{"id":2147,"date":"2019-11-06T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2019-11-05T11:02:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T00:02:40","slug":"the-stranger-in-the-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2019\/11\/06\/the-stranger-in-the-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stranger in the Room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nTim Clark<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d\nlike you to get into pairs and take ten minutes to reflect on the questions on\nthe screen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas the second day of a thought-provoking psychotherapy conference and I was\nflagging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nwoman in front of me turned around and made the \u2018d\u2019you wanna pair up?\u2019 gesture.\nIn my flagging state, I was grateful to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nvolunteered Steph1<\/sup> to go first and she began to discuss the\nquestions as we had been instructed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\nspoke sporadically, pausing to think through her responses. I listened, nodding\nand maintaining eye contact, at the same time processing the questions for\nmyself. She looked at me a few times, expectantly, perhaps waiting for me to\nsay something, and then continued. I didn\u2019t want to interrupt. She repeated the\nsame idea over a few times, apparently unsure about where to take it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre\nyou even listening?\u201d she exclaimed, sitting back in her chair. \u201cI feel like\nyou\u2019re just going, \u2018yeah, yeah, let\u2019s get this finished.\u2019 Actually, I\u2019m feeling\nquite pissed off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nthroat sank into my stomach. I blathered, \u201cOh, no, oh, um, oh, my gosh, if\nthat\u2019s the impression I\u2019ve given you then it\u2019s the absolute opposite of what I\nwould have wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\nseems like I\u2019m boring you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas mortified. My hands started trembling and my heart thumped in my chest. I\ntried to explain that I had indeed been listening and thought that was all I\nwas expected to do. But the damage had been done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\ninner critic chimed in: You\u2019re not\nallowed to piss people off, Tim. How could you!<\/em> Even worse: Maybe this is what <\/em>everyone is thinking while <\/em>you\u2019re thinking you\u2019re listening to them. Have you\nbeen misunderstanding everyone all this time?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I sank\ninto shame. When the exercise was over, I fled from the classroom and sat\noutside in the quiet, gathering myself and processing what had happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthe afternoon tea break, I was chatting with another lady when Steph sought me\nout. \u201cI notice you left the room<\/em>,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nexplained my need to get myself together, determined to take responsibility for\nmy own actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steph\nproceeded to tell the other lady what had happened between us, only checking\nhalfway through that I was happy for her to do that. I added that I had\ninterpreted the instructions for the task very literally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steph\nagreed and went one step further: \u201cI have a theory about that, and maybe it\u2019s a\nbit far out, but I was thinking that sometimes autistic people can be very\nliteral and maybe you might be on the autism spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe roughly thirty minutes I had known her, Steph had formed a judgement of me\nas insensitive, apathetic, a poor listener and, to some degree, autistic. If\nthere has been a time in my life when I\u2019ve felt less understood, I can\u2019t\nremember it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a strange twist of fate, it was in that very workshop that I first heard the term \u2018discursive empathy<\/a>.\u2019 I was familiar with Carl Rogers\u2019 definition of empathy as: the capacity to sense someone\u2019s private world as if it were my own, without ever losing the \u2018as if\u2019 quality (1957). I knew it involved more than just reflecting back to people what they said they were feeling, that it involved constant checking to ensure accuracy, and that I didn\u2019t need to disconnect from my own reality to be able to empathise with someone else\u2019s reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this word \u2018discursive\u2019 added a new element. It suggested that real empathy includes the ability to tap into the \u2018discourses\u2019 that inform another person\u2019s perspective: in other words, the context they exist in, especially their culture. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

My\nencounter with Steph is a perfect example of what can go wrong when we don\u2019t\nattempt to understand the contexts in which other people exist. What I haven\u2019t\ntold you about Steph is that she had lived most of her life in a country and\nculture different to my own. English was her second language. It\u2019s entirely\npossible that in her culture or in her family, it is unacceptable under any\ncircumstances to remain silent when someone speaks to you. Maybe she was\nuncomfortable with silence? It can be scary for a lot of people for a lot of\nreasons. Maybe silence had been used as a punishment against her by a loved one?\nOr maybe it was something to do with my face? Perhaps I made an expression that,\nin her context, would indicate boredom or arrogance. (I sometimes think I have\n\u2018resting vague face\u2019.) Whatever it was, I failed to read the signs that I was\nfrustrating her. I can see only them in hindsight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nshe also failed to attempt to understand the discourses that informed my\nresponse. Having been a teacher myself, I was operating on the belief that the\nteacher\u2019s word was gospel, that it was important to follow instructions so I\ncould learn well. And in my family, even as a kid, I had often adopted the role\nof quiet mediator. I learned early on that voicing my own feelings could make\nfiery situations worse. My approach to being a counsellor and massage therapist,\ntherefore, was based largely on careful listening and a reluctance to impose my\ninterpretations before I was confident of being really tuned-in. I know how\nvaluable it is to speak and be heard without being steered by someone in any\nparticular direction. I had thought that I was providing an opportunity for\nSteph to do that, yet my good intentions could hardly have been more poorly\nreceived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By chance, I had just finished reading2<\/sup> Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s latest book, <\/a>Talking to Strangers<\/a><\/em>. Whatever you think of Gladwell, the book offers some compelling and surprising insights about what can go wrong when strangers meet. He puts a lot of it down to our inability to do what he calls \u2018coupling\u2019, which is similar to discursive empathy. We struggle, he suggests, to understand that strangers are \u2018coupled\u2019 with their context. We\u2019re often not familiar with the social, cultural, spiritual and other contexts in which people have been brought up and continue to live in. The examples in Gladwell\u2019s case studies have far more tragic consequences than my tiny collision with Steph, yet the principle remains the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Reading\u2019\nstrangers without considering their context leaves us only with the personal\ninformation we have: a tone of voice, a facial expression, a word choice. Steph\nvery quickly took the information she had and formed not only an impression but\na diagnosis<\/em> and even reflected that\ndiagnosis back to me. For a short time, it left me feeling ashamed and deeply\nunsure of myself. Rather than refuting her assertions, I let them sit, and\neventually I was able to take myself through a process of empathising with her.\nIn doing so, I could at least imagine some of the reasons she might have had\nfor interpreting me the way she did, like those I listed above. I don\u2019t know if\nany of them are accurate but wondering about her story helped me to return to a\nstable self-image, to remember all the evidence I<\/em> had that suggested her interpretation of me was not accurate, and\nto be okay with myself again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gladwell\nsuggests that to avoid harming strangers with our misinterpretations, we need\nto do two things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. \u2018Default to truth\u2019 i.e. to assume that other people\u2019s intentions are good. \u201cTo assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern societ<\/em>y,\u201d he asserts. \u201cThose occasions that violate our trusting nature are tragic, but the alternative \u2013 to abandon trust as a defence against predation and deception \u2013 that alternative is worse.<\/em>\u201d <\/li>
  2. Accept the limitations of our ability to decipher strangers: \u201cWhat is required of us is restraint and humility \u2026 There are clues to making sense of a stranger but attending to them requires care and attention.<\/em>\u201d <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    As\nmassage therapists, we deal with strangers all the time. We search for clues\nabout what might be causing them pain or discomfort. We listen to their words\nand \u2018read\u2019 their bodies. And sometimes we reach conclusions quickly. But we\nneed to accept that these conclusions will not always be correct, and we can\nusually do more to understand our clients\u2019 experiences and contexts. It\u2019s not\nnice to think that we might be misinterpreting our clients, or that they are\nmisinterpreting us, but the reality is that it happens more often than we think.\nThe challenge is to keep an open mind with strangers, to remain curious and\nhumble and, when it feels like a misunderstanding has occurred, to chalk it up\nto human nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And\nSteph, if you\u2019re reading this, no hard feelings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    References<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    1\n<\/sup>Not\nher real name. But the rest is real. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2<\/sup> Actually, I listened to the audiobook<\/a>, which was fantastic, with lots of recordings from Gladwell\u2019s interviews as well as archival audio. Highly recommended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Reference<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Rogers, C. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. <\/a>Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21<\/a><\/em>:2, 95\u2013103<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    About\nthe Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Tim Clark is a\nMelbourne-based psychotherapist and massage therapist. His approach is\nperson-centred but he hopes one day to be able to minister equally to animals,\nplants and inanimate objects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Have you ever been treating a client and felt that, no matter how well you’re explaining yourself, the client isn’t engaging? Is it you or them? Or is it something more complex. Tim Clark shares a miscommunication story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,2],"tags":[518,514,515,519,516,517,217],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clinical-practice","category-professional-practice","tag-assumption","tag-communication","tag-discursive-empathy","tag-empathy","tag-malcolm-gladwell","tag-talking-to-strangers","tag-tim-clark"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.amt.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/communicate.jpg?fit=640%2C280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":775,"url":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2018\/05\/16\/the-importance-of-self-awareness\/","url_meta":{"origin":2147,"position":0},"title":"The Importance of Self-Awareness","author":"admin","date":"16\/05\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"How well do we really know ourselves? 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