Treatment by talking ?

A World War II poster quoting powerful words from Winston Churchill

“How is just talking to somebody going to help? Mere words aren’t going to change how someone thinks.”

Two luxurious slices of our home-made chocolate mousse, one dark the other milk, served with lightly whipped fresh cream and a scattering of raspberries picked today from our garden

Tempted? I am. In fact I ordered it. Superb!

Counselling is someone trying to help another person by talking. It should be much more than that but for now let’s just look at how words can have power. Later I’ll look at other aspects of counselling and some of the main types available.

Reading this you’re getting what’s sometimes called the digital information in what I’m saying. You’re not receiving any tone of voice, facial expressions, body language. These extra bits can be called analogue information. They say that when we chat face to face most of the communication is non-verbal, it’s analogue. For now let’s focus on how the raw words, the digital information, can possibly have any power to help us change.

Some word combinations resonate

Here are two examples you’ll probably recognise:

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”

That was Martin Luther King speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963.

Try this one:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.“

That was Winston Churchill speaking to the UK House of Commons on 20 August 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain.

There’s something about the way these two great men used words that could inspire people, change minds, and even change history. Of course we recall their speeches through the lens of history, so they can have even more power by association.

Anchoring : power by association

We all anchor particular words and phrases to past experiences and their resulting emotions. Was there anything your Mum or Dad used to say which you’ve found yourself reacting violently to even though there was no rational reason at the time?

This isn’t a word example, but it is about raw sound. My father had a special way of stirring his tea when he was becoming depressed. We didn’t understand the connection at the time, but when he started rhythmically tapping the base of the cup with his spoon as he stirred there was a hidden warning we were all due for a bad patch. Any time he stirred tea like that my sister and I would feel something like anger and frustration and fear rising up within us for no obvious reason. Sometimes I would want to knock the cup out of my father’s hand just to stop the sound of his stirring. He had communicated what was happening inside his brain without intending to. Some words  and strings of words affect us like that.

Some words, like chocolate, many people have anchored inside their hides to much the same emotions. This can also be a cultural thing in that we are raised to react in certain ways to some words. I guess part of real education is to learn to recognise these hidden biases to our thinking.

Other snippets get anchored by accident, and are unique to each person. Some phobias are caused like this. A skilled counsellor will identify words and phrases that trigger a client, and then either avoid these terms or use them with discretion. A psychologist may be able to desensitise you from an anchored reaction. An NLP practitioner could help you develop a resource to control the reaction.

The nature of communication

Most of the words we hear come from outside us. Even that internal voice which nags and distresses may be a replaying of something previously said to us.

Let’s turn this around and think from the point of view of the person speaking. We need to take on board a strange and alarming principle:

The meaning of any communication is not what you send, but what is received.

Anything we say can so easily be misinterpreted. What is received – the information that enters the hearer’s subconscious mind – is affected by all sorts of things most of which are beyond our control. We’re speaking to someone who is embedded in their own universe of memories, emotions, distractions, feelings, thoughts. They are likely to hear different words from those we spoke – we all distort what we hear like that. They will be influenced by what they think of us. Who else is around will twist their ability to hear us accurately.

Let me give a personal example:

Soon after I became engaged to Jenny I found myself getting seriously nervous. I’d got used to living my life alone. I was off to the mountains every other weekend and much of the school holidays. Suddenly I faced having to take Jenny into account, cutting back on the mountaineering, becoming responsible for a family. I shouldn’t have been surprised by my feelings of panic, but I was. I’d no intention of not going through with the marriage, but after a few days I shared my feelings with Jenny in the hope she could help me get through this phase. I knew she had suffered acute depression in the past. What I didn’t take into account was that she’d previously been engaged to someone else twice and on both occasions he’d found the prospect of marriage too frightening and had pulled out. By sharing my own feelings at that time in whatever words I used I was triggering all the emotional turmoil and pain Jenny had felt before. Her reaction took me completely by surprise. I had communicated, but not what I had intended.

Now turn this back to our responsibilities when listening. If you’re hoping someone can help you then you need to actively listen. Being aware of ways you misinterpret what people say is useful. Recognising that particular phrasings have irrational effects on you is the start of controlling their effect. Knowing the problem may be your own tiredness or something that happened an hour earlier, rather than incompetence on the part of the person trying to help, now that is a major step forward.

It takes two

Conversation has been defined as a competition between two people with the first to draw breath being declared the listener.

Actually real conversation, real communication, has to be a two way process. It’s no good me suggesting you try something new if you give me no feedback on progress. If I am trying to tell you how I feel I’ll soon give up if you give no indication you understand, and don’t ask when something doesn’t seem to make sense.

Using words to explain

And of course there’s the most obvious use of words: to explain something. When I read a text book that is how the author is training me. It would be great to have the author come round and show me in person, and then guide me as I try for myself, but that’s rarely possible. For a counsellor it can be impossible. You can’t demonstrate what you’re doing inside your own head; you can merely describe it and perhaps show the result. Ultimately the client has to try for himself, and keep trying variations until it works.

Treatment by talking

I’m going to call any kind of talking attempt to help us with mental illness counselling, and being British I’m going to spell it like that so if you’re from the States then tough. If you call yourself a psychotherapist and hate being called a counsellor then try to live with it because I don’t want to keep adding provisos to everything I say.

I’ve experienced several forms of counselling over the decades. Some have helped. Some, as far as I could tell, had little or no long term effect. I’ve also done some formal training in counselling, and quite a lot of study. In some ways I’d like to have become fully qualified, but all the local courses I discovered were too narrow in outlook. Also, frankly, doing more than the odd bit of counselling these days makes me feel pretty rough. I don’t know if it’s age, or maybe I’m still recovering from the stress of my final decade of teaching while seriously depressed. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though I do feel a bit guilty there’s something I could be offering but don’t.

Counselling is not perfect, it’s not a certain cure, it does require your active cooperation, it may take a lot of time and cause pain, but even the words alone can help.

There’s a lot more to say about counselling, but let’s stop there for now. Catch you soon.

Oh, and have fun listening for the words which set other people going. You’ll then have the option of being more discerning with the words you use in their presence.

Oh Oh, and please don’t use the word ’chocolate’ in my presence. I’m trying to lose weight. Mind you, a box of Galaxy choc ices would taste great

Afterword 1

If you’re interested in a more precise explanation of such technical terms as counsellor and psychotherapist then take a look at the tabs near the top of this blog. One is labelled words. Click on it and you’ll find a page (as opposed to this, which is a post) which covers some often confused terms. Any other technical words you’d like to know more about, just let me know. I’ll research what you ask and bung my version of an answer on the ‘words’ page.

Afterword 2

Ernest Hemingway was asked what compelled him to rewrite the ending of A Farewell to Arms thirty nine times. He replied, “Getting the words right.”