Mental health and Relationships

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer: 

You're listening to the Morning show here on Youth Jam and as it's a Thursday on the other end of the line I am joined by Dr. Patrick Jones, founder of Perth Psychologists, who each week comes on air to discuss a different facet of our mental health. Patrick, how have you been keeping this last week? 

Patrick:

Yes, I'm well, thank you. 

Interviewer: 

Wonderful. Now what I thought we could look at and it's something that we have touched on previously but it was looking at going a little further in depth with is the subject of mental health and relationships. 

Patrick:

Yes, that sounds good. There's a lot of research on that one. 

Interviewer: 

Yeah and previously we had looked at some of the stuff around relationships and their importance to our mental health but I thought we could dive a little closer to the communication aspect of that and how that can also be influenced by our wellness. 

Patrick:

Yeah, well actually it is. The number one predictor of relationship satisfaction is communication skills. So yeah, definitely a big part of it. 

Interviewer: 

So I thought we could even frame these questions by taking it to the root of a relationship. And of course, we're speaking about familial friendship or even business relationships, not just the romantic kind but what advice do you have for actually commencing a relationship? 

Patrick:

Yeah, sure. Well if I just say there's a whole range of relationships just initially with just you could say the personal or the romantic relationship. That goodness of fit model is probably quite relevant in that you have for work. But you can also have it for relationships where people it's much easier. You could say only at one level though but if there is a match between personalities, their interests, the kind of educational things you're interested intelligence, socioeconomics, all these kind you could say things that kind of bind people together just almost without them thinking. That's often part of what kind of sets a foundation for people. But what's kind of funny is that interpersonal attraction doesn't always obey these criteria and you can just have people drawn to each other for a range of reasons that aren't always obviously logical. 

And the advantage I guess of when there are you could almost say opposites is that they can enrich the relationship. However, the findings are that it requires more kind of psychological maturity to be able to know how to negotiate those differences. And I think one of the things too is that when people are and I'll just stay with currently just the romantic relationship notion is that when people are almost drawn to people there's usually two things that draw them. One is the healthy stuff which is like what we share and whatever else and sometimes it's also the unhealthy stuff which is familiar and it's important to be able to look at both of those things and go okay, so if there's some of my old sort of unhealthy patterns here that are drawn to this person. 

As long as I'm aware of them, there's an opportunity for them to be worked through in the relationship. Having said that, there's also a phrase that says two crazy minds are worse than one. So if we do have things that we got to look after in terms of managing our psyche, to be able to just do that with sort of awareness and maturity is kind of a critical part. So it's a healthy relationship, but it's also an insightful or an aware one where you get to talk about all that stuff in an open way. 

Interviewer: 

And in that way, communication is central, as you said. But it's there, from what I can gather as what instigates the relationship, but it's also there to maintain it. But occasionally when we've got, say, pressure around the want to get along with someone and in that way the want for a relationship to continue, it can be difficult to communicate. How can we ensure that we're being both a good listener and a good speaker? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, the listening is a big part of this and one of the things that's nice to ask is if someone is communicating something to us in a way that doesn't suit us or isn't nice to ask what is the need under that communication? So we may not like the form of it, but there might be something else that if we're listening to what they're a nice example is that classic question, do I look fat in this dress? A lady might ask what is the need underneath that question. Not to necessarily literally answer, yes, I think probably you do. Maybe. But it might be what's the need under there? It might be a sense that I'm feeling a little bit insecure about going to this event.

Can you help me out? 

So that's the first part, I would say is just listening to what's underneath and it might be the same. Sometimes people are saying exactly what they mean, but the listening has to be a little deeper. And then the second bit, I often find some of this. There's a great communication technique called nonviolent communication. It's kind of big in the literature, you could say more kind of more modern or common literature now. And this is also really nice. Like when you're having a conversation, it has like four really simple parts. One is observations, which is saying I'll give you an example. Say I hear you speaking in a loud voice. Let's just say someone's been ranting and so on. So one would be I hear you speaking in a loud voice. That would be observations. 

And then two would be to express your feelings. And would be I feel a little bit scared by this. And then three is to describe your needs. I need or value peaceful discussions. And then four would be requests I would like you to speak normally. Now that sounds a bit clunky, but compare that to someone just not responding when someone's raising their voice or just telling them to shut up and go outside. Even though those four steps, when I describe them sound a bit funny to say in a conversation, it's important to be able to communicate clearly what you're seeing, what you feel about what you're seeing, what you need for yourself, and then what you would like them to do differently. 

So, speaking and listening, how do we quite skillful, because as I said in the beginning, relationship communication, that's the number one predictor for a happy relationship is the ability to communicate openly, especially in conflict. 

Interviewer: 

And you touched on a little there. That a big part of being effective in our communication skills is understanding the other person, and where they're coming from, so to speak. Do you have any techniques for better understanding another person's perspective? 

Patrick:

One of the ones. This must be Technique Tuesday or whatever it is, but it is Thursday. We're going to call this one Technique Thursday because I do have one that's kind of pretty relevant here. And it's also called the floor technique. And this I have found is so useful. I mean, I did some mediations for mine sites, whatever else, warring teams. And this helps when people are stuck in a loop and they're just rebutting each other the whole time. Like, yeah, now it's not the case. Oh yes, it's in there. This is a simple five-step one. And again, once you get used to it just becomes part of your normal conversational style. But simply, again, five steps are one, someone says whatever they want, and then the listener has five things to do. 

Step one, is they paraphrase Step two is they clarify, is that it get that right and that's done. Step three then is like any more that you want to say. So step three is more to add. And then step four is validated, which is okay. So if you think that was the case, then it makes sense why you ended up doing that thing. Step four. And then the fifth step is to empathize. And it would be and we just focus on the feelings. And if you felt completely let down by me, that'd be horrible. I wouldn't want that for you. There are five steps paraphrase, clarify, validate, and empathize. 

But again, if you just can weave that into just a normal, listening conversational style, it changes the capacity for that problem to progress past. You said, he said. So that's a big one-floor technique. People can look it up. Really good one. 

Interviewer: 

It can also be somewhat difficult to ascertain how our behavior might be perceived by another person. Do you have any advice for us about remaining self-aware? 

Patrick:

Yeah, I think again, most of the communication issues only happen when there's a different opinion. So I think Erickson once said that in the space of rapport, anything is possible. And it's usually when we're out of rapport with someone that our old tricks oil styles come in. So I think being self-aware of what they are and some of the ones that can come up is that we can be quite controlling, or these are different sort of predictors, if you like, or things that will happen or avoiding just not going there. Or we can be protecting self-protective, defend ourselves in some way, or we can sort of try and force things, force sort of outcomes, if you like, or be sort of resisting. All these sorts of things tend to deaden the space. 

And once we're aware that we start to move into that mode now we're kind of in a kind of a very light form, you could almost say, of warfare in a way with the other person. And the way to get around this one, as you say, in terms of being self-aware, is then to sort of turn it around, to do almost the opposite. And some of those things could be just perhaps to give up having to be right about that thing, like to at least explore other options. Being able to be a bit more accepting of their view or forgiving of them if there are things that are in the way. Being able to be a little bit more flexible and fluid in the conversation and coming more from a place also of serving them rather than just serving ourselves. 

And also perhaps acknowledging who they are, and what they've done right. So as you can see, comparing all of those and perhaps also just putting our opinion on hold so we could get their views, it's kind of not bringing our whole opinion to the conversation. What I've just described there is so different from that sort of protecting, avoiding, controlling, manipulating style, which is the old way if we're getting threatened or pushed or feel we're backed into a corner. So once we're self-aware, we can see we're doing that, and then we can perhaps move to that more generous, open place and that's a different conversation. 

Interviewer: 

So, Patrick, we've discussed the importance of relationships and the scope of our lifestyle. But one of the things that we've talked about in the past is also how our sense of self-worth is in some way predicated on how we compare ourselves to those around us. And it almost feels like it almost sucks in a way that it's hard to be fully independent in the scope of retaining your mental well-being. Do you have any advice on how we can best balance the need for independence as well as the interdependence that a relationship facilitates? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I think it's probably time now to talk about just the much broader experience of relationships. Because, of course, someone who chooses, in a sense, to be single still has multiple kinds of relationships, and some people might consciously choose perhaps to be celibate and they're not actually in a relationship, but they're still always in relationships with multiple people. And I think the advantage you could almost say of that way of being when I talked about two crazy minds can be worse than one is when we're not sort of what they call sort of mixing and merging or melding with the other person's view so that when they say something, it triggers us. So I think that's kind of when we're now moving into that codependence place, you could say. 

So I think by contrast, when you talk about interdependence, I think that the combo that's best is when self-expression and service are both met. And so you've got that experience where you're being true to yourself but it's not just your game and about you. It's also how I serve them. And what vocationally is going to be great for them as a human being, not just me. So in business, we'd probably call that win versus win-lose. But I'd say being able to be aware as you've talked about earlier and then just watch when I start to get too melding and codependent is just to pull back a little bit and then just come from that place of authentic self-expression and service of the other. And I think that's a great combo. 

One of the reasons I wanted to highlight this particular area of relationships was because I feel like once you hit a certain age as a young person, particularly once you leave school or you mightn't necessarily be at work or even if you do go to work or you do go to university, you find that it is a little harder to develop relationships where my experience at least has been such that a lot of the relationships that I've had from like that I have now are from when I grew up. And in those cases there wasn't a concerted effort or a conscious effort I should say, to begin those relationships. A lot of them were through school and I just sort of fell into them. 

But you're often told the importance of these relationships and why it's important to have these sorts of connections in which case there is that pressure to reach out and interact with more people. But suddenly with that pressure on there, it can be not necessarily just daunting but just like a bit difficult, you know what I mean? And hearing where communication is important puts you in the mind of wanting to develop that. And like I say, some of the stuff that you've mentioned over the week around your self-worth is measured by how you compare yourself to other people rings true. But it's a very difficult terrain to navigate. 

Yeah. And I think what you've highlighted is that most of those initial relationships were by association, and perhaps the skill sets didn't even almost need to be there because there were kind of common ground sort of environments. It might be sport or school or something, but I think in terms of out in the world as an adult creating new relationships, I think having these skill sets is important. I think mainly the one that gets people is conflict resolution. I think that's often where it becomes an issue because people can have a certain level of friendship, but both business and personal relationships often have to survive their first conflict to sort of be able to continue as a relationship. 

Patrick:

And I think that's where the conflict resolution skills are critical, and I think it's important that people have that generosity to go, well, this is not what I was expecting. Can you just please tell me more about it and just go into some of those floor technique things I described earlier? I just think it's a very generous way of being because essentially, I think everyone comes from a good place. Those two things that Dalai Lama, I think, mentioned the idea that what's a biological thing, that people essentially want to be happy and don't want to suffer, these are the two primary things, and most people are coming from that place. And if we can try and identify, well, what are they doing that? It doesn't look like that to me. It looks like they're doing other things. 

But if I can try and see them from that place and try and interpret where they're coming from those two things, they just want to be happy and they don't want to suffer. And then can I get them to speak to me and see me that way? We've developed that sort of common foundation that we're in that way the same, and I'm sure we can work this out. That's a much nicer place to be able to work from. 

Yeah. And it feels as though there's a lot more closure that facilitates for both parties. And if you're talking in the scope of conflict resolution, I do think it can also be tempting by way of it being easier. And I don't know whether it puts you in a good state of mind, but it's ignorance is bliss kind of thing, that if you have those conflicts, it can be seen as easier and more worthwhile at that moment to just abandon whatever it is you're doing in the scope of that relationship. I think back to it. 

When I was younger I used to do a bit of drawing, and if you made a mistake or something didn't look good, it's like going, Well, I'm going to throw that out, and I'll start it all again, where it's like baby out with the bathwater kind of thing. And I feel like that's also a barrier that is sort of difficult to work through once it becomes centered on a conflict in which there are people's emotions at play. 

Interviewer: 

Yeah, I think so. Remind me, I used to do the same. I used to write poems and publish them when I was at Uni and put them on the billboards. Positive contribution poems. And I think someone criticized one of them and I don't think I wrote anymore after that. Yes, we can be a little bit sensitive. But I think it does remind me, again of a psychological principle, which is and it's one of the predictors from the research is the ability to listen to neutral or challenging material and not take it personally, and then also on top of that, being able to feed it back to the person. 

Patrick:

Okay, so what you're saying about me potentially or about this situation is that one of the predictors is active or open listening and it does require ego listeners, you could say, to be able to do that. But wouldn't we want that for ourselves if someone's listening to us? It's like just kind of get out of your head and just try and hear what my experience is. So it's critical. But again, if people don't develop that skill yeah, it makes things much harder. So definitely worth building. And also it's an indicator of psychological strength resilience and openness as a person. 

And I feel like as well as that where we're talking about communication being central to these relationships, occasionally you meet people who have just got the total gift of the gab and they at once seem like they're incredibly interested in what you're saying and you're incredibly interested in what they have to say. And then you might go away from that encounter and think, man, I wish I had the social skills or social competence of that person, and then make a concerted effort to be in some way like that in your future experiences. But then that focus puts on a lot of pressure and it often doesn't pan out with it in any way imitative of that person. You often just end up falling flat on your face. 

Interviewer: 

And the experience has sort of been that if you are open-minded or you're not focusing too hard on that, you might be able to be a little more fluid with your interpersonal interactions. 

Patrick:

Yeah, it just does remind me of some ways you could say the nature-nurture debate. The nature debate part is that which is natural to you and then the nurture is that which you learn. So you could almost say genetics and environment. And sometimes people might say, oh, look just the same as it always used to be. Well, it's kind of like a backhanded compliment, but it's sort of in the sense you haven't learned or changed in any way. So obviously perhaps they're complimenting that you're near the same good old person. But we want to be able to have that mix, in social learning theory, banduri talks about modeling as the primary way that we learn. And we look at animals that sort of imprinting. It's not through a textbook, it's through that kind of that watching and learning. 

So you are going to probably learn some good things from that eloquent person, which might be useful. So from a behavioral point of view, okay, perhaps I could adjust that or this, but not to the point of compromising authentic expression, which might be just your style. And I think when we're in flow, there's no need to practice. We're kind of doing it naturally. 

Interviewer: 

It sounds almost like jargon these days, but being yourself is ultimately the way around it. 

Patrick:

I suppose it is. It's hard when, again, keep going back to that one thing, that number one predictor of self-esteem is social comparison and how unfortunate that is, because we're being ourselves, and then somewhere that concern about social comparison might kick in, and then it's like, well, perhaps I can't be. And so, yeah, I think it's an interesting one. We somehow have to be conscious of what's needed and what the situation needs and yet still be true to that. And again, it goes back, I think, to that egoist place of just being true to what's here, but not being kind of pushed around by the environment. If it's not true for you, do. 

Interviewer: 

Do you feel that the standard at which you can communicate and be an individual and be unique in your personality is something that comes across only with interactions with other people? Or is that something that you can work on in your own time? 

Patrick:

Well, I mean, as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. My area has been analysis. I do find it a little unusual when people are not interested in that self-awareness or that analysis because it's a function of growth. That's how we grow. So I think it's critical. The whole navel-gazing criticism is the other extreme when people can't get out of that and get into practical action. But I think, again, the self-compassion literature, now you look in a way that's not critical. It's sort of exploratory investigative. I wonder why I'm doing this. It's kind of a nicer place than why am I still doing it? And I think introspection is important, but from that kind of compassionate space. 

Interviewer: 

Yeah, of course. Well, Patrick, thanks again. Thanks for getting in touch with us again here on Youth Jam. As always, I've enjoyed our chats and hope to speak to you again next. 

Patrick:

Great conversation. 

Interviewer: 

Excellent. Take it easy.