By

Guy Shilts

During the 30 years I’ve worked as a counselor/therapist, I have found that many of life’s answers are hidden in the conflicts between people, and that those struggles begin when we’re children. Unfortunately, more than 80% of us come from dysfunctional families, and we carry unresolved family issues into adulthood. If these issues are not healed, conflicts can occur over and over in our relationships with others. Communication blocks may go on for years, causing tremendous amounts of hurt and anger. Communication skills that break through those blocks can be learned, but they need practice and awareness.

The key to effective communication is in understanding another person. Remember the Newlywed Game? Four recently married couples were asked questions designed to reveal how much they knew, or didn’t know, about each other. The show seemed to capitalize on the contestants’ responses that were goof-ups, or that the audience found hilariously revealing of one spouse’s misunderstanding of the other. While the show’s 34- year run reflects just how much Americans enjoyed watching newlyweds stumble in public, the truths behind the show are that marriage provides a context for healing our childhood issues, and that where’s there’s healing, there’s also friction.

The same communication skills I teach to couples in marriage counseling can be used to resolve conflicts in any situation. For example, one of the biggest pitfalls in communication is transference. This is the phenomenon of reacting to someone as if they were a member of your original family. It can occur in a marriage, at work, at church, at a neighborhood committee meeting – anywhere there is a significant amount of interaction between people. Even though transference is a normal, every day process, it can lead to blocks in communication. Incorrect inferences can be attached to someone in the present simply because they remind us of someone in out past. If you’re over- or under-reacting to a situation, there’s a good chance that transference may be the cause. Once transference issues are cleared up, communication improves.

Identifying Your Feelings

An important step when working toward good communication is identifying your feelings and labeling them. Researchers tell us that there are four fundamental emotional states: mad, glad, sad and afraid. Often our feelings about each of these states were programmed during our childhoods. If the household was dysfunctional some of the feelings may have been repressed, perhaps because they were not permitted. As an adult, repressed feelings are blocks, not only to communication but to a happy life. Honesty is an essential first step toward communication. If you’re not in touch with your own feelings, it is impossible to have open and honest communication with another person.

To help someone in this process, I ask them to respond to a conflict using scaling exercises. This involves attaching a score from 1 to 10 to each of the basic emotions felt in that conflict. Strong emotions have high numbers, and the higher the number the more critical it is to determine why it’s high. When a client is able to determine why an emotion ranks a high number, they can determine the content of the conversation they need to have with the other person. Ideally, when this conversation occurs, both people will do the following:

- Focus on feelings behind the conflict, not on the conflict itself;

- Validate each other’s feelings;

- Include non-judgmental suggestions for possible solutions;

- Discuss both of their feelings about possible solutions.

I Messages

When it’s time to have a conversation about a conflict, I Messages can help to avoid judgmental language that will trigger more conflict. Dr. Thomas Gordon introduced I Messages in his book Parent Effectiveness Training, and they’re considered a classic solution in conflict resolution. Gordon explains how I Messages should be used in place of You Messages, to avoid casting blame or shame on the other person. Good communication requires respect and consideration that is impossible to achieve when there is criticism. It’s also important to watch for statements that include the words “but” “if” “should” or “ought.” 

Validation and Invalidation

The next step toward good communication is learning how to validate the other person’s feelings. Once you’ve identified and accepted your own feelings about a conflict, validation tells the other person that their feelings are okay, and that you accept them. Understanding how to validate involves knowing the invalidating remarks that are so often part of common conversations and arguments. Invalidating remarks tell a person that their feelings are not real or acceptable. Some invalidations are so habitual that we’ve been conditioned to automatically accept them as normal. Children who have invalidations loaded upon them by parents or siblings often grow up to be adults who have problems relating to other people, including their own children. 

Here are some examples of validating and invalidating remarks for the four basic emotions:

Mad                   I hear you                        Get over it

Glad                  Congratulations!            It’s not going to last

Sad                    I understand                    You’re a cry baby

Afraid                That’s terrifying            You’re not being rational

Tips on Listening

How often do you really know what your partner, or someone you work with, actually thinks or feels? Do they really understand your thoughts and feelings? Quality communication requires that you, and hopefully they, are good at listening and good at expressing yourselves. But just sitting there and listening is not the same as understanding.

Try these ideas when you’re having an important conversation:

- Focus on the other person’s feelings. Be sure to listen to the words, but try to identify the feelings beneath them;

- Give that person your full attention. If you’re working at something else while someone is talking about their feelings – or if you’re mentally preparing your response while they’re speaking – real communication can’t happen;

- Don’t interrupt. Try to monitor when you want to interrupt, or when you want to jump to conclusions;

- Validate. When you offer others generous understanding it will come back to you in honest and productive understanding.

The practice of good communication requires awareness and effort, The benefits of that practice are worth every moment when we try to understand ourselves and others.

Guy W. Shilts Jr., MS, LMFT, is a psychotherapist and CEO of Crossroads Counseling Center in Janesville, WI