6. Controlling the Urge to TalkEmpathic acknowledging--a blend of empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments--sometimes affects the emotional intimacy of two people involved in a conversation. Before proceeding with this chapter, here is some information which you may find useful at this point:
Now to proceed with this chapter: To begin using the skills described in the conversation between Tanya and Anita presented in Chapter 2, you probably will need to improve your control of your urge to talk--a skill more fundamental than the ones Anita used. Research on conversations has found that the person not talking usually starts talking about nine-tenths of a second after the other person stops. 4 Combining this statistic with the one that only two percent of us know about the activity of acknowledging the talker's communication5 leads me to the following conclusion:
Exercises oooooooo You might strengthen your control of the urge to talk by doing one or more of the exercises below: Taking Turns Talking Plus Summarizing:ooo Find a partner. Set a timer for 90 seconds and have your partner talk about any subject. You listen without interrupting. When the timer beeps, she stops talking and you summarize her words. She and you describe and discuss your exercise experiences. Reverse roles and repeat the exercise. You may be surprised to find yourself struggling to wait for the beep before you talk. This discovery could strengthen your motivation to control the urge to talk. Another benefit of this exercise is that when you agree to summarize, you are likely to pay more attention to the other person's words than you would pay during your usual conversations. No Partner: Listening Only.ooo The next time you are listening and find yourself ready to talk about your interests, but the talker has not paused, continue listening. If she has paused, wait two or three seconds. If she resumes talking, continue listening. If she does not resume, talk. The reason for waiting is that the talker might be pausing to organize her thoughts before continuing to talk. No Partner: Listening Plus Summarizing.ooo When the talker pauses for more than two or three seconds and you are ready to talk about your interests, summarize instead. If she resumes talking, continue listening. If she does not resume, talk. The talker may feel encouraged to continue talking after knowing you understood her words. Or she may pause because she is not sure you want to hear more but is reluctant to ask. However, when you summarize her words instead of talk about your interests, she may conclude you want to hear more. Advice about the Exercises oooooooo The comments below are intended to supplement the above instructions for the exercises. Summarizing Words versus Acknowledging Feelings:ooo Summarizing is, of course, acknowledging the talker's words, not his feelings. You may wonder why I did not advise you to acknowledge words or feelings or both. After all, when I presented, for example, my conversation with the Astonished Man, I discussed acknowledging his words and feelings. Specifically, I mentioned that I acknowledged his words--his statement that the parking building was filled to capacity--but did not acknowledge his feeling about the building being filled--astonishment. My answer is that for the purpose of these controlling-the-urge-to-talk exercises, summarizing is sufficient. During my workshops I observed that the participants found this method easy to understand and helped them appreciate the value of controlling the urge to talk. It may be that most people find it easier to begin doing empathic acknowledging by summarizing words than by labeling feelings. When to Interrupt your Exercises:ooo As with any exercise or procedure, there are exceptions, such as interrupting your listening to:
Pace of Practice:ooo Do the exercises at a pace comfortable for you. For example, do No Partner: Listening Only for two to five minutes a day for a week. Then increase your time to six to ten minutes a day for the next week or two. Gradually do this exercise more often--to the limits of your tolerance for temporarily not thinking or talking about your interests. Raising your Consciousness oooooooo These exercises can help increase your awareness of the option to listen. Being more aware of opportunities to switch from talking to listening can help you become more flexible about when to use your empathic acknowledging skills. A closing comment on consciousness raising:
To follow the unfolding of this website on empathy, listening skills, acknowledgments, and emotional intimacy, read Chapter 7. Basic Skills next. NOTE: Reading the table of contents will help you understand the following links, which appear on every page of this website:
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Empathy, Listening Skills, and Relationships is a short version of this website. Listening Skills and Relationships is a discussion board which includes messages from me and my responses to messages from others. To read or post messages, you do not have to register. Visit the board to read questions and answers, ask or answer questions, share experiences, etc. Empathy contains a description of a conversation with a United States Copyright Office representative during which I used empathy. Listening Skills contains a description of listening to my wife talk about her grocery shopping trips. Communication Skills illustrates my use of nonverbal "listening skills" during a conversation to assess whether the other person is receiving my message. Listening Skills Professional explains why I advocate that society establish the profession of empathic listener as a profession separate and independent from that of psychotherapist. Empathy and Listening Skills illustrates the difference between understanding the information the other person is saying to you versus understanding the meaning to her of saying the information. Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D. |