A Guide To Anger And Conflict Resolution
In my last blog post, THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “A” I presented some ideas about the nature of power. The key points are: 1. power consists of our skills to achieve our desires 2. when we feel confident that we can achieve our desires, generally speaking, we feel less defensive when someone throws insults at us 3. to better handle name calling, insults…
Read MorePower, in one sense, is the ability to achieve your desires. In another sense, it is the feeling you get when you have mastered a skill that increases the probability that some desire of yours will be fulfilled. And in yet another sense, it is the feeling that you get when you come to believe that you have the ability to master any skill that…
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“Judy, it’s so nice to see you,” I say as she comes into my office and sits down on my couch. “I’ve been reading your blog again, Dr Rubin. It’s filled with a bunch of hogwash.” “Hmmm, it sounds like there are some ideas in it that you don’t care for.” “I read last night two of your blog posts–Is Criticism Bad and Criticism and Wisdom. …
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Back in April of last year, in a post titled, WHY IS CRITICISM SO HARD TO BEAR?, we began to discuss the fact that when we provide negative criticism to others, they may feel insulted, they may feel that you feel they are not worthy of being liked, and they may feel that you are trying to push them to make some change that should…
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In my previous post, I offered some suggestions for dealing with criticism. There, I mentioned that in difficult situations I have found it helpful before providing criticism to pause. Because people want to be liked and to be free to make their own decisions, during my pause I think about how to minimize any perceived threat to these two desires. To practice this skill, I…
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In a recent post (Dealing with Criticism by Digging Deeper) I discussed some difficult situations that may occur when we deal with criticism. There, I mentioned that in these types of situations, it can be helpful to do our best to describe what the criticizer’s most obvious desire is for providing the criticism and then to look to see if there are any other desires…
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“I’ve been reading your blog posts, Dr. Rubin,” Judy says sounding annoyed. “You are making everything sound way too complicated.” “I’m pleased that you’ve been checking it out,” I reply. “I’d love to hear more about your reactions.” “Well, yesterday I went over to pick up my friend, Sue, to go to a party. She was wearing an outfit that was almost identical to mine. So I…
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A few weeks ago I published a post titled CONFLICTS WITH OURSELVES: LESSONS FROM CHARLIE BROWN. Today, let’s quickly review the ideas presented there, and then move on to discuss a few more. Review When one person has a conflict with another person, we call this an interpersonal conflict. An intrapersonal conflict occurs when a person has a conflict with himself or herself. When we…
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Lately, we have been focusing largely on conflicts that deal with one person having a conflict with another person. We call these interpersonal conflicts. Today we begin to turn our attention to intrapersonal conflicts. This type of conflict occurs when a person has a conflict with himself or herself. We can see both of these types of conflicts occurring in the following Peanuts comic. If…
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A while back I saw a YouTube video dealing with insults that made someone cry went viral. It is called, Bus Stop Ignorance. In the video we see 43-year-old William Bailey taunting Hope Knight, a ten-year old girl with cerebral palsy. Hope uses crutches and Mr. Bailey, in the video, mocks the way she walks. He also gets his son to join him in the…
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