticipate negative criticism will be present as well.

Subtle 2In this comic, because Sally is visiting her mother for a few days, Ted is left on his own to deal with his nine-year-old daughter, Hil.  When Ted tells Hil it’s time for bed, she begins to reject his demand.  Is Hil’s rejection of the demand a form of criticism?

Well, consider her reply to her dad:  “But Mom’s not here!  We don’t need a bedtime!”  Hil has negatively evaluated her dad’s demand by expressing her disagreement with it.  If you tell someone you disagree with what he or she has done, you have negatively criticized the person’s act.

If Ted was skillful at first recognizing that Hil was providing him criticism, he would be in a better position to say to himself, “From what I’ve learned about the different levels of maturity, let me see if I can design a mature response.”  What if he came up with something like this?

“Hil, I admire the way you seek to defend your freedom.  I want to encourage that.  And you know I’m crazy about you.  At the same time, I also love your mom, as I know you do. It seems to me that we don’t want to break her rules behind her back.  The bedtime schedule is designed for you to get enough rest so you will do well in school.  Both of us have seen what happens to you when you don’t get enough rest.  When your mom gets home, if you want to discuss the rules, we can do it with her, you and me all altogether.  That would be the fair thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

These Examples are Designed to Encourage Deeper Thought

Above, I provided two examples of someone providing negative criticism.  For each example, a response was described that I think is pretty mature.   Please note, however, that I am NOT claiming that they are the ideal responses.  Nor am I trying to make the case that the responses portrayed in the above examples are the only mature responses that can be made.  There is a great deal of flexibility that we have for coming up with high level responses.  I present the above examples in an effort to challenge you to think more deeply about what mature levels of responding look like according to your own lights.

Well, that’s my post for this week.  To all of you who celebrate the beautiful Christmas season, I wish you good cheer, peace on Earth, and good will toward all of our fellow human beings!

With Warmest Regards,

Jeff

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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THE ART OF PLAYFUL TEASING

Young group of men who are bullying one of them.

TEASING 2Teasing is a game sometimes known as bantering, joshing, crackin’, rankin’, playing the dozens, and trash talk.  You are judged in part on the quality of your insults and also how well you keep your cool on being insulted.

Even the most mature people may like to play the teasing game, for they enjoy the duel of wits and the occasional humorous comeback.

MATURE VERSUS IMMATURE TEASING

Mature people are distinguished from immature people in this game by their lack of desire to hurt somebody in this game.  Their empathy helps them to realize that the smiles and the lighthearted tone they try to set throughout the game sometimes mask real tensions.  Thus, they keep their senses tuned to the subtleties of the repartee, and know when to back off when things begin to get too serious.

TEASING 4Less mature people, partly because of their lower levels of empathy, may think that the more awful they can make someone feel during this game, the better they are at it.  When the criticizers have themselves been humiliated by other immature people, they may come to be even more motivated to humiliate others as a way to take out their own pain on others.

IS PLAYFUL TEASING REALLY WHAT IS GOING ON?

TEASING 3If you find that you are being criticized and it doesn’t seem to be motivated by a desire to get you to improve, and you’re not sure what else may be the reason, my advice is to first theorize that it’s just some playful teasing.  If the criticism is provided with a smile, or by someone you know who likes to tease in a friendly way, you can be pretty sure that it is just for fun.  Then, if you reply with a smile and a comment such as, “That’s a good one,” it shows that you can take a little teasing without getting defensive.  If you want to take the game a little further, you can throw a friendly insult right back, like “Same to you, fellow.”  When you’ve had enough of the game, smiling and giving the other player a pat on the back can be a good way to draw the game to an end.

TEASING 8Sometimes you are not sure if playful teasing is the name of the game.  Then you have to be careful about throwing insults back at the insulter.  If it turns out that the criticizer’s comments are not meant to be playful teasing, throwing back insults might make the situation worse.  Here are some ideas that permit you to play along while providing you time to figure out what’s really going on.

After the first insult, consider responding in a kidding around way by crying, “OH YEAH!?”  As you do this, pretend, in an obviously joking around way, that you have become defensive at the insulter’s comment.  But then follow up your fake outrage with a broad smile.  This shows that you can play along with the insult while, at the same time, you can take a joke.

If the insulter again insults you in a manner that still leaves you uncertain if the person is just teasing, consider saying the following.  “It looks like you have some more missiles to send my way.  Okay, hit me with your best shots.  I already know that you think my nose is too big and my mother is a fool, so there’s no need to bother with those.  Go ahead.  I can take it.”

Then, if the insults continue, cry out, “Look out! Incoming torpedoes!  Mayday!  Mayday! I’m going down!  I’m sinking!  I’m sinking!” Then fall to your knees, and cover up your ears.

All of this allows you to continue to play along without throwing insults back at a criticizer who may not be playing the teasing game.  By the time you fall to your knees, if you still aren’t clear about what is going on, get back up and try saying in a concerned, caring way, “Listen, at first I thought you were joking around.  Now I’m not so sure.  Is everything okay?”

This often leads to the insulter revealing what is actually motivating this behavior.  But if the insulter walks away, and then begins to insult you on another occasion, it’s time to go down the list of other desires that motivate criticism (see HERE).

If you find that the person, or the group of people teasing you are playing the game of teasing in the immature manner—that is, just trying to make you feel as awful as possible—what can you do?   I suggest that you just give a quick nod at the comment and then get as far away as possible.  Then do your best to stay away from such people.

Now, I certainly realize it is not always easy to avoid a person or a group.  Students or bus monitors who ride the school bus are pretty much forced to be confined with a certain set of students for a period of time a couple of times each day.  TEASING 1Or the group you want to avoid might be in your classes.  As you leave the class you might be stuck walking down the hall with the criticizers.  In such cases, when you feel that you have reached your limit of dealing with the put downs, sometimes the following approach is worth a try.

To begin, this approach only requires that you learn to say two words—Please, enough.  That’s the easy part.  For some, learning how to say these words is the hard part of this strategy.

To use this technique, after two or three insults, say, in a very serious way, rather softly, but loud enough to be clearly heard, “Please.”  Then pause for about three seconds while looking firmly into the eyes of each person who has been teasing you.  Than say, “e” using the long “e” sound.  Then, after another second, say, “nough!”  When you look into the eyes of each of the name callers, you are NOT to glare at them in a threatening manner, with your eyebrows pressed to the middle of your forehead.  Rather, you are seeking to be firm and very, very, serious.

If immediately after you finish saying this, somebody begins to insult you again, repeat the same words in a similar manner, but this time say it distinctly louder, though just short of shouting.  At this point you are seeking to communicate that dire consequences are at hand.  You must be firm and look squarely into the eyes of each insulter once again.  Then you are to remain very serious while staring either out the school bus’s window or straight ahead where you are walking, but not at any one of the criticizers.  You are to remain silent, without talking to anyone, for the remainder of the period you are stuck together, looking the whole time like you are through fooling around and enough is enough!

When the end of the time period that you are stuck together comes, immediately take your stuff and hurry away from the group continuing to look like you are very much annoyed.

The next time you see them, again, turn very serious and silent.  If the group members don’t bother you, after a few minutes you can slowly begin to reduce the tension you have created.  If the group members again insult you at any time, be silent and serious while again staring out the window or, if you are walking, straight ahead.

tennis serveThe game of immature name calling is kind of like a tennis game.  In tennis, if someone hits the ball over the net to you and you refuse to hit it back, people will stop playing with you.  Similarly, if someone insults you and you remain silent, often the insulter will find the game too boring to continue.

Although the style I want you to consider comes fairly easy to some, others must learn it with someone who can model the right tone and expression.  Some people I worked with over the years found it hard not to put a smirk on their face after they said, “Please, enough!”  Some came off as embarrassed while they carried out the technique.  If you are not sure how you look while carrying out each step, observe yourself in a mirror.  Also run through a role play with a couple of friends or family members and ask them if it looks right to them.  Better yet, find out who directs plays at your school.  Find out the director’s office hours, and go and explain what you want to learn.

TEASING 7I encourage you to avoid becoming discouraged if you end up botching the performance the first few times you try this during practice sessions.  I’ve worked with students that at first kept cracking up throughout the process.  Every one of them eventually learned to effectively utilize this technique.  Five sessions, each lasting about fifteen minutes, can usually get a shy guy to put together an academy award winning performance.

TEASING 5There are times when those who are doing the teasing are being so cruel and relentless, that the wisest course of action is to inform authorities such as a school principal and the police.  This may take courage, but keep in mind that if you remain silent, not only will you continue to be cruelly treated, but so too will others.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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RESPONDING TO INSULTS BY IGNORING

If you have been following this blog, you know that I have often discussed different ways to respond to insults.

Illustration by Eric Sailer
Illustration by Eric Sailer

For example, some people respond to negative criticism that is designed to be constructive as if it was an insult.  They then become angry, defensive and end up storming away.  In a post titled CRITICISM AND WISDOM, I encouraged people who respond in this way to this type of criticism to learn to change their attitude. I explained that this type of criticism does not have to be viewed as an insult, but rather, as something potentially helpful and something that can lead toward wisdom.  Rather than becoming defensive, we can learn to welcome this type of criticism and even encourage the criticizer to feel free to provide additional criticism in the future.  This takes practice, but it can be achieved.

Sometimes people begin to throw insults at you because they are angry about a conflict they have with you.  In this type of situation, rather than to respond to the insults by becoming defensive and returning the insults, I advocated in an earlier post learning a plan to DIG FOR THE CONFLICT in a friendly, assertive manner.

More recently, I mentioned that in certain types of situations RESPONDING TO INSULTS WITH QUIET SADNESS can be helpful.  This type of response is most helpful when the insults are being provided because the insulter is in a stressed-out mood about something that has nothing to do with you, or because the insulter is jealous of you.

When I engage in discussions about the above types of responses, people sometimes ask me what I think about just ignoring an insult.

luann insultIn the above Luann comic strip, Delta tries to get Luann to consider ignoring Tiffany.  I wonder if it would be better to ignore her insult but not ignore Tiffany.

This ignoring insults strategy has been with us for a long time.  I remember a principal many years ago advocating that kids should learn to ignore insults because tossing insults at someone is a lot like a game of tennis.  tennis serveThat is, in tennis, if Ron serves a ball to you, if you refuse to hit the ball back, Ron will quickly become bored and find someone else to play with.  Similarly, if Ron throws an insult at you, if you ignore it, rather than throw the insult back, Ron will soon become bored and leave you alone.

There are times when I have used the ignoring approach fairly successfully.  I remember a time when I was about 12-years old.  I  was  passing three guys who were hanging out on a street corner.  They appeared to be around 18.  When they started insulting me, I ignored it and just kept walking.  They let me pass with just one more insult.  It was all over in a matter of seconds and no physical harm had occurred to me.  And so, the ignoring strategy worked pretty well.

However, when I got home, my imagination took flight.  I wondered  if my sense of being a “true” man had gotten roughed up just a bit.  supermanMaybe, I thought, if I really had guts, I should have told those guys a thing or two even at the risk of being beaten to a bloody pulp.  Then I imagined being Superman, and I used my super powers to beat all three of them up.

But now that I’m quite a bit older and I have a far more secure sense of my manhood, I think that under the circumstances that I found myself as a 12-year old, my actions were indeed reasonable.  I’ve learned over the years that nothing I could have done differently would have been really likely to have had any real positive impact on those three guys.

To create real change with boys like that requires an intervention that a typical 12-year old could hardly be expected to create.  martin luther kingIt would have to involve, for example, someone the older boys genuinely respect, or creating a coalition of citizens working together to take the type of nonviolent actions that was used to put a stop to the disrespectful treatment of blacks during the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.

For young children and those individuals who have trouble learning words, the great benefit of the ignoring approach is that it is perhaps the easiest strategy to learn.  Not even a single word is required, and it indeed can often produce better results then returning insults with insults.

word powerClose cousins to the ignoring approach, is to learn to use a particular word or phrase in response to the first insult followed by ignoring any following insults.  The most popular of course is “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me.”  Others are:

“So.”

“Good one.”

“Nice try.”

“I’m not going there.”

This “word or phrase approach” can give the person using it the experience of doing something to stick up for oneself.  The word or phrase is meant to convey to the insulter that you recognize the game that the insulter is trying to play, and you are smart enough to know how to refuse to play it if that’s what you wish to do.  There is a sense of empowerment that comes with being involved in a choice and taking some outward action to exercise your choice.  ignoreIgnoring, or covering your ears to pretend to ignore, without saying anything may seem “weaker” to you than at least saying something on your behalf in a pleasant, self-assured manner.

This strategy works best when the word or phrase is uttered in a pleasant, friendly tone while looking squarely into the eyes of the insulter.  If you instead say the word or phrase with a sneer or with any other action that tries to convey that you are somehow better or smarter than the insulter, the strategy is likely to make the situation worse.  You don’t want to do anything that makes the insulter angrier than he or she may already be. That might lead to an escalation of any underlying conflict and violence.  A sneer amounts to returning the insult, when that’s just what you want to avoid.  Any action that comes off as returning the insult will most likely motivate the insulter to try harder to make you feel bad.

Now, although ignoring or using a quick word or phrase followed by ignoring is easy to learn and often much better than returning the insult, for most situations trying to first find out why the person is throwing out insults is a much better course of action (see INSULTS: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE).  concernedBy asking the insulter in a concerned manner the reason for the insult can lead to a quick fix for some underlying problem.  And of course, if this “asking in a concerned manner” approach doesn’t work, you can always use the ignoring approach or one of its cousins afterwards.

Well, that’s my post for this week.  I’m hoping readers will take some time to post a comment about these ideas.  What has worked for you?  What has been your experience in trying any of these strategies?  I’d love to hear from you.

Have a great week!

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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RESPONDING TO INSULTS WITH QUIET SADNESS

A couple of weeks ago, I provided readers of this blog a post titled, “How I Met Cool Steve.”  There, I told a story from one of my novels about a teenager, Jeff Star.  At one point, Jeff is in an angry mood because his teacher gave him so much homework, and perhaps he is also having some jealous feelings about how much respect the other students have for Cool Steve.  Jeff Star tells us what happens next:

lincoln high1Suddenly I hear, “Hey, Jeff Star!”

I turn to my left and spot Cliff calling after me.  “Jeff, that guy Steve you were asking about,” Cliff calls out, “well, here he is.”

There, standing by Cliff is Cool Steve with a smile on his face.  As I walk over, I’m feeling a completely unfamiliar nervousness.  What’s he smiling about? I think to myself.  Cool Steve!  Cool Idiot if you ask me.  And then, when I open my mouth, I find myself saying in a loud tough voice, “So you’re Steve.  I’ve been hearing about you.  The word is you’re a Jerk!”

As I glare at Steve, with his Mack Truck shoulders, my heart pounds furiously.  From the corner of my eye I notice Steve’s friend, Cliff, watching on, his mouth closed so tight he seems to have no lips.  His words from yesterday come to mind—“Steve’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known.”

Big deal!  I’m ready to go at him.

I’m waiting for an angry come on, or a quick jab from his right.  My muscles are as tight as a hangman’s noose.

I notice several students who were walking home from school have put on their brakes, and their eyes are flashing back and forth between me and Steve.

Steve’s eyes lower, his forehead creases.  Then his eyes look into mine and I see, instead of fury, sadness.  “I guess,” he begins to say haltingly, “well… I was hoping… you know… starting a new school here… well, I was hoping the guys would like me.”

Those dark, glimmering eyes of his….

“Jeff,” says Cliff, “why did you say that?”

My eyes dart to him and back to Steve.  Cold perspiration beads up on my forehead.  The students looking on are almost drooling.  What should I do?

Uncomfortably, I find myself shifting my stance as I look into Steve’s eyes…the sadness there…eyebrows down.  They look like they are on the verge of becoming watery as he looks directly into my eyes, then down, and then back up into mine.  My fury begins to turn into a feeling of downright stupidity.   “Listen Steve, I… I don’t know why I said that… everyone I talked wit’ said you were okay.”  I take a quick glance at Cliff and the other students watching on…and then hurry away.

A few minutes later, I’m pushing the elevator button in my apartment lobby.  Jeez, I just made a great impression, I think to myself, a wonderful great impression.  Steve’s eyes… man, who is this guy?

In junior high, whenever I started to put someone down, I got returned insults and fistfights.  Such reactions would turn me into a raving lunatic. Now, with the way Steve acted, I don’t know how to respond to his quiet sadness.

In contrast to the beliefs of many people, the story, “How I Met Cool Steve” puts forth the theory that someone can be respected even if they respond to an insult in a different way than to return the insult or to physically attack the insulter.  calvin argumentAs a boy growing up in Brooklyn, I became pretty acquainted with the typical way to respond to insults.  Most often, voices would get loud, and the exchange led to a very uncomfortable feeling between the two parties.  When the two parties came back together, there were often more uncomfortable verbal exchanges.  From time to time physical fights would break out, school pants got ripped at the knees as one guy tried to pin down the other on the cement ground, and I saw more then one guy end up with a broken nose.  Parents had to take time off from work to meet with the principal, and sometimes the insults led to larger groups ganging up on other groups to defend the honor of someone.

outliersMalcolm Gladwell, in his fine book, Outliers, discusses regions where people are willing to fight in response to even the slightest insult.  He refers to these regions as having a “culture of honor.”  One of the clearest consequences of having an above average “culture of honor” is that the murder rate is quite a bit higher than average.

In the Cool Steve story, there is something about how Cool Steve uses his eyes to negotiate through his challenging experience with Jeff Star.

eyesHow we use our eyes can dramatically influence an experience.  To illustrate this, consider this example.  When I first began to drive in New York, I was astounded that there were times when I was trying to ease over to the left toward my exit, when I would encounter some aggressive drivers. They would lean forward and the expression on their faces seemed to say that they would kill me if I dared to move in front of them.

aggressive driverAs I reflected upon this, I recognized that there were times that I too acted like one of these aggressive drivers.  But then one day, someone began to indicate that he wanted  to move in front of me, and as I started to get into my angry, aggressive mode, the person seeking to move in front of me deliberately caught my eye with his friendly gaze and indicated with his hand that he wanted to move over.  polite driverThere was something in his eyes that seemed to be just asking me if I minded if he moved over, rather than like he was trying to bully his way over.  Instantly, I found my whole self dramatically change.  I quickly eased off the gas peddle and waved him over.  I felt a reduction in my anger.  His eyes somehow let me know that he was not merely an it–but rather, a fellow human being.

Afterwards, I began trying this approach whenever I wanted to move over in heavy traffic, and it has been an enormous help.

sad eyesHow we use our eyes can have similarly helpful effects when someone  throws an insult at you. By looking gently into the insulter’s eyes and softly letting the insulter know you are sorry to hear whatever the insult is about often eases tensions.  Then, if you look sadly down toward the ground for a couple of seconds, and then gently back into the insulter’s eye, this has a way of making a personal connection.

As I began to try this in my teenage years, I was amazed at how well it worked.   At first, I had a little fear that my friends would think less of me, but this proved unfounded.  Occasionally, a friend would say to me, “You should have slugged that guy who insulted you right in the kisser.” I’d shrug my shoulders, and that put an end to it.  All of my old friends stuck with me, and I ended up often becoming friends with the insulters.

Now, some people in my conflict resolution classes over the years have asked, “What’s wrong with standing up for yourself?”

My answer is, “Nothing is wrong with it.  I encourage people to stand up for themselves.  But there are smart ways to do it and not so smart ways to do it.”

Consider the following Luann  comic:

luann insultHere we see Luann preparing to stick up for herself so that as soon as Tiffany throws an insult at her, Luann will be ready to return the insult.  If you are a follower of the delightful Luann comic strip, you know that this back and forth insult pattern has been going on and on for years.  And if two people are fine with continuing to act this way toward one another, they are free to do so.

But let’s say Luann is getting tired of this old game.  If she really wanted to effectively stand up for herself, she would first try to figure out why Tiffany is insulting her.  It has long been my impression that Tiffany is jealous of Luann because some boys prefer Luann to her.  Returning insults at Tiffany won’t resolve that issue.  Gently looking sadly into Tiffany’s  eyes and asking her in a concerned voice why she is throwing insults at her might lead to a more lasting solution to this type of problem.

Now, of course this quiet sadness approach is just one tool to have in your conflict resolution toolbox.  It is not quite right for every situation.  In the past, I recommended a few others (see for example, INSULTING CRITICISM: WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?). We’ll also be looking at other effective ways to stand up for yourself in future posts, ways that oftentimes work far better than returning insults.

Have a great week!

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on.  This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence.  To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.