Let’s start by exploring what this looks like, because it’s something you’ve probably seen before. In this example, Dalia has a problem with the way her partner Michael seems to always say ‘yes’ to requests made by his mother without thinking about how this is going to affect Dalia. The conversation might go something like this:

Dalia: Michael, I wondered if I could talk to you about what happened with your mother last weekend. She said she wanted to come over, and you said that was fine without checking with me, even though we’d had plans to go out for lunch together. You often say yes to her without thinking about how this will affect me and I’m feeling very frustrated about it.

Now, Michael might respond in a few different ways, but if he’s using the tactic we’re talking about here he might say something like:

Michael: It’s not like I always do that. Remember last month when she called while we were watching a movie and I told her I’d have to call her back?

Another way he might respond along similar lines might be:

Michael: Well, when we talked about going out for lunch the night before you said “Since we don’t have any other plans what about going out for lunch?” so I figured you didn’t mind changing that if something else did come up.

In either case, rather than responding directly to the overall concern raised by Dalia, Michael is responding to the specific content of her complaint and nitpicking – in the first example by suggesting that she is overgeneralising (“I don’t always do that”) and in the second example by suggesting that her complaint is not 100% accurate.

This is a common way for people to respond to a concern raised by the other person, and can then lead down a very predictable path of both people getting into an argument about the accuracy (or otherwise) of the original complaint. If Dalia then responded with “Yes but that was just one time, remember the month before that when she came to stay when I was really busy at work and you didn’t ask me” then what you end up is with a back and forth argument of both people providing examples or arguing over the details of the complaint. Similarly, with Michael’s second response Dalia might reply by saying “Well yes but I thought you’d realise that once we’d agreed to go to lunch that that meant we were sticking to that plan”. Again it becomes easy to get stuck in a back and forth argument about what each person meant and whether the initial complaint was justified or not. In the process, the fact that this was about a pattern of behaviour rather than a single incident gets lost.

As a result, it’s important to be prepared for this response and know how to keep the conversation on track. This is done in a very similar way to when the other person changes the subject, by acknowledging the detour away from the original concern and then returning to that topic. So how might this go? In the first situation, Dalia might respond by saying something like:

Dalia: You’re right, there are times when you have said no to your mother and I’ve really appreciated it when you do consider the impact on me. All the same, there are many times where that hasn’t happened which is what I’d like to talk about.

Acknowledging the other person’s response here is important, as it avoids getting into a conflict over the content of the complaint by recognising both parts of the reality – that this is not something that happens 100% of the time, but it is something that happens often enough to be a concern. The principle behind this that also contributes to effective communication is being willing to give the other person the benefit of the doubt – by acknowledging and reinforcing the times where they do behave differently or do something different from the usual pattern.

In the second example, the response could be very similar:

Dalia: Fair enough, I might not have been clear in this situation that these plans were important to me. However, this is something that’s happened on many occasions so I’d like us to be able to talk about what we can change when it does happen.

Again, Dalia is acknowledging the part of what Michael is saying that is true without getting into a debate or argument over the accuracy of the complaint, and then immediately coming back to the fact that her concern relates to an overall pattern of behaviour rather than just this one incident.

Let’s look at another longer example of how this kind of nitpicking and the responses to it might play out in a longer conversation.

Marama is angry that her partner Nicole often ends up having angry outbursts when she is drinking which has started to alienate some of their friends. They seem to have been getting worse recently, which has led to Marama feeling scared at times in the relationship. By using some of the approaches discussed in this and the previous articles, the conversation could end up going something like this:

Marama: Nicole, when you’ve been drinking recently and have gotten angry in front of our friends I’ve been feeling quite scared and worried. I’m wondering if you’d consider talking about it with someone?

Nicole: What do you mean? Are you talking about Friday? How did you expect me to respond when Jack started making jokes about my job, was I just supposed to sit there and take it?

Marama: You’re right, it makes sense to me that you would feel angry about that. I don’t mind that you feel angry, but when you express it by standing up and yelling at him and saying that you ‘want to smash his face in’ I feel scared.

Nicole: That’s crap, I didn’t say I’d smash him, I said he needed to watch his mouth or one day someone might end up smashing him.

Marama: Fair enough, I might not have remembered it quite right. But this is something that has happened several times now in different ways. I think you know what I mean.

Nicole: It’s not like you never talk shit to people. Remember last week when you got cut off in traffic and you went on a rant for like twenty minutes about “useless drivers”

Marama: That’s true – it might be that this is something that we could both work on, and I’d be happy to talk about that. But I’m wondering if we can start by talking about what happens when we go out drinking.

Nicole: Man I can’t be bothered with this right now. You always seem to want to start fights.

Marama: I know this stuff is hard to talk about – I find that too, but I think it’s important. If we can find a way to talk about this it’ll help me to feel closer to you, and I’d really like for us both to be able to enjoy the times we go out together. If now doesn’t feel like a good time to talk, when do you think might work better for you?

Nicole: Fine okay, so what do want?

Of course, this conversation could easily go on a lot longer and require a lot of perseverance on Marama’s part – but hopefully you can see some of the patterns in how Marama is responding that help make a good outcome more likely:

1) She is consistently acknowledging Nicole’s experience and not trying to argue over the details of the complaint
2) She is consistently returning to her concern, and what she wants – to be able to talk about it
3) She brings in the positive outcome that could come from having a conversation – being able to feel closer to each other and being able to enjoy their times out together
4) She avoids using blaming or judgemental language, and sticks to the observable facts of what has happened and how she has felt about it

Again, perseverance and empathy are at the heart of this approach – the more we are able to validate and acknowledge the other person’s position without backing down or abandoning our own experience, the more likely we are to be able to have a real conversation about what is going on, and the more likely we are to be able to find a solution while still maintaining the relationship between ourselves and whoever we are talking to.

Changing the Subject

One of the most common ways that difficult conversations can get derailed is through the simple act of changing the subject. Although I say simple, the ways in which the subject gets changed can be quite subtle to the point that you might not even realise that the initial issue has not been addressed until after the conversation!

A subtle but common way that this happens is through a shift to subjects that are tangentially related to the topic under discussion, but which actually lead the conversation into a different direction. For example, Adele is angry with her mother Laura about the way her mother rarely seems to be happy for her when she has successes and always focuses on what she could improve. A conversation might go something like this:

Adele: Mum, when I told you that I had got a promotion at work and you said that “it was about time and that I should have got further in my career by now” I felt hurt and unsupported. I’d really like it if you could enjoy my successes with me and not point out things that you feel I could do better.

Laura: Well you have to keep trying, if you don’t try you’ll never succeed.

And now the conversation is completely derailed. In this case the subject change seems somewhat relevant (asking about whether Adele applied for a job) but is actually a shift away from the original subject – Adele’s feelings about how her mother responds to her successes and what she would like her to do about it.

The first step to overcoming this issue in conversation is to notice that it is happened. If you bring up a topic (like Adele did), after you get a response ask yourself: Do I feel that the other person has heard what I’ve said? Do I feel that they have responded to my point, or are they bringing in another topic/talking about something else? If you don’t feel that they have responded to what you raised, then the first tactic to address the issue is to simply change the subject back. You can do this by acknowledging briefly what they’ve said, and then returning to the main point. In the example above, Adele might respond by saying “Yes I did apply for the job. Right now though I’d like it if we could discuss what happens when I have a success in my life, as I feel hurt and disappointed when you respond by focusing on the things that I could still improve rather than on what I have achieved”.

If the other person continues to change the subject or respond evasively, then the next tactic to try is to point out what seems to be happening, in a non-judgemental and non-confrontational way. A good way to do this is to say something like:

“It seems like it’s hard for us to talk about this issue of how you respond when I have successes in my life. Is there something about it that feels difficult or uncomfortable for you?”

The important thing here is to say this with an attitude of empathy and curiosity. That means that rather than expressing frustration with the other person, or accusing them (“It seems like this is difficult for you!”) we want to approach it from the point of view of trying to understand where they are coming from. To be able to wonder, together with them, what is it about this topic that feels so hard to talk about, and be open to hearing their thoughts and feelings about it. If this approach goes well, it might look something like this:

Adele: Mum, I notice it seems like it’s hard for us to talk about this issue of how your respond to my successes. Is there something about it that feels difficult for you?

Adele: That makes sense – I imagine it’s frustrating to feel like you just want the best for me and that I just attack you for it. But I wonder if we can talk about it a bit, because although you want the best for me I don’t always experience it that way. Maybe if we can find some different ways for you to let me know that you want the best for me we can both feel good about it.

See what happens here? Adele responds by acknowledging/empathising with her mother’s feeling, but then importantly she comes back to the original issue. Now though she has some information about why her mother finds it hard to talk about, and is able to use that to frame the problem as something that they can both benefit from discussing (“maybe we can both feel good about it”).

Another way that the subject can get changed that can end up being very frustrating and confusing is where one or both people in the conversation use ambiguous language, and this can go on in such a way that it can be hard to work out exactly what is being talked about, whether you are in fact talking about the same thing, or even to remember what the original issue even was!
For example, another way the conversation above might have played out is:

Adele: Mum, when I told you that I had got a promotion at work and you said some unsupportive things I felt hurt and disappointed. I’d really like it if you could enjoy my successes with me and not point out things that you feel I could do better.

Adele: I do appreciate that but we’re talking about now, when I’m an adult!

At this point one or both people are probably starting to feel like they have no idea what they are arguing about, just that they feel about it very strongly! A lot of the arguments we have that are ‘over nothing’ can result from this kind of process, where we quickly lose sight of what we were really trying to discuss through using ambiguous words like ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘it’, ‘things’, ‘stuff’. The main tactic to address this issue is just to always use specific language yourself when bringing up a topic (so rather than say “unsupportive things” say “when you commented that I could have done better”) and to ask for clarification from the other person if you notice them using ambiguous terms (“Just so I’m clear, can you explain what you mean by ‘stuff’?”)

So to recap, these are the key steps to avoid the subject being changed when having a difficult conversation:

1. Notice that it is happening – ask yourself, has the other person responded to my point or have they introduced something new?

2. Use specific language to avoid getting side-tracked by ambiguity

3. Gently change the subject back to the topic you want to discuss. E.g. “That sounds important for us to talk about, but right now I’d like to address (topic)”

4. If the other person continues to change the subject or be evasive, point out that the topic seems hard to talk about and ask if they know why that might be.

5. Remain empathic and curious, open to hearing the other person’s view

It’s important to note that developing these skills takes time and practice. I’m reminded of a talk I saw by a therapist recently who talked about doing ‘therapy scales’. He was comparing therapy to learning an instrument, and pointing out that when you learn an instrument you have to do the boring work of learning to play scales carefully and accurately over and over and over in order to then be able to play music in a way that is precise and beautiful. His point was that the same is true of therapy skills, and equally the same is true of conversation skills – these things have to be practiced repeatedly and slowly, with the expectation that you will get things wrong at first. And, it doesn’t matter if you do.

What’s important is learning from what’s happened. If you try out some of these skills and the conversation doesn’t go the way you would have liked, or it does for a bit and then gets off track, think about it afterwards. At what point did things start to go off track? What was said, with what tone of voice, what body language? What might you have been able to say or do differently in that moment? When reflecting on these things it’s important not to criticise yourself for not having done it differently – the reality is that it will take practice, and each time you notice that things went off track is an opportunity to think about and experiment with a different approach next time to see if you can get further in the conversation.

Also, just because something might not have gone well one time is no reason it might not go better the next. In fact, you can use this as a way to bring up the topic again if you do want to have another go by saying something like “I feel like last time we tried to talk about (issue) it became pretty difficult for both of us. I wonder if we could try discussing it again?”

For example, you might notice that things were going fine until the other person pointed out that you also sometimes do the same thing that you were asking them not to do, at which point you felt confused and not sure how to proceed and ended up becoming defensive. If you take the time to reflect on this afterwards given what I’ve discussed here, you might decide that next time something like that happens you could respond by saying “Isn’t it interesting that I seem to do the same thing? Can we talk about how we both might be able to address this issue?”

Learning how to keep conversations on track is as simple as bringing things back to the issue you’ve raised when it gets diverted, and as difficult as overcoming all the subtle and clever ways that we have for changing the topic without us even noticing that it’s happened. It takes practice both for noticing when it happens, and feeling confident in switching the topic back when it does.

Good luck, and in the next article I will address ways of responding when the other person reacts by ‘shooting the messenger’ – when they respond through criticism or retaliation.

That is, if we go about it in the right way.  As with many things, there are good ways and not so good ways to take risks.  If we do it right, we feel more confident and capable after taking a risk – we realise that our capacity has grown and that we are stronger than we thought.  If we do it wrong, we can end up feeling more afraid and less capable as a result, and less inclined to take risks again.

When we experience something as a risk it is because of two things.  Firstly, there is uncertainty about an outcome and some belief that there is a possibility of loss or harm.  Secondly, we feel fear about that possibility.  This is true whether the possible harm is physical – in the case of taking a risk on a mountain bike track or while rock climbing, or psychological – in the case of initiating a difficult conversation with a family member.  Taking risks effectively involves both assessing realistically the degree of uncertainty and possibility of experiencing harm, and facing our fear about that possibility.  We can do this as a series of steps:

First of all, it’s important that we do think about how likely a negative outcome actually is. Our fear usually relates to both how likely something is to happen, and how devastating we perceive it to be if it did happen.  For example, most of us don’t experience getting on an aeroplane as particularly frightening or as being much of a risk.  This is because although the consequences if something went wrong are potentially huge (death), we know that the chance of this happening is incredibly low.  Similarly, most of us don’t see it as much of a risk or particularly frightening to tell a close friend what we think about something.  In this case, this is because the potential consequence (that they disagree with us) is not perceived by most people as particularly devastating, even though the chance of it happening is potentially quite high.

Things feel like more of a risk when we believe there is a combination of a reasonable likelihood of something happening (even if we know, rationally, that there isn’t) combined with a sense that a negative outcome would be quite painful or harmful for us.  It’s helpful before we take a risk to try and assess, as objectively as we can, both of these things: how likely is a negative outcome, and how bad would it really be if that happened?  Sometimes we might reasonably conclude that this is not a risk worth taking – for example, if I’m an inexperienced climber, the idea of free-climbing a difficult mountain carries both a reasonable chance of something going wrong, and a reasonable chance of serious harm if it does.  On the flip side, if I’m afraid of approaching a stranger and striking up conversation at a party, I can probably see (even though I don’t feel it) that the chance of something going wrong is probably low to moderate – at worst they might think I’m a bit awkward – and the impact on me if that happens is actually fairly minor.

In order to take risks effectively, it’s important to think about the realistic chances of something going wrong, and how badly that would affect us if it did – and start with the things that might feel scary but which are not actually going to cause us major problems.

The second part of taking risks effectively is facing and understanding our fear about it. Sometimes we take risks by blinding ourselves to our fear and just ‘taking the plunge’.  I’m talking about the moment just before you jump off the diving board where you close your eyes, push all thoughts out of your mind and just step forward.  Or maybe it’s that moment where you force words out of your mouth because you know that once you start you’ll have no choice but to continue.  We all have this capacity to block out our feelings temporarily and ‘just do it’, and sometimes this is helpful – but often this can also create problems for us.  If we don’t feel and experience our fear when we take a risk, we also don’t have the experience of overcoming our fear, and so we don’t learn that actually our fear is manageable, tolerable, and that we can act despite our fear.

It’s important that we allow ourselves to feel and know our fear for another reason as well.  In order to take risks, we need to try things that make us uncomfortable and anxious, but not terrified, and so we need to notice and assess the level of fear that we feel.  If we take risks when our fear is too high, then after doing it, instead of feeling proud and confident in ourselves, we mostly just feel relief or possibly more fear.  This can lead to us feeling less inclined to take risks in the future if the overall experience was too unpleasant.  This is why the classic desensitisation treatments for phobias don’t involve chucking you in a room full of spiders straight away – instead, you start with a picture of a spider, then a spider at a distance, then closer up etc.  The key here is having a gradual exposure to the thing that is frightening so that it becomes easier to tolerate.

Effective risk-taking means noticing our fear, experiencing it and being aware of how it feels in our body, and accepting that it’s okay to feel fear and that we can tolerate it.  If it is feeling overwhelming to us to the point that we find ourselves unable to think clearly or feel ourselves panicking, then our level of fear is too high and we should aim to find something more manageable but related to try first.

Once we’ve assessed the probable outcomes and acknowledged and felt our fear about a risk we want to take, the third and final step is to go through with it. Obviously this is easier said than done.  It might be helpful at this point to remind yourself of the possible outcomes and the impact of this if you know rationally that they will not be that significant.  For example, to remind yourself “If I tell my partner about something that I am unhappy about in the relationship, they might get angry and I might feel guilty about upsetting them – but I can live with that feeling and so can they”.  Or perhaps “If I apply for this job, there’s a chance I won’t get it and then I’ll probably feel like I’m not good enough.  But there will also be other jobs to apply for, and I can tolerate that feeling”.

You may also find it helpful to use techniques to calm yourself and bring your anxiety down a bit.  Breathing techniques or mindfulness skills can both be useful here and are things you can easily practice at home.  You probably won’t be able to feel totally calm about the risk you are taking, and it is actually important that you don’t.  If you felt totally calm, you wouldn’t be taking a risk and you wouldn’t get the same benefit from the experience.  Doing something despite feeling afraid or anxious helps us learn that actually our fear is not insurmountable and that it doesn’t have to hold us back.

If your fear feels at a manageable level and the chances of causing ourselves serious harm are not that high, then all that’s left is to do it!

Taking risks is important both to get the most out of therapy, but also to get the most out of our lives.  It enables us to become more than we are now and to achieve things that once might have seemed impossible.  However, effective risk taking requires that we be realistic about the possible outcomes, and that we take risks where our fear feels uncomfortable but not unmanageable.  That way, when we take a risk we can become more confident in ourselves and more aware of our actual abilities and capacities rather than feeling overwhelmed or weakened by our experience.

It’s difficult (as a therapist at least!) to think about bereavement and mourning without bringing to mind one of Freud’s most significant papers titled ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. In this paper, he described the difference between what he saw as a normal mourning process after the loss of something or someone that was deeply important to us, and what can happen when the mourning process goes off course, leading to a prolonged depressive state. Freud described the state of mourning as being “a profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, (and) inhibition of all activity”. Although we all mourn in different ways, I imagine most people can relate to these ideas. Mourning in a sense takes us out of the world for a while – we feel consumed by our loss, uninterested in other people or other things in our life that once held meaning for us. It is profoundly painful, although at times we turn to distractions, substances or forced-positivity to try and avoid that pain. While this may work for a while, ultimately, it delays the process of mourning. As a psychiatrist blogger wrote about grief: “There is no shortcut to mourning, the shortcut leads to madness. When you subvert the system and offer a mourner a shortcut, you are leading them to madness.”

What, then, does the process of mourning involve? How do we come through it, and learn to re-engage in the world, to love again, to care again? According to Freud, this process involves gradually de-investing our emotional energy and attachment to the lost person – what these days would probably be called ‘letting go’. This is no simple process – early on following a loss, every part of our being screams out against the idea of letting go of that person in our minds. We often find ourselves resisting believing that they are gone, or even forgetting this fact, only to experience the pain and shock all over again when we remember that it is real. As time passes, we find ourselves being reminded over and over again of the ways in which our lives have changed because of the loved person’s absence and this becomes the real work of mourning. Every time we recall a memory of that person, we are forced to unconsciously alter it slightly to account for their absence. Memories that used to be happy recollections of time spent together become tinged with sadness. The hopes and dreams that we had about things we might do or say with that person in the future have to be amended, changed with the new knowledge that these things will never be possible. Our questions and wonderings about the person lost to us become dead ends, we are forced to acknowledge that there are things for which we will never have answers. Every thought, every feeling, every memory about the person has to be altered in our minds to account for their absence. This slow, painful and exhausting process is the process of mourning.

Our minds are equipped to do this work. Loss is part of being human – it is an experience we will all have at one time or another, and we have the tools to survive these times and become re-engaged in the world. We all mourn in our own ways. There is no timeline for grief, and nobody else can tell you how to do it. If left to mourn in our own time and in our own way, normally we will come through. What can interrupt this process are the pressures that we experience to shortcut our mourning, to return to ‘normality’ before we are ready. These pressures might come from those around us. Sometimes people will try and ‘hurry’ our grief with the best of intentions, tell us to focus on the positives, that the person who is gone would want us to carry on with our lives and enjoy ourselves. Sometimes the demands of our life require us to move on before we are ready – the financial pressures of work, the practical pressures of children. And sometimes these demands come from within ourselves. Maybe an inner voice tells us that we should ‘get over it already’, or that we ‘need to be strong’ for those around us. Perhaps we have a sense that we shouldn’t be so upset, or maybe that we should be more upset. As hard as it may be, it is important when we are grieving to try and resist these pressures to mourn in a particular way or to shortcut the process, and allow space for our grief and for our feelings of loss, anger and pain.

Sometimes getting support from others during this process will make things easier, but again it is important that we seek support in a way that is meaningful for us and that fits with our own process of mourning. Resist anyone who tries to tell you how to do it, no matter how good their intentions. If we can do this: If we can allow ourselves time to feel whatever we feel, to think whatever we think without judgement or pressuring ourselves to ‘do things differently’, then we will be able to mourn in a way that returns us to health, to a point where we can feel the pain of our loss but be able to turn our energies once more towards living, towards those around us and the things that have meaning in our lives.