"Learn to Communicate, Learn to Love" - Reading Notes Guide Sharing

This text number is 5994 and the estimated reading time is 15 minutes.

The book shared today is Learning to Communicate, Learning to Love.

The author, Alan Baker, a famous psychologist, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, founder of the cognitive therapy school, and founder of the Baker School of Cognitive Therapy and Research, has widely used cognitive therapy in clinical treatments such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, and has developed a variety of widely used psychometric scales, including the "Baker Depression Scale". He was awarded the Lasker Prize for medical research, known as the "Nobel Prize of the United States", and is the author of 17 books and more than 500 other publications.

The author believes that if we rely only on love in life, we cannot obtain intimate relationships, and we cannot resist the disillusionment after the freshness fades, as well as the resentment and misunderstanding brought about by the trivialities in life. Problems accumulate in the relationship between partners, and there will also be uneasiness and depression, which may one day become the trigger for conflict.

Based on cognitive therapy, this book skillfully integrates theory and case, which is easy to understand and easy to operate. We can find our own communication problems in nine steps, reshape the framework of thinking, and maintain good intimacy. This book has some tips that can help you remove the troubles that hinder the solution of both problems and untie the knots that hinder mutual understanding. By deepening your understanding of the root causes of both parties' problems, you can make this intimate relationship more fulfilling and beautiful.

1

The cause of problems in marriage

What is happiness? The Road to Happiness says: "The secret of happiness is to make your interests as wide as possible, and to express more kindness to the people and things you care about, rather than hostility." "However, in our marital relationships, it is often not good intentions that are expressed, but all kinds of negative mindsets. The authors argue that cognitive therapy can help us clarify the way we think and communicate, preventing us from misunderstanding in intimate relationships.

Therefore, in order for us to have a happy marriage, we need to understand the root cause of the problems in the marriage, so as to cultivate excellent qualities and make the marriage stable. The book introduces many reasons for misunderstanding between couples, and I would like to talk about 2 of them.

1. Cognitive distortion

The author believes that in a troubled marriage, it is often because the husband and wife have cognitive distortions, resulting in the inability of the two to communicate effectively and misunderstanding. There are 11 manifestations of cognitive distortion, and we will highlight 3 of them.

The first is mind reading. What is mind reading? Mind reading is to understand the other person's meaning in the way you think it is.

Karen, for example, is an interior designer and one day she got a lucrative renovation contract. She couldn't wait to go home and share the good news with her husband, but he responded with a cold face, as if it didn't matter to her. Karen was heartbroken and chose to celebrate alone. What would Karen think at this time?

Karen's thoughts were: "My husband doesn't care about me, he only has himself in his heart, he is too cold and heartless." "But is that really the case? Not. His husband was also sullen that day due to workplace frustration. But the husband, because his wife did not come to comfort him, celebrated alone, and felt: "My wife does not care about me too much, and only has her own career in her heart." “

We can see that this incident highlights a normal pattern of problems between husband and wife. The couple misinterpreted each other's motives, which is an act of mind-reading. The mind reader doesn't care what the other person says, he guesses the other person's intentions, rather than guessing based on what the other person actually said to you.

Mind readers may make up a lot of pictures, and the injured party may attack the other party without inferiority, or may take the initiative to avoid and alienate the other party. The other side usually retaliates for grievances: either fight back or the Cold War. As a result, a vicious circle of attack and revenge is staged, and the relationship between the two can easily take a sharp turn.

Therefore, it is unwise to misinterpret the other person's mind. If Karen had been able to restrain her impulses, not to rush to identify Ted as an indifferent, ruthless person, and to ask him about his worries, it might have cheered him up, and the two of them would eventually celebrate her happy event. In addition, if Ted had taken the initiative to find out Karen's mind at that time, he would not have left her with a cold and ruthless negative image.

Second, to generalize the whole. Partial generalization is the most stubborn distortion of thinking. For example, a husband who has been trying to please his wife has gone awry and forgotten to do what his wife asked him to do. So his wife scolded him: "You never help me do things." The husband felt wronged and thought, "She doesn't think it's good enough for me to do anything." I can never satisfy her. "This is to generalize the whole thing, do something wrong once, and negate all the things that have been done before."

Finally, label. Labeling can be extremely destructive, for example, if you prejudge that someone has a brain problem, then you will not listen carefully to what the other person is saying. You will subconsciously flee, you will feel that there is something wrong with this person's brain, and you will listen to it in vain.

In the same way, in a marriage, if you can look at each other with a positive mindset, you will think that the other person is full of good, and I am full of love for you; then if two people demean each other, they will resent each other. Then the marital relationship, or relationship, will develop from illusion to disillusionment. So how does a couple go from disillusionment to disillusionment, from fascination to sobriety, from contentment to dissatisfaction?

For example, the case of Karen and Ted. Before getting married, Ted was attracted to Karen's relaxed, cheerful, carefree, and cheerful. Her enthusiasm and exuberance made him happy, and when Ted and Karen were together, her playfulness, impulsiveness, and cheerfulness helped him relieve him of many psychological burdens; her happiness eased his melancholy. They laugh together, share the joy of talking and accompanying.

But within a few years, everything changed. Ted became critical of Karen. He was constantly annoyed by what Karen had done: "She was a very nasty person, with no brains and no sense of responsibility. She doesn't do things seriously, is shallow, and has a hypocritical smile. I can't count on her. ”

Why? Is it because Karen's personality has changed? Not. What really changed was Ted's view of Karen, the way he looked at Karen. That is to say, Ted looks at some of Karen's behaviors differently, so the feelings obtained are different. Before getting married he felt that his wife was cute, and some of her flaws he didn't think were a problem.

But when he labels his wife negatively, he feels that his wife's unrestrainedness has become "eccentric." Her enthusiasm has become "frivolous", less serious to "superficial", and her temperament has become "irresponsible". As his perspective changed, he began to see Karen's qualities and Karen herself in a very different light.

So, we can see that labeling is the wrong behavior in intimate relationships. The Stoic philosopher Epicteide, in his Book of Heroes' Guide, made it clear: "It is not the external things that haunt people's minds, but the views they hold." ”

2. Negative automated thinking

What is automated thinking? Automated thinking is our inner monologue, our interpretation of something. But our interpretation is not necessarily correct.

For example, a wife is very angry to see her husband come home from work early. When her husband greeted her warmly, she glared at him. Why is that? Because when the husband comes home from work early, the wife will think, "Why did he come home so early?" Does he want to spy on me? ”

When the wife told her husband that she had returned his overdue book to the library, the husband was very annoyed. The husband will think that the wife's return of the book to the library is: the embarrassment that the wife gives him. The wife wanted to prove that she handled things more carefully than he did. ”

When the husband praises his wife in front of his friends about how well he cooks, the wife is furious with her husband. The wife would think, "Why is he showing off my cooking skills?" Friends must think that he is deliberately trying to please me. ”

Automated thinking is similar to "pre-conscious" thinking. Albert Ellis called it "inner speech." Automated thinking is a fleeting impulse that is on the edge of consciousness. It comes quickly and quickly, prompting people to act, but it is fleeting and elusive. Once people are angry and ready to fight back, the ephemeral automated thinking that stirs up emotions is left behind and they are filled with the idea of fighting back. Only when we can recognize automated thinking can we resolve conflicts and increase the intimacy between couples.

2

How to increase intimacy

Imagine a pair of bucks posing for a fight, stomping their hooves, yelling at each other, opening their eyes and colliding head-on. Compare this scene to a couple arguing. They clenched their fists, grinned their teeth, spit and flew, their bodies in an aggressive posture.

Everything is ready. Although they did not strangle each other's throats, it was not difficult to see from the tightness of their muscles that their limbs had been fully mobilized, as if they were about to carry out a life-and-death struggle. Although the two opposing sides did not fight each other, they actually attacked through their eyes, facial expressions, tone, and angry words.

When couples clash over negative emotions, they fight like bucks, either you die or I live. Threatening tones, angry language can cause our intimate relationships to break down.

As we said earlier, the root cause of our conflict is because negative automated thinking leads us to anger, so what should we do to break the curse of automated thinking and get rid of the harm of cognitive distortion?

1. Correct your own misinterpretation

Misinterpretation can lead to misunderstandings, which can lead to deterioration of the relationship between husband and wife. Misunderstandings and exaggerations about the underlying causes of marital quarrels can be corrected by applying several cognitive therapies. We introduce a few techniques that can be used alone: detect and correct your own automated thinking; examine your own predictions; and recalibrate your perspective on your spouse. How should I do this? There are 9 steps in total:

The first step is to correlate emotional responses with automated thinking. Identify unpleasant emotional responses, relate them to relevant situations or events, and identify the implicit connections between the two, known as automated thinking.

For example, Wendy looked at his watch and was very angry; Hal suddenly felt a pang of anxiety as he drove home; Hal later talked to Wendy and suddenly felt a pang of sadness.

Now let's think about their automated thinking. It seems reasonable for a wife to feel angry or anxious about her husband's failure to return home on time, but what determines how she feels is how she interprets the situation, not the situation itself. In this case, she may have experienced a series of emotional changes, depending on what the event meant to her personally.

For example, it can be interpreted like this. Hal comes home late, Wendy's automated thinking is that he doesn't want to go home, and the emotional response is angry; the second situation: Hal is driving home, and he suddenly realizes that he is coming home late, so he becomes anxious. Hal finds himself home late, which gives him a concrete thought that gives him anxiety; in the third situation, Hal, after driving home, suddenly feels a pang of sadness in his conversation with Wendy. The incident was That Wendy's proposal to skip eating at home and eat out instead. Automated thinking is that she doesn't care about me and the emotional response is sad.

The second step is to use imagination to determine ideas. In the process of imagining, write down your feelings and thoughts. If you close your eyes after reading the following scenes, you may be able to focus more effectively on what you think and feel.

For example, you work for a day and leave at 5:00. Wait for your boyfriend to pick you up, but after you arrive at your destination, your boyfriend doesn't come. You waited for half an hour and your boyfriend was still missing.

Imagine this scenario writing down your own emotional reactions and automated thinking. Different people have different thoughts and feelings. For example, if the boyfriend has not yet arrived, is there an accident?

Looking at the watch at 5:30, the boyfriend finally arrived, and the other party said happily: "I forgot to come and pick you up... Just remembered it on the way to get a haircut. "Please write down your emotional responses and automated thinking on another piece of paper. In this case, we are usually very angry, and at this time we cannot recognize our own automated thinking.

The third step is to practice identifying automated thinking. If you pay attention to your own thoughts, you can recognize automated thoughts in time for a flash. These heartfelt messages trigger emotional reactions, such as anger or sadness, as well as wishes, or the desire to scold the spouse.

Learning to recognize your own automated thinking is a skill you can master, but mastering this skill requires persistent practice. You can carry a sticky note paper with you and briefly write down the situation, your emotional reactions, and the automated thinking at the time whenever you and your partner are upset.

Fourth, use the replay technique. It's about repeating the events that upset you. Imagine the whole thing and ask yourself, "What's going on in my head right now?" "Capture your own automated thinking.

The fifth step is to ask your own automated thinking. Sometimes there are mistakes in thinking, and at this time you need to ask yourself whether you are exaggerating and distorting the facts about this matter.

The sixth step is to respond rationally. Rational response is to judge whether automated thinking is reasonable. For example, Wendy contradicts herself: Because hal's work is different from hers, it is difficult for him to get home early. So she realized that her automated thinking was based on false evidence.

Similarly, by proving to the contrary that "he did call" and "coming home late doesn't necessarily mean he didn't care, and that he did show affection for me a lot of the time," she proved herself wrong that "he didn't care about me at all." Finding a reasonable response helps you to put your automated thinking in perspective, it's just an inner reaction and interpretation, it's never a "fact."

Seventh, test your predictions. The purpose of this step is to see if your prediction is correct.

Step 8: Refactoring your mind. Mind refactoring involves revisiting the negative qualities of others from different perspectives. Perhaps the qualities we once delighted or admired have not changed. The problem is that a negative frame of mind only allows people to see the shortcomings and ignore the advantages.

For example, Sharon likes Paul because he is gentle, generous, and fun. But the negative frame of mind leads to a change in Sharon's perception of Paul, such as paul becoming "lazy, but the fact that Paul is relaxed and easy-going". When you can look at each other from the opposite side, the mind can be reconstructed.

Step 9: Label your distorted thinking. Labeling doesn't always have to be bad, for example the most common distorted thinking is polarized "all or nothing" or "either/or."

For example, if your spouse's love is not as good as usual, you may conclude that he/she no longer loves you. In this extreme kind of thinking, anything that is not the most desirable will be labeled as "undesirable". Either totally in love, or completely disgusted, or completely considerate, or completely selfish, there is no middle ground.

Labeling negative thinking can help you realize your own thinking mistakes and realize that you often misread or exaggerate your partner's behavior.

2. Change the way you communicate

When we usually communicate, there may often be negative listening or bending the phenomenon, which will affect our communication. The authors say that in business relationships, we tend to communicate in a polite way of speaking. But in a marriage relationship, we may be more casual.

However, the author believes that in the marriage relationship, the style of speaking is also exquisite. In the book, the author introduces us to the rules of conversation etiquette to help us better communicate with our partners.

Rule 1: Dial to your partner's channel. For a couple conversation to be productive, two people need to pay attention to each other and connect with each other.

For example, Judy tells her husband Cliff that his job is not going well and that he wants his support, encouragement, and sympathy. But Cliff gave her a bunch of advice: "First, you have to call a meeting of everyone on your team. Second, you have to call other people involved. Third, you want to involve the accountant and ask the bank about your account balance. Fourth, you can also contact the relevant personnel of the human resources department and so on. ”

It's a wrong way of communicating, he's not on a channel with his wife. So how do you find the right channel? For example, show your wife that you understand her feelings. Also, when the wife tells him about her problem again, he can remember that he doesn't need to give his own advice directly unless the wife explicitly asks him to do so, because the wife may only need to confide in her own feelings.

That is, you have to empathize with the other person and know what the other person really needs. If what your partner wants is advice, then you can help her think of a way, but if she just wants emotional support, then you need comfort and comfort her.

Rule 2: Signal to listen. We've said it many times about listening, so here's a quick one. That is to say, you want to let the other person know that you are listening carefully, thinking from the other person's point of view, and caring about the other person.

Rule 3: Don't interject. When communicating with someone, remember not to interrupt someone, because your interjection will make the other person think, "You didn't listen to him" or he thinks that what you think she said is not important. "So, it's best not to rush to express your opinion before the other person has finished speaking."

Rule 4: Be skillful when asking questions. The purpose of asking questions is not only to get information, but also to get support, to discover the needs of others, to negotiate, and to make decisions. Asking questions requires open-ended questions. What is open-ended questioning? Don't say yes or no, like or dislike, so that the other person's answer can only be like or dislike, yes and no, it is difficult to guide and encourage the other party to continue the conversation.

For example, why do you want to do this thing, or why you want to do this thing will attract you, when you ask more open questions about why, what, you will guide your spouse to communicate with you more.

Rule 5; Use communication skillfully. This rule may not seem to apply very well to intimate relationships, but the fact is that everyone has sensitivities, and even a loving, kind spouse may poke at the sensitivities of others.

For example, some people are sensitive to their appearance, how they speak, and family members. If during the conversation it is implied that the husband says his wife is overweight, or that her sister is immature, or that she speaks illegitimately, he may terminate a pleasant conversation.

Therefore, when we speak, we must pay attention to the way we speak, and do not say topics that make each other sensitive. The so-called picking up people does not expose shortcomings, this is the truth. In fact, the basis of maintaining a close relationship between the two parties is dedication, trust and loyalty. Only when we do these three things will we be happy.