Tag: wisdom

A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE FOR TRANSFORMING ANGER INTO CHALLENGE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 6, 2013
1 Comment on A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE FOR TRANSFORMING ANGER INTO CHALLENGE

If you follow the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, you know that Calvin, from time to time, does some things that upset his Dad. And it is often not hard to understand why his father might become angry at some of Calvin’s actions.

Here we see Calvin’s dad blowing up in anger. My wife and I raised two sons, and I wouldn’t be honest if I claimed that I never lost my temper with them. And so, I can certainly sympathize with Calvin’s dad in the above comic.

At the same time that I sympathize with Calvin’s dad, I do want to encourage people to consider the value of an alternative to reacting by screaming in fury. I want to advocate considering transforming the anger into challenge (see post titled “Anger Suppression Versus Challenge”).

Let’s suppose that you are Calvin’s dad and just before you blow up in anger, you pause because you realize you are becoming angry. You had practiced several times over the past week using a special skill to handle this type of situation, and you find that now you can smoothly and comfortably use that skill. You quickly summarize for Calvin the conflict by saying in a warm, friendly voice, “Calvin, yesterday you desired to have dessert, and I interfered with your desire because I didn’t let you have any. You feel that I am guilty of being unfair for punishing you for flooding the house. In the future, you would like me to handle this type of situation in a better way. Is that right?”

After summarizing the conflict in this way, you listen to Calvin’s reply. Then you explain in a pleasant voice that you will think about his concern over the next few days.

Over the course of the next few hours you take a few minutes to allow yourself to experience the anger within your body, just observing how it feels. By the next day, you have probably calmed down. You begin to try to come up with at least two alternatives to deal with Calvin then shouting. Then you carefully weigh whatever you can think of about the costs and risks of negative consequences, as well as positive consequences, that could flow from each alternative. You discuss this with your wife and some others that you respect. Once you come up with an alternative with which you feel comfortable, you close your eyes and imagine carrying out the alternative with charm, courage, and determination. You practice this again in your mind on two other occasions. Finally, you go back to Calvin and give your plan a try.

This, in brief is an example of transforming anger into challenge.

Now, when we start to consider alternatives to our angry outbursts, sometimes people will discourage any consideration of alternatives other than the one they believe is best.

Not only do we find that some people with whom we discuss alternatives insist that only one is good and all others are a ridiculous waste of time to even consider, sometimes we, too, will start with the bias that there really is only one alternative that is best even before we first take a good hard look at the pros and cons of other alternatives. This attitude is viewed as being “closed-minded.” Challenge requires a more “open-minded” attitude.

When we utilize challenge, we don’t make a decision by simply adding up the gains and then subtracting the losses for each alternative. Some gains are far more important than others. A young woman contemplating having a baby might list on the negative side the pain of childbirth, cost of adding the baby to her health plan, cost to feed the baby, loss of quiet personal time, and nastiness of changing diapers, but just the single positive of having a sweet loving baby as part of the family might far outweigh all of these negatives. And so, the best we can do is to use an approach similar to what Benjamin Franklin proposed back in 1772. After listing the pros and cons of each alternative during three or four days, he explained that,

…I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two reasons con, equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies; and if, after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And, though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet when each is thus considered, separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to make a rash step, and in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra. (Letter dated September 19, 1772, to the British scientist, Joseph Priestly.)

Franklin’s approach seems to suggest that once the alternatives are identified our task is to simply decide which is best by weighing the pros and cons. But I often find myself, after looking over the pros and cons of each alternative, tweaking one or more of the alternatives depending on the circumstances with which I am dealing.

Thus, I am not tied to the alternatives I first come up with. Those alternatives can be modified as I think more deeply about their pros and cons. For example, once a teacher referred a 14-year old boy to me because he was being very disrespectful to her whenever she criticized him. Let’s call him Carl.

In some such cases, just developing a pleasant relationship with the student for a few minutes, and then asking him to treat his teacher with more respect is enough to see a marked improvement. And sometimes it is not enough.

As I worked with Carl, it soon became apparent that even if he tried to be more friendly and respectful, he would end up botching the attempt. And so I set myself on teaching him some specific skills.

After I went over the five levels of responding to criticism with Carl and he showed me in role plays that he had mastered the ability to act the highest two levels, we filled out a balance sheet together for him to consider the positives and negatives for each of two alternatives:

Use at least a level four response whenever the teacher criticizes him
Continue doing what he had been doing.

After filling out the balance sheet, Carl very quickly pointed out that one of the negatives for choosing the first alternative was that his two friends in the class would lose respect for him. That single negative was enough for him to completely discount any of its positives and he let me know that he therefore decided to continue to be disrespectful to his teacher whenever she criticized him. I could have left it at that, but I tried to figure out if there was a way to tweak the more mature responding alternative so that the single negative would no longer be the deciding factor.

We ended up modifying the first alternative. If he chose it, Carl would first have a discussion with his two friends about the five levels of responding to criticism. Carl would begin by explaining the five levels and then asking his friends how they would want him to respond when they criticized him. Then this alternative called for Carl to explain to his friends that he was in a tough spot because if he kept acting disrespectfully to the teacher, his parent would be called, he would go to in-school suspension after each disrespectful act, and if he still didn’t stop, he would be referred to a committee that would consider placing him in a special education class. This plan also called for Carl to let his friends know that after trying to help Carl work through his disrespectful behavior, the teacher intends to put both of Carl’s friends through the same process he is going through unless they stopped their disrespectful behavior on their own. Finally, he was to ask his friends what they thought he should do.

Before Carl decided on whether or not he should choose this alternative or the one that had him continue to be disrespectful to his teacher, I had him act out some role-plays. First, he acted himself discussing with his friends the alternatives he was facing and I acted the part of his friends. Then we reversed roles with Carl playing the part of his friends while I took a shot at being Carl. We switched these roles back and forth several times over the course of an hour meeting.

Once Carl found he was able to get comfortable having this type of discussion with his friends, he came to agree the tweaked alternative was worth a try. And it turned out that his friends agreed that Carl could be respectful to his teacher when she criticized him, but that he couldn’t be too “lovey-dovey” with her or it would make them throw-up.

Interestingly, once he and his friends began to treat the teacher with more respect, she began to treat them with more respect, and the boys’ initial dislike for the teacher changed, and she became one of their favorite teachers.

This example illustrates that we need not simply reject an alternative when one or more of its negatives lead us to reject it. We can instead consider whether or not we can make some changes to the alternative that would make one of the negatives less problematic. Similarly, we may seek to find ways to make one of the positives of an alternative more positive. And so, there is no single way to use this type of tool. Feel free to experiment with it as you deem fits the current circumstances.

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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.

Tags alternatives, anger, Benjamin Franklin, Calvin and Hobbes, challenge, comic strip, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, respect, wisdom

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FROM ANGER TO CHALLENGE: A STEP ONE EXAMPLE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 22, 2013
1 Comment on FROM ANGER TO CHALLENGE: A STEP ONE EXAMPLE

On this blog, we have been discussing how we can move from anger to challenge. In one post, to help to move in the direction of challenge, I asked you to think of conflict as a great sea.

I explained that there is a region of the Sea of Conflict that is known as Anger. There, storms are particularly likely to churn up, and some of them have the potential to be very dangerous. It is for this reason that it is vitally important, whenever possible, to recognize when we begin to approach and enter into this region.

Challenge is a region of the great Sea of Conflict that is very close by to Anger. Because less experienced sailors are unaware that Challenge exists and where it lies, when they find that they are caught in an Anger storm they often succumb to the lashing of the violent waves. Great sailors, in contrast, know about Challenge. In fact, when caught in an Anger storm, just knowing that Challenge is just a knot or two away enables them to gather a sufficient surge of energy to carry out well practiced skills that give them a reasonable chance to reach relative safety.

In another post, I asked you to consider calling a timeout when you feel that things are getting a bit out of hand, kind of like they do in sports.

I went on, in that post, to suggest that in anger arousing situations you might want to call a time out in the following manner:

When you see that you are becoming angry, or the other party is, make a statement in a warm friendly manner indicating that you are very interested in what was said, you plan to think a little more about this over the next few days, and then you’ll be ready to discuss this further. Then, let the other person have the last words while you listen in a caring way.

And in yet another post, I described a technique to deal with anger arousing situations known as the Signaling to Back-Off Technique.

This technique works best in an ongoing relationship, although I have seen it work well with people who hardly know each other. The best way to set this up is to discuss this technique with the other person at a time when both of you are not in an angry mood. You might say to the other party something like:

Sometimes I begin to get really upset about something you are saying. I know that it’s important for me to hear your point of view and I do want to hear what you have to say. But there are times when I’m in no condition to give you a fair hearing on a particular topic. At such times, it would help me a great deal if I could give you a simple signal for you to back off for a while. I’ll make sure you’ll get your opportunity to have your full say on a topic before too long—almost always within a week. But I sometimes require a little time to get my act together first. Would you mind helping me out in this way?

Now once you have removed yourself from the anger arousing situation, I proposed that you consider using a two-step technique to move from anger to challenge. Today, we will look at a parable of someone using Step 1.

A Step One Example: You and your Friend, Eric

You and your friend, Eric, were discussing the upcoming election. Eric had explained why he was going to vote for someone in the upcoming presidential elections you thought would do an awful job. You both discussed the matter for awhile, and eventually it became clear to you that neither of you were going to change your opinions.

It was at this point that you had felt your anger toward Eric rising up within you. “Eric,” you said, “I think I understand your position. Let me think about the points you made today for awhile.” Then Eric restated a few of his points, and you listened in a caring way. Part of you strongly wanted to say some things once again to show Eric why you disagreed with him, but because you had practice using this “moving to challenge” technique several times over several weeks, you found that you were able to just give Eric a smile, and then you thanked him for his willingness to discuss this topic. Finally, you changed the topic, asking Eric how his job was going.

Later that day, you spent an hour thinking through what had happened using the “distancing” exercise we discussed in an earlier post (see “Does Venting Anger Feed the Flame?“). In brief, this involves imagining that you have returned to the time and place of the angry experience, and you are preparing to observe the scene just as it happened. As the unfolding of the event gets underway, take a few steps back. Move away from the situation to a point where you can watch the event unfold from a distance and see yourself in the event. Focus on what has now become a distant you. Watch the situation unfold as if it were happening to the distant you all over again. Replay the event as it unfolds in your imagination as you observe your distant self.

After you utilize the “distancing” technique, you come to decide that Eric had a right to his opinion and that you were going to let the issue drop. Moreover, if Eric brought the topic up again, you would smile, pat him on his back, and say, “Well Eric, by now you know my opinion about this and I certainly know yours. We obviously disagree. Nevertheless, I’m still very fond of you.”

Another day goes by. Again you spend a few minutes going through the experience from a few steps back from what actually occurred, observing your distant self in the event. Then you see if you can work up a heightened sense of determination to achieve your desire to resolve this conflict. You consider the twin beliefs that the stress you have been experiencing is normal and fulfillment is not found in easy comfort, security, and routine, but rather in the continual growth in wisdom through what is learned from negative and positive experiences of an active, changing life

Then, you take a deep breath and resolve to get down to the task at hand. Once again you consider the plan you came up with yesterday. It still feels like this obvious solution makes sense. You ask yourself, “If this plan doesn’t work out, are there any serious risks?”

As you consider this, you realize Eric’s opinion might influence a few other votes, but it is not at all likely he will alter the outcome of the election. You and Eric have had numerous disagreements in the past and it never led to any major break in your relationship. You therefore decide that your plan does NOT pose any serious risks.

Thus, you set yourself on carrying out your plan with charm, courage, and determination. Part of the plan involves practicing three times in your mind what you will say to Eric if the election topic does come up.

The next time you see Eric, he begins to tease you about whom you plan to vote for. You smile, and find that you have no problem telling him what you had practice saying. Eric replies by shrugging his shoulders and then both of you begin to talk about another topic.

Example Discussion

Notice that in this step one example, after coming up with a plan, you take a day to “sleep” on it. If, on the day after you sleep on it, the plan still makes sense even after you use the “distancing” technique a second time, you then ask yourself, “If this plan doesn’t work out, are there any serious risks?” In our example, you decide that there are no serious risks, so you set yourself on carrying out your plan with charm, courage, and determination. At this point you have converted your anger experience to challenge.

But what happens if there are serious risks, or you just are not comfortable with the plan that you created? Then it’s time to go to step two for reaching the region of Challenge on the Great Sea of Conflict. We will take up this topic next week.

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Tags anger, challenge, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, psychological maturity, wisdom

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ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 1, 2013
7 Comments on ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Despite the ample evidence that anger is fraught with danger, human debasement, and ineffective functioning, many people seem reluctant to put their heart and soul into learning more effective alternatives. Why is this? One of the biggest reasons is that our culture presents in both direct and subtle ways the theory that suppressing anger can be harmful. Here we will explore this theory. As we do so, we will learn that we can, if we so choose, sail from the region of Anger to Challenge—and thereby improve our chances for survival and a safer and more pleasant ride on the great Sea of Conflict.

SUPPRESSING ANGER

According to Sigmund Freud, if anger reactions are inhibited, they are replaced by substitutes, some of which may lead to harm. In The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud, (Strachey, 1974), the clearest statement about this appears below:

When Bismarck had to suppress his angry feelings in the King’s presence, he relieved himself afterwards by smashing a valuable vase on the floor. This deliberate replacement of one motor act by another corresponds exactly to the replacement of natural pain-reflexes by other muscular contractions….(p. 202)

We transpose the excitement of anger from the adequate reaction to another one, and we feel relieved provided it is used up by any strong motor innervations.

If, however, the affect can find no discharge of excitement of any kind along these lines, then the situation is the same with anger as with fright and anxiety. The intracerebral excitation is powerfully increased, but is employed neither in associative nor motor activity…. The excitement arising from the affective idea is “converted” into a somatic phenomenon. ( p. 206)

Freud believed that some of these somatic phenomenons were undesirable. After Freud, others promoted this idea. For example, Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the most popular psychologists of the twentieth century, stated that anger suppression “can easily result in psychosomatic reactions, including high blood pressure, heart problems, ulcers, and various other physical conditions.”[1]

In an effort to test this hypothesis, scientific individuals began to carry out some systematic studies. Some seemed to find support for this notion that suppression can be harmful. For example, Hokanson,[2] Baker & Schaie,[3] and Gambaro & Rabin[4] (1969) found that angered adults often achieved a faster decrease in blood pressure to baseline levels if they counteraggressed toward their antagonist than if they were given no opportunities to respond. In other studies carried out by Holmes[5] and Kahn[6] however, counteraggression was found to sustain elevated arousal, whereas nonaggressive activities reduced it.

Dr. Albert Bandura,[7] attempting to make sense of these apparently contradictory findings, carefully examined this body of research and finally concluded that the physiological tension of angry individuals is determined by what they do, the perceived consequences of what they do, and also what they think. People who believe that freely expressing their anger will discourage future negative responding from their antagonist experience relief after anger outbursts. Those who believe that freely expressing their anger will spur even more severe threatening responses from their antagonists maintain their elevated blood pressure subsequent to angry outbursts. Those who believe kindly responses to provocation will discourage future negative responding from the antagonist experience relief after providing a kind response. Those who believe kindly responses to a provocation will lead their antagonist to take advantage of them will maintain their elevated blood pressure after providing a kind response.

James J. Gross has reviewed more recent research on suppression in his fine article titled, “Emotion Regulation: Taking Stock and Moving Forward” (Emotion, Volume 13, June 2013, pp 359-365).

“Affectively, suppression leads to decreased positive but not negative emotion experience, increased sympathetic nervous system responses, and greater activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala. By contrast, reappraisal leads to decreased levels of negative emotion experience and increased positive emotion experience, has no impact on or even decreases sympathetic nervous system responses, and leads to lesser activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala and ventral striatum (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitively, suppression leads to worse memory. By contrast, reappraisal either has no impact on subsequent memory, or actually improves it, and can enhance exam performance (Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010; Richards & Gross, 2000). Socially, suppression leads to less liking from partners, and to an increase in partners’ blood pressure levels. Reappraisal, by contrast, has no detectable adverse consequences for social affiliation in the laboratory (Butler et al.,2003).”

Anger Management Training without Suppression

The association of anger suppression with anger management training is understandable, for when one has spent many years acting one way, learning alternative behaviors can be frustrating. This uncomfortable sensation may be seen as the suppression of one’s “natural” mode of behavior. It’s a similar experience to how actors might feel when first learning a new role or golfers a new swing. At first the skill to be learned feels awkward, and the early phase of learning can leave them to observe their heart racing and their blood pressure skyrocketing.

However, by designing a program in small incremental steps and heeding the following suggestions, the feeling of suppressing one’s natural behavior can be largely reduced or even completely eliminated.

First of all, expect occasional missteps. By studying the posts on this blog, it is likely that several situations will occur that you now find yourself handling much better than before. If the response by others you are engaged with ends up being favorable, this will encourage you to utilize the same approach again and again until it begins to feel natural, that is, second nature to you. Other skills will come off a bit awkward or you will get a less than favorable response, and you may experience frustration. When you try the skill again, you may now feel unsure and your effort may lead you to interpret this as suppressing a more “natural” way to respond. You may, therefore, give up and conclude that you are helpless to make a meaningful change in this type of skill.

The solution here is to reread the section that discusses the skill, and then practice over and over in your mind a narrative that has you envisioning utilizing the skill. When you can smoothly imagine in detail carrying out the skill, try it out again in real life. You may have to do this a few times until you get it right.

As you increase your skill to deal with anger arousing situations, your confidence in handling them will increase. Because anger arises when we experience a threat, with your increase in confidence you will then find you are less likely to experience situations that use to feel threatening as threatening. Consequently, you will be less likely to suppress anger because you won’t experience anger as often.

For more difficult to change behavior, form a small group of two to four people who agree to work together on the skill. Then assign a leader on a rotating basis. Conflicts in which the group members typically experience anger are identified. Then a video recording is created with the group members serving as the actors. One scenario is acted out demonstrating what actually occurred. Then a non-angry approach to dealing with the conflict that has the support of the group as being more effective than the angry approach is created. Video recording devices are readily available these days because of apps on many phones.

Keep in mind that the acting doesn’t have to be an Academy Award winning portrayal. Just a fun process is encouraged. By participating in this acting process and then viewing the video recordings displaying alternative behaviors, some will find they will adopt the skills in an effortless manner.

In the next part of this group process, competent behaviors are further encouraged by creating another set of video recordings using slightly different scenarios. Concrete examples are thus repeatedly affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally rehearsed while clear audiovisual feedback is provided. Observers can ask to pause at a little section that worked particularly well and review it a few more times until it becomes more and more familiar.

Throughout this process, some of the group participants’ suggestions may begin to feel uncomfortable to one or more of the other participants. This can interfere with the training process if poorly handled. I have found it useful from time to time to preface my recommendations with the same gentle admonishment that the famous physicist Niels Bohr used to give his students: “Every sentence I utter should be regarded by you not as an assertion but as a question.” This tends to disarm those who find that they are resisting suggestions, sets the stage for a helpful collaboration, and fosters interest from the satisfaction derived from fulfilling one’s own internal standards.

As you go through this process several times, you will find more and more that your behavior will begin to change in real life situations. At such times, you will often find people reacting very positively to your new style, and this will further encourage you to continue to utilize it. You won’t feel like you are suppressing anger, but rather, comfortably learning a new set of skills that works better than anger.

At other times, even a skilled real life response to a situation that had previously led to anger arousal will be met with someone acting in an undesirable manner. The group you have formed will provide you the opportunity to have some support to address this type of experience. Together, you can continue the problem solving required for addressing a wider and wider range of situations until you feel sufficiently confident to go it alone. It is important to keep in mind that even the most skilled techniques will not produce a perfect result on every occasion. The best we can hope for is to increase the probability that we will obtain a favorable outcome.

If you find it difficult to identify a small group of individuals to do the video recording skill development just described, consider hiring a professional counselor who will go through the process with you. Most professional counselors and psychologists that I’ve met are particularly skilled at modeling empathic understanding, a crucial skill that is necessary for working through anger arousing situations.

[1] A. Ellis, 1977, How to Live with—and without—Anger, New York: Reader’s Guide Press, page 200.

[2] J. E. Hokanson, 1970, “Psychophysiological Evaluation of the Catharsis Hypothesis,” In E. I. Megargee & J. E. Hohanson (Eds.), The Dynamics of Aggression (pp. 74-86), New York: Harper & Row.

[3] J. W. Baker & K. W. Schaie, 1969, “Effects of Aggressing ‘Alone’ or ‘with another’ on Physiological and Psychological Arousal, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 80-96.

[4] S. Gambaro & A. I. Rabin, 1969, “Diastolic Blood Pressure Responses Following Direct and Displaced Aggression after Anger Arousal in High- and Low-Guilt Subjects,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 87-94.

[5] D. S. Holmes, 1966, “Effects of Overt Aggression on Level of Physiological Arousal,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 189-194.

[6] M. Kahn, 1966, “The Physiology of Catharsis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 278-286.

[7] A. Bandura, 1973, Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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Tags anger, angry feelings, challenge, conflict management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, frustration, insults, psychological maturity, respect, sigmund freud, wisdom, works of sigmund freud

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RECURRING ANGRY MEMORIES

Angry memories of past conflicts can have important consequences as new conflicts arise. When dealing with a new conflict, recalling a similar conflict that occurred in the past can help us to consider utilizing a strategy that we had tried that ended up producing a satisfactory resolution, or to consider avoiding a strategy that we had tried that ended up failing miserably.

Sometimes we find that an angry memory keeps recurring even when we are not immediately facing a situation that is similar to what led to the original anger-arousing event. This can potentially lead to something positive. Each time we think over the memory in light of what we have learned since the event first occurred, we might think of some better ways to deal with the conflict. Then, if a similar event does occur, we may find that we are better prepared than if we hadn’t repeatedly mulled it over.

Despite their helpfulness, there are times when again and again an angry memory keeps creeping ever so annoyingly into our consciousness so that finally we conclude it doesn’t seem to be doing us any good. For the hundredth time Ralph suddenly finds
himself thinking, “Oh, if I only hadn’t struck that blow!”

For the nine-hundredth time Betty chastises herself, “Oh, if I only hadn’t cried out with the insulting word that I’ve been regretting ever since!”

Ralph and Betty have gone through the disturbing event way too often, sifting through all the minutest details, and now they wish they were just through with it!

In two earlier posts (see “Anger, Ruminations, and Meditation” and “Dealing With Emotional Pain“), I discussed how learning to meditate, expressive journal writing and sensation-focus techniques can be very helpful for dealing with these types of situations. Today we will look at an additional strategy.

Changing Rigid Thought Patterns

We now turn our attention to replacing habitual, destructive ways of thinking with a more peaceful, constructive approach.

Different ways of framing a stressful experience can have remarkably different consequences.

In the above For Better or for Worse comic, Elly is nervous about her big exam. When John frames the test in one way, Elly begins to smile. When he frames “flunking out” as “no big deal,” Elly’s smile is gone and her eyes begin to bug out.

In the comic, it is John who is framing the stressful experience for Elly. But if we could go back before John begins to do this, and then be able to read Elly’s mind, we probably would see that she has already framed her experience using some habitual phrase that she tells herself in this type of situation. For example, she might have said, “If I fail this test, it will prove I’m the stupid jerk I always knew I was!” According to cognitive psychologists, such a statement is far from ideal.

Dr. Aaron Beck, in his fine book, Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence (1999), points out that mates in a distressed marriage are more prone to ascribe unpleasant behavior to the bad nature of the spouse, whereas non-distressed couples will ascribe the same incident to the nature of the situation. Thus, mates in the distressed marriages are more likely to think that the unpleasant behavior demonstrates that their mate is malicious, manipulative, and deceptive. Those in non-distressed marriages will be more likely to think that their spouse acted unpleasantly because she had a hard day at work, or something else happened that led to this behavior.

In Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them?, a team of scientists has a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. At one point the Dalai Lama argues that the antidote for angry thoughts is to view the person with whom you are angry as your loving mother. “This is done to arouse a sense of affection and gratitude by focusing on the person who has shown you the greatest love and compassion.” If you do not see your mother as deeply loving you, when you carry out this technique you can replace the image of your mother with someone whom you do see as deeply loving you.

Another book that teaches the art of changing angry thoughts to more constructive ones is The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict (2006). There, the authors make the case that during anger-arousing situations people often begin to think of the person on the other side of the conflict as objects that are obstacles to what we desire. The authors call this pattern of thinking, “Heart at war.”

The authors invite people to try out instead a pattern of thinking they call “Heart of Peace.” This entails viewing the other as a person with hopes, needs, cares, and fears as real to you as your own. The authors conclude that “when our hearts are at war, we can’t see situations clearly, we can’t consider others’ positions seriously enough to solve difficult problems, and we end up provoking hurtful behavior in others.”

As an alternative, consider what happens in American courts of law after someone is found guilty of a crime. Before deciding on what should occur to the convicted person, the judge has the jury hear once again from the defendant’s lawyer. The lawyer now is to present the argument that there were extenuating circumstances that mitigate guilt. A talented lawyer might touch upon the fact that the defendant was an orphan and later became a father trying to support his family when he suddenly lost his job. With no means to feed his children, he succumbed to the temptations of crime. The lawyer might be very likely to point out that the convicted has many of the attributes of the mothers or fathers or other loved ones of jury members. “Before you is not an object, but a real live human being not unlike those close to you,” the lawyer might say. This part of the court proceedings is designed to support the principle of fairness. It is this principle of fairness that you are invited to try out as you deal with your recurring anger episodes.

And so, whenever you are angry at someone and you find you have been imprisoned by your hate, free yourself by taking the time to write out a defense for the person with whom you are angry. If you will, look to see if the situation that gave rise to the incompatible act might have been more of the cause of what occurred than you originally allowed. See what comes from considering the culprit as if she was your mother. How does thinking about the source of your anger in terms of someone who is a person with hopes, needs, cares, and fears help to reduce the intensity of the conflict? When carried out together with meditation, expressive journal writing and sensation-focus techniques, you are likely to find that this will lead to your recurring anger memories becoming distinctly less stressful.

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THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: ADVANCE LESSON

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date August 11, 2013
2 Comments on THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: ADVANCE LESSON

Are there different levels of maturity for responding to criticism? If so, what is the most mature level?

Over recent weeks we have been pursuing an answer to these questions (see for example, Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity and Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). During this pursuit, I put forth a tentative proposal for a most mature level because I think that’s a good way to get into these types of questions. Not only have I described what I think is the most mature level, I have presented arguments against this most mature level and arguments for it.

When I have taught these types of lessons in a classroom setting, despite all that I have already said on this topic, many of my students continue to raise some additional questions. And so, in this post I will try to clarify some points of confusion that have been brought to my attention by my students over the years.

Clarifying the Difference Between a Pawn and an Origin.

Responding to criticism at the most mature level requires that we seek to lead the criticizer to feel more like an origin than a pawn.

Many of my students have asked me to talk more about this point.

When people feel like pawns, they feel pushed around, and they feel that they are like puppets with someone else pulling the strings. Somewhere in our hearts and minds we realize that bossy people create a revolt against perceived illegitimate power. Calvin’s father, in the following comic, begins to realize this.

Feeling like a pawn may be contrasted with feeling like I have an influence over what I do—that I have played at least a part in originating my behavior.

When you respond to criticism at the most mature level, you seek to come across as “not being bossy.” By trying to come up with some way to steer in the direction of the criticism, you come across as showing that you can be influenced by the person who is criticizing you.

Providing More Examples of Steering

After explaining a little more about the difference between feeling like a pawn and feeling like an origin, many of my students ask me to provide some more examples of people using steering.

In the DeCharms study I discussed earlier (Pawns in The Classroom), teachers who had learned to steer put fifteen minutes aside once a week to ask students to criticize how things are going during the week. The teachers in the study didn’t actually use the word “criticize.” The students were asked to provide “suggestions.” Suggestions, as we have discussed are, in a sense, criticism because people only make suggestions when they first make some sort of evaluation of what they perceive. Based on the evaluation, they then declare what they think might be an improvement.

The teachers were taught to listen to the student suggestions in a manner very similar to the description of level four on the five levels rating system. However, when teachers who use steering feel a suggestion does not make sense they do not merely attempt to disagree without being disagreeable. Instead, they try to use some aspect of the suggestion so the student feels the suggestion has been taken seriously.

For example, let’s say a student suggests that if the class works hard all day, the last hour should be free time. Suppose the teacher, let’s call her Mrs. Jones, feels that a daily hour of free time would waste too much learning time. Mrs. Jones can still steer in the direction of the suggestion. That is, she can explain her concern about wasting too much time; then she can propose that if by the end of the week the students had done a spectacular job all week long, the last hour on Fridays they will be given the freedom to choose either to get a head start on homework, write in their journal, or read a library book; then, after proposing this, Mrs. Jones asks the class if they want to give this a try. Notice that she is using the student’s suggestion of free time to influence where she steers the activities for the week.

Steering frequently ends up with the criticized person offering some type of choice to the criticizer. But there is a difference between providing a choice using a steering model and offering a choice in general. Consider a teacher who offers a choice to a student by saying, “Either you do the assignment or fail the course. Those are your choices.” This is not an example of steering. Nor is this—a teacher says, “I’m giving you a choice between playing ‘Math Blaster’ or ‘Race to the Moon.’ Hurry up and pick one, I don’t have all day!”

A teacher who is using steering would be more likely to say something like, “Here are two games that teach some math skills. Which one do you think would be best for you?” Notice the difference in attitude between the approaches. In the first two examples, the choice may not be perceived as a genuine choice but more of a demand to pick either one or the other. In the Peanuts comic below, we get a sense of how strong a reaction can occur when a child comes to believe the choice he or she is given is not really genuine.

Steering by teachers demonstrates a degree of respect in that the teacher is genuinely interested in the student’s opinion and is willing to have that opinion count in deciding what will be done.

Here’s an example involving a father and his son.

In the For better or for Worse comic, Michael criticizes his father’s decision that it’s time to go to bed. The father, no doubt, disagrees with his son’s criticism. Yet, rather than just saying his son is wrong, he seeks instead to come up with a way that utilizes some aspect of his son’s criticism to come up with a new alternative.

I think that the father, by asking his son to ask EVERY kid in town about bedtimes was unreasonable, but I trust that you get the point I’m trying to make in this example.

In the Luann comic below, Knute’s effort to work out what to do on his upcoming date with Crystal is evident.

Knute’s effort to find something to do that they will both like probably will be far more helpful in establishing a relationship with Crystal than if he insists on taking her to a monster truck rally.

Now, some people confuse steering with compromise. Steering can involve a compromise, but oftentimes it leads to something better than a compromise. The classic example of a compromise occurs when someone wants to buy something, let’s say a used car. The car dealership wants ten thousand dollars for the car, but the buyer wants to pay only five thousand dollars for it. In the end, they settle on $7,500. Both parties don’t end up getting quite what they had hoped, but they settle so they can close the deal. Both parties may walk away a little disappointed.

Oftentimes, when steering occurs, neither party is disappointed.

Steering envisions that the person criticized makes an effort to see if there is some way out of the conflict, a way where two opposing views can be reframed into an original and larger context that provides new values to both parties. This may be difficult and at times not always possible or desirable, but as we move along, I hope to show that it is possible far more often than commonly believed.

Rudyard Kipling’s Poem, If

Back in 1897, Rudyard Kipling wrote one of his most famous poems—If. Relevant to our discussion is the part that says:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

When someone is blaming, doubting, hating, or lying about you, they very likely are criticizing you and in a rather unflattering manner. How would it be best to respond to this?

Among the things Mr. Kipling encourages you to do is to keep your head even when others are losing theirs—admittedly, not always an easy thing to do. He urges you to trust yourself when all doubt you and make allowance for their doubting too. I’m not sure I completely agree with this, for spending some time in doubt seems to prod me, at times, to consider some important alternatives—but I think I have some sense of what he was trying to get at here.

Although I’m tempted to analyze Kipling’s poetry with a fine tooth comb, the thing about poetry is that the poet seeks to capture more than what can be analyzed. With just the right mixture of words and phrasing, Kipling strove to capture a certain subtle emotion and attitude.

I present the poem for your consideration in hopes that you will see that there is something in it that captures the emotion and attitude of the two highest levels of the five levels rating system. If you read the poem a couple of times and then the description of the two highest levels, you may find, when taken together, that they share a truth beyond words.

Well, that’s today’s lesson. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Tags conflict, conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity levels, negative criticism, psychological maturity, wisdom

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RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: DEFENDING THE MOST MATURE LEVEL

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date August 4, 2013
2 Comments on RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: DEFENDING THE MOST MATURE LEVEL

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

Most people would agree that some people are less skillful at handling criticism than others.

Those following this blog well know that I have been encouraging readers to be able to recognize five levels of maturity for responding to criticism. As I began my efforts, first I provided a lesson about the first four levels of maturity (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity).

In that post, I described level 4 as follows:

4. Level 4 individuals listen to the criticizer in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then make it clear that they fully understand what was said. Moreover, they put the criticizer at ease by making statements that indicate that the wise learn from criticism. Some time is spent on showing that they are thinking about the criticism. If, after thinking about the criticism the criticism is deemed to be correct, they make a statement frankly indicating, “I can see your ideas have merit and I intend to use them in the future.” If they are not sure if they agree, they make a statement indicating that they are very interested in what was said, plan to think a little more about this over the next few days and then they will be ready to discuss this further. If, after thinking about the criticism, the criticism is deemed to be incorrect, a statement is made designed to disagree without being disagreeable. More specifically, a sense of humor, some listening in a caring way and a few smiles help to traverse rough terrain. As the episode winds down, the criticizer is encouraged to feel comfortable communicating suggestions in the future.

After describing all four levels, I explained why the ordering of the four levels makes some sense. For example, I explained how I had made a lot of TV shows with a variety of actors.

In each show the actors respond to criticism in different ways. Then I asked others to watch the shows. Together, we discussed their reactions to the way the people in the video recordings handle the criticism.

I soon became very familiar with what people like and respect when it comes to responding to criticism. This helped me to come up with four different ways to handle criticism. I put them in order from the least respected to the most respected. Level one is the least liked. Each higher level is viewed as more mature, likable, and respected by those who watched the video recordings.

Unlike the first four levels of maturity, it is not as easy to make video recordings of people displaying a level 5 response because quite a bit of this level’s response occurs up in the head of the responder. To understand this better, let’s briefly review the level 5 response (For a complete description of level 5 see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level).

LEVEL FIVE. In addition to actions consistent with level 4, people responding to criticism in a manner consistent with level 5 seek ways to use, whenever they disagree with the criticism, a technique known as steering in the direction the criticizer would prefer to go. That is, rather than just disagreeing without being disagreeable, the criticized person seeks to find a new choice of action that creatively utilizes some aspect suggested from the criticism. Steering cannot be incorporated into all situations, but it is an additional goal of the most mature individuals.

Here’s a quick example of someone responding to criticism at level 5. My wife, Andrea, and I are getting dressed to go to a party. When Andrea sees what shirt I put on, she criticizes my choice, saying, “That’s not quite right for this occasion.”As I prepare my response in my mind, I realize that I disagree with her. But before I begin to disagree with her, while at the same time trying not to be disagreeable or defensive, I silently ask myself, “Is there someway I can steer in the direction of Andrea’s criticism?”

I quickly realize that I have two other shirts that I would enjoy wearing to this party as much as the one I initially picked out. And so, I pulled them out of my closet and said to Andrea, “Well, if you don’t like the one I picked out for this evening, how about either of these two?”

“Oh,” she says, “the one on the left would be perfect. Thanks dear.”

And so, from this example, you can readily see that a good part of my response occurs in my head as I tried in my mind to come up with an option that both Andrea and I would end up feeling comfortable. Said a little differently, I searched my mind to see if I could find a win-win response to her criticism.

To illustrate my using a level 5 response, I could use some type of a gimmick such as having me strike a classic pose of someone thinking and then my head would appear above me, and it would start to speak the words I’m supposedly thinking. This has been done effectively in the movies, but it’s just not as clean an approach as the one I used to demonstrate the validity of the first four levels, and I’m not sure how to go about creating the special effect of the extra head gimmick. And so I’m going to defend level 5 in another manner.

Originally, I had formulated the current five levels system as a four levels system, but when I heard Professor Richard deCharms speak at a conference back in 1977, he convinced me to add the fifth level. He spoke about how most teachers treat their students like pawns, rather than origins.

When people feel like pawns, they feel pushed around, and they feel that they are like puppets with someone else pulling the strings.

Feeling like a pawn may be contrasted with feeling like I have an influence over what I do—that I have played at least a part in originating my behavior. Such a feeling, Professor deCharms told the audience, is what he called, “feeling like an origin.”

An idea that is similar to the one Professor deCharms describes has been referred to as the powerless versus empowerment spectrum. People who perceive themselves powerless often experience alienation or reactance against those perceived as the bosses.

In the business world, leaders attempt to get their subordinates to “buy into a plan” by asking for their feedback and trying to use their suggestions as best as they can to strengthen the plan. This strategy doesn’t always work, but leaders know that it has the potential to improve the process of implementing the plan.

To see what happens when teachers act in ways that are designed to lead students to feel like origins, Professor deCharms and his colleagues designed a project that provided a unique training program to inner-city teachers. His findings are dramatic.[1]

Academic achievement as measured by standardized tests was significantly better in the classrooms after the teachers received the training. In fifth grade, the children in this inner-city district were typically more than one-half year behind national norms in grade equivalent scores. This downward trend continued in the children who had teachers who did not receive the training so that by eighth grade they were a year behind national norms. The trend was reversed for the children who had the trained teachers to the point that they gained, on average, more than a full year between the end of sixth grade and the end of seventh grade and maintained their advantage through eighth grade.
School attendance and punctuality were positively affected in the classes with trained teachers.

More recent studies[2] provide further evidence that students are more likely to act in accordance with group decisions or school rules if they have participated in forming them.

Steering not only improves learning and behavior but health outcomes as well. In a remarkable series of studies at a nursing home,[3] elderly residents were each given a choice of houseplants to care for and were asked to make a number of small decisions about their daily routines. Nurses were taught to steer in the directions the residents requested. For example, residents requested a movie be provided each evening in the community room. Although there was inadequate funds for this, the nurses did increase the number of movies that were shown from occasionally, to once per week. A year and a half later, not only were the residents who had nurses that learned to steer more cheerful, active, and alert than a similar group in the same institution who were not given these choices and responsibilities, but many more of them were still alive. In fact, less than half as many of the decision-making, plant-minding residents had died as had those in the other group.

Some people, when they first hear about steering, express concern because it seems to them that it requires that they give up on holding fast to their treasured ideals. “It is just designed to promote conformity!” claimed a student. “If a teacher criticizes the length of my hair, if I don’t cut it a little shorter, does that make me immature?”

“I’m against war,” said another student. “With steering does that mean that to be mature I must come to a position that holds that a little killing is okay? Steering means that the only proper ideal is to be middle of the road, a position that I despise.”

My response to these examples is to explain that I am not proposing that every time you are criticized you must make some change. Steering envisions that the person criticized makes an effort to see if there is some way out of the conflict, a way where two opposing views can be reframed into an original and larger context that provides new values to both parties. This may be difficult and at times not always possible or desirable, but as we move along, I hope to show that it is possible far more often than commonly believed.

[1] Richard deCharms, Enhancing Motivation: Change In the Classroom, New York: Irvington Publishers, 1976.

[2] N. Way, & M. G. Robinson, 2003, “Effects of Perceived Family, Friends, and School Experiences on Change in Self-Esteem among Urban, Low-SES Adolescents,” Journal of Adolescent Research, 18, 324-346. M. Wang, 2009,

“School Climate Support for Behavioral and Psychological Adjustment: Testing the Mediating Effect of Social Competence,” School Psychology Quarterly, 24, 240-251.

[3]E. J. Langer and J. Rodin, 1976, The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(2), 191-198; J. Rodin and E. J. Langer Rodin, 1977, Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention with the Institutionalized Aged, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(12), 897-902.

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Tags conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, mature level, maturity, maturity levels, psychological maturity, videogames, wisdom

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CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A LESSON FROM BLONDIE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date July 14, 2013
No Comments on CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A LESSON FROM BLONDIE

Over the course of the last few weeks I presented some lessons that aim to get you to think about immature and mature ways to provide negative criticism to yourself (see CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY and CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE). As I’ve pointed out on many occasions, becoming a master at utilizing the higher levels of maturity takes more than just thinking about them on a single day. It requires some practice utilizing the concepts over several occasions. And so, from time to time, I insert a little practice session to remind you of the previously presented ideas and to give you a little practice utilizing them. Today, we will take a look at a Blondie comic example. There, you will find that after Dagwood gives Blondie a statue she sees as ugly, she criticizes herself. Please take a look at her response to her self-criticism, and see if you think she handled it maturely.

As you think about how maturely Blondie criticizes herself in this comic, perhaps it would be of help to look at the five levels of providing criticism that we discussed earlier:

This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Cries without stating what the crying is about
Physically attacks themselves
Damages property

2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

They do not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead express displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm. (For example, calling themselves a jerk”)
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.

3. The criticizer clearly states the criticism with enough detail so the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couples it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

4. The criticizer states the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. If the person becomes defensive or angry, the criticizer empathizes without returning, glares, insults, threats, or shouts.

5. When the criticizer provides criticism, he or she does so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, the criticizer considers the situation that he or she is in. As a result of such considerations, the criticizer may decide to alter the criticism.

Now that you refreshed your memory of the five levels, does any one of them seem to match how Blondie criticized herself? Think about this, if you will, and then you can have some fun comparing your thoughts with mine.

My answer: Obviously, what we see is not meant to display Blondie’s whole response, but there is enough here to hazard a guess for our educational goal of familiarizing readers with the maturity rating system.

Blondie frames her feeling as “terrible.” It would be a sign of higher maturity if she conceptualized her experience instead as “sad” and “a valuable emotion that will lead to her thinking more deeply about something very important to her—her relationship with her husband.”

We know from what we see here and from observing her behavior over the years that Blondie is a very caring person. So, perhaps she is the type to be compassionate toward her own limitations. She doesn’t hit herself, so she may not be at level 1. In the last box, she may be crying and this would indicate her response deserves a level 1 rating unless she also displays some set of responses that deserves a higher rating.

When Blondie calls herself insensitive, it comes pretty close to matching level 2. Admittedly, this is a tricky call. One reason for the difficulty is that she might not be really insulting herself at this point. Instead, she might be displaying the process of thinking through the best course of action for herself. That is, she might be laying out for her consideration the value of being considerate.

If she had obviously put herself down by calling herself a rat for example, this response would be easier to rate as a level 2. But the descriptor, “insensitive,” is very relevant to what concerns her about her actions. I like her concern for her husband. I view empathy as a sign of higher levels of maturity.

In the last frame, she is taking some time to deal with her challenging experience. Maybe she is actually using the “sensory focus” technique we recently discussed (see DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN). “Sensory focus” involves turning your attention to the physical qualities of the pain and observing the sensations you are experiencing. This can convert challenging feelings into a search that leads to ever higher levels of truth.

I think this is where we leave Blondie in the comic we are analyzing. Without being able to discuss this episode with her or to observe further how the events continue to unfold, I’m going to just take a very tentative guess that she is indeed trying to figure out how to respond in a sensitive way toward Dagwood, and that she will not really insult herself. In time, she probably would have displayed a response very close to a level 4 or 5.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope to see you soon.

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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.

Tags Blondie, conflict, conflict management, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity, maturity levels, negative criticism, self-criticism, types of criticism, wisdom

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DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date July 8, 2013
11 Comments on DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

You get a phone call and discover the person you have fallen in love with has decided to end the relationship.

An event is coming up and each time you think about this, you experience waves and waves of fear.

Some big kids at school teased you in front of your friends and when you get home you find yourself vividly recalling, over and over again, what happened. These images are accompanied by gripping, gut-wrenching feelings of embarrassment.

Americans typically use three approaches when they are faced with such experiences. Let’s take a quick look at them, and then consider three very different approaches that are free and backed by research effectiveness studies.

Three Typical American Approaches to Deal With Emotional Pain

1. Drinking alcohol or taking pills.

Here we see a man who is using the drinking approach, and he ends up falling into the great sea of turmoil.

2. Trying to avoid thinking about the emotional pain.

Here we see Linus using the avoidance approach. People who try to avoid the problem of emotional pain sometimes say they don’t pay any attention to it, or that they just ignore it.

3. Trying to divert your attention to something more pleasant.

Here we see Ted trying to “face his fear” by diverting his attention to some fantasy.

If you are using one or more of these three approaches and find that you are completely satisfied with the results, I’d still like you to consider trying three different ones. They won’t cost you a dime, and there is scientific support for each.

Three Different Approaches to Dealing with Emotional Pain

1. Sensory Focus

“Sensory focus” involves turning your attention to the physical qualities of the pain and observing the sensations you are experiencing.

If the sensations bring forth words such as pain, or awful agony, you accept this without judgment. You very gently, when you feel ready, return your focus to the physical sensations as if you are tasting, for the first time, some fresh mountain water from a tropical island. Just let the sensations wash over and through you for a couple of minutes. Do this each time you begin to experience the sensations. Also, find some time once in the morning, and once in the evening to take a couple of minutes to sit by yourself and practice doing this.

Although for many Americans distraction is believed to be more effective for managing distressing painful experiences than observing the physical sensations, when compared in experimental studies, distraction most often turns out to be the inferior technique.

Now, I should point out that if you look quickly online, you will see research reports that claim just the opposite—that distraction leads to better outcomes than experiencing the felt qualities of distress. These reports are usually based on an analysis that failed to make a distinction between sensory focus and emotion focus. Emotion focus has individuals attending to the emotional aspects of the pain. For example, someone going through a painful experience might focus on a thought such as, “This pain is making me feel terribly angry.” Notice that the emotion focus approach has one observing a set of words describing the feeling, whereas sensory focus has one observing its physical sensations.

In more recent studies, researchers have been making a clearer distinction between emotion focus techniques and sensory focus techniques. It now looks like sensory focus tends to be more efficacious than distraction.[1] More importantly for dealing with distressing emotional experiences, sensory focus was found to be even more effective when researchers looked not just at the short term effects of coping, but what happened in the long term.

Most studies on the effects of different coping styles look at what happens within four minutes of a painful experience. In such studies, sensory focus tends to be a more effective coping technique, but occasionally distraction did just as well, or even a little better. In a study by Kevin McCaul and Carl Haugtvedt,[2] for example, distraction reduced distress early in the four minute trial, but attention to sensations was a superior strategy for the last two minutes.” When studies looked at what happens when pain lasts longer than a few minutes, or a similar pain occurs again a week later, sensory focus over time more clearly is the better coping strategy.

Now some have argued that sensory focus works with men, but not women. However, even for brief pain lasting for just a few minutes the results have been inconsistent. For example, Thompson and his associates[3] found that women experienced less pain with distraction, but Roelofs and his associates[4] found that women who report that they are high in pain-related fear benefited more from the sensory focus technique than they did from distraction. In this study the whole painful experience was of the short term variety, lasting four minutes. There are fewer studies involving women and longer term pain, but Leventhal[5] and his associates found that women in labor who were instructed to monitor their pain sensations experienced a sharp decline in pain and negative mood during active labor. There was no decline in the control group that received no such instruction. Note that labor tends to last several hours, in contrast to the four minute type of pain that is usually the object of study in the scientific literature.

It appears that when you focus on carefully observing the sensations, your body mobilizes its internal resources to cope with the distressful experience. You have seen what happens when you cut your finger. You experience some pain, and before long your body, in an incredibly complex process, begins healing. Within a few days the cut is completely gone. You see from this that your body has a way to deal with the cut in a manner that the greatest scientists cannot yet duplicate. Similarly, when you take the time to fully observe the sensations from a distressing experience, your body over the course of time appears to carry out a process to address the distress in an incredibly helpful manner.

2. The Expressive Writing Technique

Over the course of four days, write for a minimum of 15 minutes at each sitting about something that has led to your challenging emotional experience. As you do so, make sure you include not only what happened, but also what you felt when it happened, and how you now feel about what happened. Include your deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred. Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. As you do so, recall the sensory experience of these feelings, not just the words that define the experience. In your writing, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now, or even your career. How is this experience related to who you would like to become, who you have been in the past, or who you are now?

You can write about the same issue every day or a series of different issues. Whatever you choose to write about, however, it is critical that you really let go and explore your very deepest emotions, sensations, and thoughts.

As you go through this experience, many people report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed. Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours and in the long run is beneficial.

If you find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic and come to feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop writing or change topics. You might try to return to the extremely unsettling topic again in a week or two. If you again begin to have feelings that are so extremely upsetting that you feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop. Try one more time to write about this topic in a month or so. If you end up striking out, you might want to seek out a professional counselor to help you to process this sensitive material (see HERE for some suggestions for obtaining this type of counseling services).

Expressive writing has demonstrated in research studies to improve health outcomes and to reduce the anguish people experience during episodes of depression. You can find the research supporting the expressive writing technique by clicking here and here.

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3. Meditation

For most people, meditation doesn’t provide relief of emotional challenges as quickly as sensory focus, but when it is combined with sensory focus and the expressive writing technique, it can lead to long term improvements.

In an earlier post, I describe a simple form of meditation, along with the research supporting its effectiveness (see Anger, Ruminations and Meditation). Millions of people for thousands of years have attested to both its health and emotional benefits.

So, there you have it, three approaches to dealing with emotions that are free, and can turn what is now experienced as pain into a valued source of creativity. Rather than something that has been perceived as negative, it is possible to come to understand that these challenging experiences are our only opener of our eyes to the highest levels of truth.

[1] J. Suls & B. Fletcher, 1985, The relative efficacy of avoidant and nonavoidant coping strategies: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, vol 4 (3) 249-288.

[2] K. McCaul and C. Haugtvedt ,1982, J. of Personality and Social Personality, , vol 43(1), 154-162.

[3] T. Thompson, E. Keogh, & C. C. French, 2011, “Sensory focusing versus distraction and pain: moderating effects of anxiety sensitivity in males and females,” Journal of Pain, 12(80), 849-858.

[4] J. Roelofs, ML Peters, & M. van der Zijden, 2004, “Does fear of pain moderate the effects of sensory focusing and distraction on cold pressor pain in pain-free individuals? The Journal of Pain, vol 5, 250-256.

[5]E. Leventhal, H. Leventhal, S. Shacham, & D. V. Easterling, 1989, “Active coping reduces reports of pain from childbirth,” J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(3), 365-371.

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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.

Tags emotional pain, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, meditation, psychological maturity, sensory focus, wisdom

comic strip conflict management conflict resolution criticism emotional intelligence free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults intrapersonal conflicts negative criticism types of criticism William James wisdom

CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date July 1, 2013
7 Comments on CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Recently I presented a post that aims to get you to think about immature and mature ways to provide negative criticism to yourself (see Criticizing Yourself: Five Levels of Maturity). In that post there is a fun practice section to help people to get familiar with the different levels. Becoming a master at utilizing the higher levels of maturity takes more than just thinking about them on a single day. It requires some practice utilizing the concepts over several occasions. So today, I’ll once again describe the five levels of maturity, and then let’s practice some more with the help of some of our favorite friends.

PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism to themselves, that is, criticism that points out what we don’t like about our actions, beliefs, or appearance. Level one is the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is more mature:

1.This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Cries without stating what the crying is about.
Physically harms you,
Damages property.

2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

You do not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead express displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm.
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.

3. You clearly state the criticism with enough detail so you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couple it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

4. You state the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance.

5. When you provide criticism, you do so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, you consider the situation that you are in. As a result of such considerations, you may decide to alter the criticism.

A PEANUTS EXAMPLE

Below, in the Peanuts comic, Lucy provides negative criticism to herself while Charlie Brown listens. Take a shot, if you will, at rating how mature you think her criticism is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most mature. Think about why you gave her your rating, and then compare your answer to mine.

My answer: I think Lucy’s actions best match the level 3 description— You clearly state the criticism with enough detail so you can, if you so choose, improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couple it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm. The main reason I have for this is that she is shouting at herself. Lucy’s actions indicate to me that she knows what her negative criticism is about; instead of becoming discouraged, she wants her life to move from one “up” to an “upper-up,” without any “downs.” I believe her actions should be reduced by .5 because she doesn’t make it clear to herself what she should do about her expressed concern. I would have felt she at least tried to come up with a plan of action if she had said something to herself like the following: “For the next few weeks, each time I feel discouraged, I’m going to write in a journal how I feel, what led up to how I feel, and then see if I can come up with something that leads to my feeling better.” In the end, I gave Lucy a 2.5 rating.

ANOTHER PEANUTS EXAMPLE

In this next one, Lucy again provides negative criticism to herself, and again we get the sense that she knows what the criticism is about, but she doesn’t come up with some plan to address her concern. What rating do you think she deserves? Also, see if you can come up with a statement that Lucy can make to herself that would indicate she has come up with a plan to address her concern.

My answer: This time Lucy doesn’t shout at herself. She does shout at Linus about the negative criticism he provides, but our job here is not to rate that, but rather her negative criticism of her own actions. That occurs in the last box where she says to herself, “How humiliating!”

I don’t view her comment as an insult, although in real life she would have to decide that for herself. It seems to me that people, when they are dissatisfied with “a failure to accomplish a task,” can feel a sense of humiliation, not as an insult, but as a humbling experience that has the potential to motivate them to seek to make some improvement. As far as I am concerned, a person can feel humiliated and still respond at level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. If Lucy had insulted herself or shouted at herself, I would have felt that level three was the best match for what she does. I’m giving Lucy, instead, a question mark because sometimes criticism is provided that is clear about what is not liked but useful information about improving is not provided. If this is done in a supportive manner that does not use any insults, shouts, or threats, a question mark can be used instead of a rating. This indicates that sometimes mature people will provide this type of feedback to gently encourage themselves to come up with a solution to the problem of how to improve. The criticizer is in essence merely asking the question, “Can I come up with a way to make some improvement in this area?” Because asking such a question using a supportive tone of voice is not necessarily a sign of immaturity, no rating is immediately assigned, but as time goes on, some rating may become earned.

A FUNKY WINKERBEAN EXAMPLE

Let’s try rating Les in this Funky Winkerbean comic. Below, we see that Les, the guy with the glasses, has been invited to his thirtieth high school reunion. When he looks in the mirror he begins to evaluate how he now looks and recalls how he looked thirty years ago. As he does so, apparently he is providing some negative criticism to himself. Please rate how mature you think his response is.

My answer: The thought of going to his thirtieth high school reunion has put Les in a deep funk. He is saddened to see how he has aged. He doesn’t seem to be insulting himself in any way or threatening to harm himself. He’s also not hitting himself. Hmmm.

Some who view themselves as “healthy-minded” say that by letting himself feel sad about something he can’t do anything about, Les is actually acting in an unhealthy manner. These so called “healthy-minded” folks argue that Les would be far wiser to avert his attention from what is bothering him and live in the light of what is good in his life.

Admittedly, this method does seem to work for many people, and if it works for you, feel free to continue with it for as long as you like. I promise that I won’t send the mental health police after you.

There are those of us, however, who have tried this “healthy-minded” approach and find that, when melancholy comes, the whole system quickly breaks down. If that is your experience, perhaps the words of the brilliant psychologist, William James, might be more to your liking. “[T]here is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and may after all be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.”

Clearly, people confront events that create feelings of sadness, horror, and dread. To James, the feelings that accompany such events can lead toward truth. Many of the most creative people have come to believe that periods of melancholy are an essential part of their creative process.

My readings of the research and my own personal experiences have led me to several tentative conclusions. First of all, if you can learn to avoid insulting and threatening yourself during these periods of melancholy, that’s a good thing. Some special types of insults can be especially harmful. “I’ll never be happy again,” is one of these. “I’ll always be a terrible person,” is another. “All is hopeless,” may be the worst .

Practice saying at such times, “Melancholy is part of the creative process; it is a tool that most creative people have experienced, and this mood can spur me to come to a useful understanding of my life.” “Creative” in this context means more than artistic creativity. It encompasses all aspects of a person’s work, and interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.

The melancholy that Les is experiencing will not be his whole response to his dissatisfaction with his current appearance. He will perhaps come to realize that he has some time to still live and the years he has already lived have given him a unique perspective that can enrich the time he has left to fulfill the desires that only come about from our deepest searching. For Les, I am going to put off any rating. As far as I’m concerned, he has just begun to provide to himself negative criticism and some more time will be necessary to evaluate what his rating should be.

Okay, that’s our lesson for this week. I would love to get some comments about the ideas I’ve presented. Do you think that there are more mature ways to respond to criticism than the ideas that I’ve put forth? Has there ever been a time when you criticize yourself in a manner that you would like to discuss?

My Best, 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 and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, conflict, conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, maturity levels, negative criticism, self-criticism, types of criticism, wisdom

anger confiict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults intrapersonal conflicts Name calling negative criticism threats wisdom

CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date June 23, 2013
4 Comments on CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Earlier, I wrote a post titled “Providing Negative Criticism: Five Levels of Maturity.” When I gave examples of people using the five levels, they typically involved someone providing criticism to someone else. And yet, if you think about it, you probably criticize yourself at least as much as you criticize others.

So, it is time that we begin to take a good hard look to see if the five levels of maturity apply equally well when we think about providing negative criticism to ourselves? To do so, please take another look at the five levels that have now been rewritten so they can be used to rate the way you criticize yourself.. As you do, imagine a recent time that you criticized yourself and see which of the levels best matches your style of criticizing yourself.

PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM TO YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism to themselves. Level one is the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is more mature.

1.This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Cries without stating what the crying is about.
Physically harms you,
Damages property.

2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

You do not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead express displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm.
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.

3. You clearly state the criticism with enough detail so you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couple it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

4. You state the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance.

APPLYING THE FIVE LEVELS TO SELF-CRITICISM

One of the last times I criticized myself, I was playing golf, and when I swung at the ball, I missed it.

I found myself crying out, “Man, that was stupid!” As I saw myself doing this, I quickly realized that such a response was not very helpful. I moved away from any more insults and just took a moment to experience the frustration within me. After about five seconds of this, I then realized that I was with other golfers, and they had just seen me calling myself stupid. I looked each of them in their eyes and smiled. Then, I reviewed in my mind what a perfect swing in that situation is suppose to look like. Finally, I stepped into position and took another swing.

How Did I Do?

Well, at least I didn’t break my club slamming it to the ground, as I had done a few times when I first began to learn the game. A couple of times when I did slam the clubs down, I broke the club and had to go buy a new one–thus, it was a costly mistake. If I had acted that way–that is, by breaking my club–I would have acted at level 2. It has been years since the last time I slammed a club down, a clear sign that I matured in this domain.

The way I acted the last time was a little more mature than a level two.

You might have noticed as I was describing my recent incident of self-criticism that my criticism and my response to the criticism seems to have merged together, and it is not easy to tell at what point “providing criticism” and “responding to criticism” is actually taking place. Therefore, it is a good idea, as we think about these issues to spend some time reviewing the lesson I presented earlier about responding to criticism (see HERE).

As I recall what happened the last time I was out on the golf course, I’m going to say that I initially responded at level 3, but then quickly recovered and then responded at level 5.

Another Example

Our next example of self-criticism is from the comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes by the brilliant Bill Watterson. Calvin’s stuffed tiger, Hobbes, is criticizing Calvin’s remark about his summer vacation coming to an end. We understand, of course, that what Hobbes says to Calvin is, in actuality, what Calvin is saying to himself. After Hobbes criticizes Calvin’s remark (“Oh come on, you spent half the summer complaining how bored you were.”) Calvin responds. Please study his response, and then see if you can rate what level of maturity it is at.

My answer: Hobbes has criticized Calvin for exaggerating about how awful life will be now that summer vacation is over since he often complained of being bored. “I did?” he responds. It seems to me that Calvin is really asking this of himself. He then curls his pointer finger and puts it on his lip. This is a classic pose indicating deep thought. While he is doing this, he says to himself, “How strange. I must have been delirious from having so much fun.” In the next scene, we see Calvin imagining the type of fun he had had over the summer. It depicts Calvin and Hobbes watching TV with the sound blasting, eating Sugar Bombs, with Calvin’s eyes in a delirious, hypnotized stare.

I’m leaning toward giving Calvin a level 4 rating because he is showing me that he is giving some real thought to the criticism, and I like his apparent sense of humor as he imagines in an almost burlesque type of way his wasting all of his time over the summer.

Now, I understand that some might look at this image of Calvin wasting his summer in front of a TV and think he is mocking his choice of summer activities, thus insulting himself. When people use humor while responding to criticism, it can be taken as an insult, or as a good-natured way to smooth over some rough parts of the processing that goes along with criticism. Only Calvin, in this scenario, would be able to say if he felt it as an insult, or as something comical.

Let’s Try Another One

Here’s a young teenager who provides self-criticism at a pretty obvious level 2.

Here, the young lady kinda tells herself what her criticism is about–She recalls missing an important basketball shot and she declares that she let her team down. But she doesn’t say how she can begin to improve the situation. Instead, she begins to insult herself.

What if she had handled the situation a little differently:

Notice I blackened out what level I think this self-criticism is at. That’s because I would like you to decide if this is a more mature level or not.

There’s Some Controversy About this Example

Some of my students argue that the example in which the girl insults herself should be given a higher rating then the second example. Here’s their reason. If you insult yourself, they claim, it will more likely prod you into doing something constructive than if you ignore it. Therefore it should be viewed as at least as high a level as the example in which the girl decides to take some time to calm down before deciding what next steps she might take.

Here are two quick explanations for why insulting yourself deserves a lower rating than the taking some time to calm down approach. First, just because someone takes some time out to calm down doesn’t mean they will forget what happened. It is possible that their efforts to take some time to calm down will lead to calming down sooner than throwing insults at themselves, and within that calmness a more reasoned approach may come about.

Second, theoretically those people who get into the habit of insulting themselves when they criticize themselves are at an increased risk of insulting someone else who criticizes them. This is oftentimes not a good thing because when people are insulted it increases the likelihood they will do something that is harmful to the insulter. It is, therefore, a good idea to practice not insulting yourself when you criticize yourself because that practice will make it easier to avoid criticizing others when they criticize you.

Well, there’s your lesson for today. It was designed to begin the process of thinking about the most mature way to criticize yourself. I will have a lot more to say about this in future posts.

For those of you who seek to become masters at dealing with name calling, insults and teasing, here’s an important exercise to do over the next week. Put aside three five-minute periods to do the following:

Think about the last time you criticized yourself. Recall what led to the criticism and how you felt. Spend a full minute just observing the feelings that come up as you recall the incident. Then write down what you said to yourself as you provided the criticism. Finally, write down what you think would have been a maturer way to handle that situation.

Thanks for visiting this week, and I hope you come back soon.

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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.

Tags anger, challenge, conflict, conflict management, criticism, displeasure, emotional intelligence, insults, maturity, negative criticism, psychological maturity, threats, types of criticism, wisdom