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.

This is normal. I don’t think anyone comes to therapy without a fair amount of hesitation, uncertainty and protectiveness – it’s a strange and vulnerable experience, after all. As a result, at the same time as we want help with a particular problem we can often be reluctant to talk about it completely openly and honestly. Part of us is telling us ‘go on, tell him what you’re really thinking and feeling’ while another part is saying ‘don’t tell him what’s really on your mind, he’ll think you’re crazy/terrible/overdramatic etc.’ What we then sometimes end up doing is trying to allude to the issue, or say what we’re thinking or feeling but in a more ‘sanitised’ form than the reality. So rather than saying ‘I felt completely devastated’ we say ‘It was pretty difficult’.

It would be a bit like if you went to the doctor and when they ask ‘what’s the problem’ you point to somewhere fairly close to the injury but not the injury itself. Which makes sense of course, because you know that if you point to the actual injury they’re going to start poking it to work out what’s wrong and that’s going to hurt. Or they might ask awkward questions like ‘how on earth did you manage to get injured there?’ Of course the problem with this is that they then go to work trying to find out what the problem is, but they’re not really looking in the right place. Which means you go away with some suggestions or solutions that don’t really match the problem.

The same thing happens in therapy, except even more so because unlike a bleeding wound or a broken bone, our emotional wounds and injuries don’t have such obvious signs that point to what’s wrong. In order to get the most out of it, it’s important to help guide the therapist towards the things that really do hurt the most, towards those things that you least want to explore.

I remember when I was in my own therapy I often found myself wishing that the therapist would think to ask certain questions, would realise that he needed to ask me about particular topics or dig in deeper on certain issues. Of course, he rarely did – because at the same time as I wanted him to ask about those things, another part of me was steering him away from them by not bringing them up myself, by giving short or disinterested answers when he did ask related questions – basically by giving all the signs that those were not topics of much significance or not things that I wanted to address.

So how can you overcome this and get the most out of therapy? The first thing is to become aware of any possible topics that you have these mixed feelings about. That is, things that you both do and don’t want to talk about. A good way to identify these things is to ask yourself ‘Is there anything that I really wish my therapist would ask me about but hasn’t?’ or ‘Is there anything that I wish my therapist would dig into more deeply than he/she has?’ Sometimes the reverse question is also helpful, ‘Is there anything I really hope my therapist doesn’t ask about?’ If you can identify some of these things, then the next question to ask yourself is ‘Why would I want to/not want to talk about that topic, and how would I feel about it if I did?’ In many cases when you think about this you may find that it comes down to thoughts about how the therapist might react if you discussed it, or what they might think or feel towards you.

For example , a client might find himself wishing that his therapist would ask more about the relationship with his wife because he feels scared and intimidated by her and it is making him very unhappy. At the same time, he doesn’t want to talk about it because he has the thought ‘my therapist will think I’m weak if I’m feeling scared of my wife’ or ‘my therapist will think I should just leave her if I bring it up, and I don’t want to do that’.

Or another example, a client might want to talk about how overwhelmed she feels by her anger towards her young daughter and might bring this up with the therapist – but then holds back from telling the therapist that sometimes she feels like she hates her daughter or feels like hitting her because she has the thought ‘my therapist will think I’m a terrible person if I hate my own daughter’.

In general, the things that feel most uncomfortable to talk about or that provoke anxiety about how the therapist will respond are often the most important things to discuss! If you can identify things like this for yourself – that you both want to and don’t want to talk about – then the next step is to try and find a way to bring this into the therapy room. Sometimes a good place to start with this is by talking about the fear of talking about it, or the thought that you worry the therapist might have. For example, ‘There’s something I wish you’d ask me about, but I worry that you’ll think I’m pathetic if I talk about it’. Or ‘I know we’ve talked about my anger before, but I find it hard to tell you how bad it gets sometimes becomes I’m worried you’ll think I’m a horrible person’. Very often, naming the fear can make it more manageable and can make it something that you and the therapist can work with together rather than feeling stuck with it on your own.

Getting the most out of therapy means being as radically, open, honest and vulnerable as we possibly can be. Which is to say, doing something terrifying that would likely be a horribly bad idea in nearly every other situation in our lives – and so unsurprisingly a part of us wants to stop us and interrupt us from really doing this. Catching that part and bringing it into the light along with the fears that it has – the fear that if we’re really honest we won’t be accepted, or loved, that we’ll be hated or rejected – is crucial to overcoming that fear and moving towards accepting ourselves as a complete person with all our thoughts, feelings and needs.

The ways in which we hold ourselves back in therapy often make a lot of sense – perhaps we’ve had negative reactions to the things we want to talk about before, or have been judged by others in the past. But they can also stop us from getting the most out of the experience, and in some cases can get in the way of making much progress at all. I encourage anyone who is in therapy to ask themselves the question at the end of every session ‘Was there anything I wish I’d said or asked today that I didn’t?’ and, if there was, to find a way to bring it up next time.

I want to start by addressing two key points that are crucial to bear in mind throughout any challenging conversation.  To have the best chance of getting a good outcome – that is, that the other person is willing to listen and work on resolving the topic you raise – it’s critical that you remain persistent and empathic throughout the conversation.

Persistence means being willing and actively working towards sticking to the key points you have raised, and to not get side-tracked or caught up in the various ways that the other person has of deflecting your point.  It’s important to be aware that if the conversation feels uncomfortable or difficult to you, then there will be a part of you that also is quite willing to get sidetracked, to back down, to move on to more comfortable or less contentious topics, or to fall into the regular patterns of how arguments normally proceed.  This means that it can be very easy to want to move away from your key points, and is why persistence is so important.  For example, Bill has decided to talk to his boyfriend Adam about the way that Adam expects Bill to let him know any time he makes plans to go away, but often goes out himself without telling Bill.

Bill: Adam, when you get angry if I don’t tell you my plans to go away, but then you often go out without telling me I feel angry and unequal in the relationship.  I’d like it if we could both make an effort to let each other know what we’re doing.

Adam: Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.  By the way did you get the document scanned at work for me?

Bill: That’s okay, I know you probably didn’t mean it.  Yeah, I’ll email it through to you later.

Here, Adam is deflecting the conversation simply by changing the topic.  This may not even be intentional, and is one of the most common ways that we have of avoiding difficult conversations.  Bill, by not being persistent, has allowed the topic of conversation to change.  Sure, Adam has acknowledged what Bill has said but hasn’t really engaged in the conversation and no decision has been made about what, if anything, will change.

If Bill was to be persistent, he might respond by saying:

Bill: I know you probably didn’t mean for me to feel this way, but it is how I feel.  I’d like it if we can both make an effort to let each other know what we’re doing, what do you think?

Persistence in this case often just means repeating and reiterating the key points that the other person hasn’t acknowledged or responded to – in this case, Bill’s request for what he would like to change.

Here’s another example of being persistent:

Helen: Rahul, when I asked you to pick up our son from school and you forgot, I felt furious and scared for our son.  I would really like it if you can find a way to remind yourself so that I can rely on you for these sorts of things.  Then I will feel much more trusting of you.

Rahul: Shit, I’m sorry.  I got completely swamped at work, and then I was in a meeting that ran late.  You know you’ve always been better at this sort of thing.

Helen: I understand that you have days like that at work.  At the same time, it’s really important to me that our son does not get left at school again. What shall we do about it?

Rahul: Like I said, you’ve always been better at this stuff. If you want to make sure it happens, maybe you should do it.

Helen: I get that maybe it seems easier for me, but I’m working too and I also have to find ways to remind myself.  It’s really important to me that we take responsibility for this together.  How can we make that happen?

Here, Helen is being persistent by coming back to her point of what she wants to change, that they share responsibility for taking care of their son.  She does this by simply repeating what she wants.  When being persistent, questions like “What shall we do about it?” or “How can we make that happen?” are a great way to continue to invite (and gently pressure!) the other person into engaging with the key issue.

Helen’s responses here also highlight the second critical part of being effective in these conversations – empathy.  Empathy, which sounds a lot like sympathy but is quite different, means being able to see things from the other person’s point of view – putting yourself in their shoes.  What this means is that throughout the conversation, it’s important to think about and be aware of how it might feel for the other person and to listen out for this in their responses.  If we can be empathic and let the other person know that we understand where they’re coming from and still be persistent at the same time, then we have the best chance for success.  Here’s an example of an empathic and a not-so-empathic response:

Rahul: Well like I said, you’ve always been better at this stuff. If you want to make sure it happens, maybe you should do it.

Helen: I can see that it might seem like it’s easier for me, but actually I do find it hard sometimes as well.

Compared to:

Helen: Sure, make me do it all just like I do everything else.  That’s typical for you, just selfish.

I’m sure it doesn’t take much guesswork to imagine which response might lead to a better outcome!

Being empathic also often means giving the other person the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motivations.  Most of us, even if we’re acting in an aggressive, unreasonable or selfish way do not see ourselves as acting in this way, and in fact will usually feel something quite different.  In the example above, although Rahul’s behaviour and what he is saying could reasonably be seen as being selfish, it’s likely that what he’s feeling is attacked, guilty, useless or not good enough.  Therefore, being empathic means reflecting what we imagine the other person might be feeling or thinking rather than what they are doing and being kind to them as well as to ourselves.  For example, an empathic statement might be something like “I can imagine you might be feeling attacked by me right now, but I think this is something we can work out if we can just talk about it”.  In general, a good way to respond to somebody trying to deflect or defend against something you want to talk about is to use statements like “I understand you might think that…” or “I see that you might be feeling…” combined with “…and it’s really important to me that we be able to talk about this” or “…and I think we can find a way to sort this out if we think about it together”.  Again, combining empathy (what the other person may be feeling) with persistence (what you want – to talk about, and then address the issue).

Of course, it’s not easy to remain empathic when we’re having a difficult conversation – emotions are running high, and we can easily feel attacked, or feel angered and want to attack the other person.  However, the more we can tolerate these feelings in ourselves without responding to them, and the more we can use our anger and frustration to be persistent rather than aggressive, the better the outcome will be.  For this reason, it’s helpful to go through the steps outlined in the previous two posts on this topic so that we feel clear in ourselves what our priorities are, and what we want to say.  Similarly, it’s important to bring up the conversation at a good time – when both we and the other person are not distracted, or already angry or upset.

In the next part of this series of posts I will start to talk about how to respond to particular responses that the other person can have, starting with one that I mentioned briefly in this post: changing the topic.

The best way to communicate in a difficult conversation is actually quite straight-forward, and most of us will have heard it before: state the facts, state what you think or feel about them, state what you would like to happen, and state how the other person might benefit from it.  However, most of us struggle to do it for a variety of reasons.  The most common of these is that for most of us, saying clearly what we think, feel and want is deeply uncomfortable.  We’d much rather hedge around the issue, or focus on nit-picking or accusing the other person.  Taking full ownership of our own thoughts, feelings and needs takes a lot of courage – and yet it is key to being effective in communication.  If we can’t do that, we may get some outcome – but it won’t be the outcome we want, or we won’t feel good about how we got there.

Let’s start by looking at the format for communicating in difficult conversations, and then look at some of the other challenges that can arise in using this process.  This particular format is drawn from the Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills approach, but you’ll find very similar formats in other approaches to communication.

Describe

The first thing to do to initiate a difficult conversation is to describe what it is that you want to talk about or address.  This might seem like the simplest step, but is actually probably one of the hardest and getting this right will set the tone for the whole conversation.  The key here is to focus on just what is objectively observable.  By that, I mean just what you can experience through your five senses, without any interpretation or judgement.  A good way to do this is to imagine yourself as a news reporter or a scientist, dispassionately describing what you can see and observe.  Try and be specific, and concise.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

Frank’s mother often talks over him when he is telling a story, and interrupts to tell him about similar experiences that she has had.  This is pissing Frank off, and he wants to talk to her about it.

He can start this conversation by describing what is happening, and what he wants to talk about.

How do you imagine his mother might respond if he said something like:

“I wish you’d stop butting in, it’s really rude”

Probably not that well, right?  Although he’s describing what she’s doing, he’s doing it using evocative language (butting in) and making a judgement about it (that it’s rude).  What about this:

“I want to talk about how you don’t want to let me finish my stories”

Maybe a bit better, but there’s still an interpretation here. He’s making the assumption that his mother doesn’t want him to finish his stories.  In fact, she might not even realise she is doing it.

This is why it’s so important to stick to just the observable facts.  Otherwise, the other person can quickly feel attacked and become defensive, or you can end up going off on a tangent about whether your interpretation of events is correct.  So in this case, Frank might say something like:

“I’d like to talk about the way you sometimes talk over me when I am telling a story” or, if it had just happened, “Did you notice that you just talked over me?”

This is simple, direct, and hard to argue with (except perhaps in the Monty Python sense).

Photo by Mark Sebastian: https://www.flickr.com/photos/markjsebastian/

Express

The next step is to express what you feel or think about the topic you’ve raised.  The key thing here is that you describe what you think and feel, not your thoughts about the other person’s thoughts/feelings/motivations.  Keeping it brief, and starting with “I feel..” is a good way to go here.

Connor’s partner has been making jokes about how he is ‘a lazy asshole’ in front of their friends, and Connor has felt hurt and upset about this.

To put the first two steps together – describing and expressing – Connor might say something like:

“When you call me a ‘lazy asshole’ in front of our friends (describing), I feel hurt and embarrassed. (expressing)”

That’s it – with all this stuff, keeping it as short as you can is helpful.  Often we want to justify and explain ourselves when we are communicating something difficult, but often all this does is that it takes away from the strength of what we’re saying and makes it easier to get sidetracked.  For example, if Connor said:

“I know you don’t mean it as an insult, and I don’t mind you joking around with our friends, but I was wondering why you call me a lazy asshole sometimes because I think you probably know me well enough to know that that’s not really who I am, and I can feel quite hurt by it”

Now the conversation can go in a whole lot of different directions, away from what Connor wanted to talk about.  Maybe the partner responds to the comment about not meaning it as an insult (“You’re right, I didn’t mean it that way so just realise it’s a joke and don’t worry”); maybe they respond to the question of ‘why’ (“Well I know you’re not like that all the time, but sometimes the stuff you do can be kinda lazy”), or any of a number of other options.

So the key things when you’re expressing yourself – keep it short and simple, and keep it about your thoughts and feelings.  Another mistake Connor could make is to say something like:

“When you call me a ‘lazy asshole’ in front of our friends, I feel like you are putting me down”

Now Connor’s moved from describing his thoughts and feelings (hurt and embarrassed) to describing what he thinks his partner is doing (putting him down).  This could be more likely to result in the partner becoming defensive and potentially derailing the conversation – “Well you put me down sometimes as well!”

Assert

The third step in the process is to state what you would like to happen or change.  Again, keep it simple – “I would like it if you could not say those things about me in future”.  Be clear about what you want, so that the other person knows what you are asking of them – otherwise it can feel as if you’re just having a gripe at them.  By stating exactly what you would like to change, the other person can feel like they know how to resolve the situation – if that is what they choose to do!

It’s also helpful to think about what you want to change before you ask the other person.  Having it clear in your mind will help you to feel confident asking, and will also avoid the situation that can often arise between people in relationship where one person has a complaint about the other, but can’t really tell them how to fix it!

Karen’s boss has been criticising her work in front of the other staff at the last few staff meetings.  Karen is feeling embarrassed and undermined by this, and wants the boss to bring up any problems that she has with Karen before the meeting.

Following everything we’ve covered so far, Karen might approach this by saying something like:

“When you point out the problems with my work in front of the other staff at the meeting (describing), I feel embarrassed and undermined, and feel like I don’t get a chance to correct things (expressing).  I’d really like it if you could let me know about anything I’ve done wrong before the meetings so that I can try and correct my mistakes (asserting)”

Photo by Joi Ito: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/

Reinforce

The final step in the process is to reinforce the other person, by letting them know what the positive outcome of them changing their behaviour will be.  Ideally, you want to frame this in terms of what the other person gets out of it, but in close relationships it’s often just enough to let them know what it will mean to you.  Carrying on from the example above, Karen might add something like “If you can let me know about any problems ahead of the meetings, then I’ll be able to fix them sooner and will get better at getting things right the first time!”

Let’s look at the other two examples, and how each of these might look if we went through all four steps of describing, expressing, asserting, and reinforcing.

Frank might say to his mother: “When you talk over me while I’m telling a story (describing), I feel frustrated and like the things I want to talk about don’t matter (expressing).  I’d like it if you could let me finish before telling me what you think (asserting), and that way I’ll feel a lot more heard by you and also I’ll feel a lot more interested in hearing what you have to say (reinforcing)”

Connor might say to his partner: “When you joke about me being a ‘lazy asshole’ in front of our friends (describing), I can feel quite hurt and disrespected (expressing).  Could you please not joke about me in that way (asserting) when you friends are around, cos that would help me feel more respected and loving towards you (reinforcing)”

Make sense?  In all these instances, you’ll see that it’s important to keep things short, clear and direct.  If we do it right, what could be a very difficult conversation can become very short and easy:

“Hey, when you do a certain thing I feel a certain way.  I’d like it if you could not do that, and then we’ll both feel better” “Oh okay, I didn’t realise you felt that way – I’ll stop doing that”

Conclusion

Of course, in practice it’s rarely that simple as the other person can easily respond in a lot of different ways that make it hard to stick with this format – this will be the subject of subsequent posts.  At the same time, the more we can stick to this format (or something similar) for these difficult conversations, the better they are likely to go.  We don’t need to do this in every conversation (obviously – this would sound rather awkward if we talked this way all the time!), but it’s a useful approach for anything that feels difficult or uncomfortable to bring up.

If you do want to give it a go, I’d also strongly encourage you to write down what it is that you want to say to address each of these four points: describing what you want to talk about, expressing how you feel about it, asserting what you want to happen, and reinforcing the other person.  That way you can get clear in your own mind about what you want to say, and you can also double-check what you’ve written to make sure that you are avoiding making judgements or interpretations, and that you’ve been short and clear.  It shouldn’t be more than 2-3 sentences.  Good luck!

I intend to write a series of posts about how to manage difficult conversations, and ways to be effective in them.  Part one will focus on how to initiate a conversation about a difficult topic, while subsequent parts will focus on how to work with the different responses you will often get to bringing up challenging questions or requests.

To start with, I want to define what I mean by a ‘difficult conversation’.  The simplest way to tell if something is going to be a difficult conversation for you is to check how you feel about bringing it up – if you feel anxious, nervous, or worried about how the other person will respond to you bringing up a topic or asking a particular question, that’s a difficult conversation.  If you’d rather put it off, or find yourself procrastinating – thinking “Oh, I’ll tell them the next time it happens” – that’s a difficult conversation.  Often this might involve expressing a viewpoint or a feeling that you expect the other person might find challenging, or it might be asking the other person to act (or not act) in some way – you’re asking them to make a change.

This is generally because we’re expecting, rightly or wrongly, that what the other person thinks, feels and wants will conflict with what we think, feel or want – therefore there’s the possibility of hurt feelings, of defensiveness or argument.  It’s these sorts of conversations that I hope these posts will help with.  I also want to acknowledge a couple of people whose ideas have largely influenced my writing.  Part of the reason for wanting to write about this topic was a series of blog posts written by American psychiatrist David M Allen – you can find this series of posts here.  I’ve recommended these to a number of people, as I think some of his ideas for managing responses to difficult conversations are great, although he mostly talks about them in the context of family metacommunication.  Some readers have told me that they have found these posts difficult to engage with as a lay reader, and so my hope is to build on David’s ideas to reach a different audience.

I’ve also drawn a lot on the ideas of Marsha Linehan, creator of the Dialectical Behavioural approach to therapy.  I strongly recommend reading her writing for anyone interested in developing their interpersonal effectiveness.

One of the valuable ideas that Linehan brings into her approach is the idea of having multiple priorities during a difficult conversation.  In short, in any conversation it’s valuable for us to think about how important each of the following things are to us:

1) The objective. The objective is what we want to happen or change as a result of the conversation.  This might be a change in the other person’s behaviour, or to reach an agreement.

2) The relationship. This is how we want the other person to feel and think about us after the conversation.

3) Integrity defines how we want to think and feel about ourselves after the conversation.

In every conversation, all of these things will be relevant to some degree.

Kathy is angry with her friend who often cancels appointments at the last minute.  Kathy wants to talk to her friend about this, and how she feels about it.  More importantly though, she would like her friend to change her behaviour and give her more notice if she wants to cancel an arrangement.  Kathy has a history of not speaking her mind and letting other people take advantage of this, and wants to make sure she stands up for herself better in this conversation.

In the above example, we can see the three points outlined above.  The objective Kathy wants is for her friend to give more notice if she is cancelling an appointment.  The relationship is quite important to Kathy, and she wants her friend to still respect and like her after the conversation, and at the same time it is important to Kathy that she maintain her self-respect and integrity by asserting herself, and not backing down too easily – she knows it would be easy to say something like ‘Oh, I don’t mind, don’t worry about it’.

In any conversation then, it can be really helpful for us to think about these three priorities and decide which of the three is most important to us, and which are less important.  This will help guide us in how we approach the conversation itself.

For example, if Kathy decides that the most important thing is to achieve her objective – to make sure that her friend changes her behaviour – then she might be willing to be more demanding of her friend even if it upsets the friend, or leads to her viewing Kathy as pushy or aggressive.

If, on the other hand, the most important thing is the relationship with her friend, Kathy might approach the conversation differently.  She might choose to say how she feels and what she wants, but be willing to accept if her friend does not want to change her behaviour in order to maintain the friendship.

Lastly, if she decides that maintaining her integrity is most important, then she might focus on speaking and acting in a way that she can feel proud of and satisfied with in herself, regardless of how the conversation ends.  This might mean (depending on what is important to her) making an effort to express herself clearly, not apologising for her point of view, remaining calm, and not raising her voice or becoming defensive.

In most difficult conversations, all three things will feel important to us, but it can be very helpful to consider beforehand which is the most important.  Sometimes (perhaps often) we will find that difficult conversations don’t actually end up being nearly as bad as we expect, and we are able to achieve our objective while still maintaining the relationship and feeling good about ourselves.  For those times where that’s not possible, having it clear in our mind what our priorities are will give us clarity and confidence to go forward.

It is very likely that this will vary from situation to situation, and from person to person.  For example, if I am asking my boss for a raise because I cannot afford to pay my bills on my current salary, then my objective is likely much more important to me than the relationship with my boss or my integrity.  If I’m wanting to talk with a family member about the way they criticise me and put me down, my integrity might be the most important thing – no matter how the conversation goes, it’s most important to me that I don’t also start putting myself down.  With another family member, it might be that the relationship is the most important thing.  Having this clear in our mind will help us know how to respond and how much to pursue our objective during the conversation itself.

The reality of course is that often while all three priorities are important to us, at times we will have to sacrifice one if we really want to achieve another.  Maybe the only way to convince my boss to give me a raise is to share details about my personal life and financial hardship that I would rather not share.  Then I can achieve my objective (getting a raise) at the cost of my integrity (feeling exposed and embarrassed about having to share personal details).  Or maybe I can do it at the cost of my relationship with my boss, by becoming angry and refusing to back down.  On the flip side, maybe I maintain a relationship with a friend by agreeing to accept a behaviour that makes me feel hurt and angry, because that behaviour is only a part of who they are and I value our friendship.

To put these ideas into practice, I’d really encourage you to ask yourself these questions and even write down your answers when approaching a difficult conversation:

1) What do I want to happen, or what do I want to change, as a result of this conversation?

1a) Which ways of speaking or acting will help me achieve my objective, and which will hinder it?

2) How do I want the other person to think and feel about me after this conversation?

2a) What ways of speaking and acting are likely to affect how the other person thinks and feels about me?

3) How do I want to think and feel about myself after this conversation?

3a) What ways of speaking and acting are likely to affect how I think and feel about myself?

4) Which of these three things is most important to me right now?

I’ll talk more in future posts about ways of speaking and acting during conversations, but for now for each of the follow-up questions, consider how your way of speaking and acting during the conversation is likely to affect the outcome, how the other person feels about you, and how you feel about yourself.  This could include speaking forcefully vs speaking passively, making accusations vs asking questions, making demands vs making requests, acting serious vs acting light-hearted, being flexible vs being firm.  As you think about these things, you’ll probably realise that some ways of speaking or acting might help you achieve some priorities more than others.  For example, being light-hearted when bringing up a difficult topic might put the other person at ease and help maintain the relationship with them, but it might also lead to them not taking what you say seriously, and therefore you might be less likely to achieve your objective.  Being forceful and demanding might have the opposite effect.  Choosing your approach to match what is most important to you is an important part of being effective in conversation.

That’s all for the first post in this series.  I’ve touched on the three priorities that come up in any conversation – the outcome, what you want to happen as a result of the conversation; the relationship, how you want the other person to think and feel about you; and integrity, how you want to think and feel about yourself.  In the next post we will look at how to start a difficult conversation in a way that is non-confrontational and gives you the best chance of success by focusing on the objective, expressing yourself clearly, stating what you want, and reinforcing the other person.

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.