| Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Some people are gifted with the facility of words whose speech gets our undivided attention. They have charisma, which makes us feel we can relate to them immediately. They can form and spout words with such effortless ability that they leave us in awe. We describe them as good communicators.
Communication is not simply blabbering; that’s what babies do. An important component of communication is the ability to listen. Between talking and listening, the latter takes more effort. Listening is not just hearing, but discerning what is in the other person’s heart, what the person is really saying. To listen means both our brain and heart are engaged, so to speak, but it’s actually all about our brain neurons involved in “listening,” firing harmoniously in an emphatic fashion. So there, empathy . . . it’s a big word.
One of the gospels of counseling is for counselors to talk less and listen more. I learned the real power of listening in my work as a therapist. It’s not just listening, but emphatic listening – knowing and without judgment the meaning of what is said and not said. Problematic people, clients, or even those in our lives often carry baggage. These are accumulated negative experiences that they haven’t worked on or refuse to untangle. These are bundles of hurts they carry around, which, when they get triggered, come out as a bad attitude.
This is where it gets tricky, when their own baggage also triggers our own issues. When we lose our self-awareness and nonjudgmental stance, we get sucked into a conflictual encounter. Listening and communicating are now out the window. This is the hazard of counseling, when the counselor’s wound is laid open by clients. A failure in transference and counter-transference response, we say. It’s another set of shrink vocabulary.
What happens in the counseling room between therapist and client, both struggling to communicate genuinely, also occurs in daily life. When we meet someone that we are attracted to and interested in getting to know, we become attuned to listen attentively to the other person. But when the novelty of that experience wears off and familiarity sets in, we tend to take each other for granted, and we listen less. It gets worse when emotional baggage gets thrown around between people. This is a recipe for a communication breakdown.
I realized the healing power of listening and the pleasure that comes from a deep understanding of another person. I have worked with difficult clients, some steeped in denial of their problem, and the “simple” act of listening without judgment allows them to unburden themselves. Often, it’s not what I say that matters so much, but how much I listen. Also, emphatic listening prompts me to give an accurate response, which makes the person feel understood.
We have arrived at another big word, rapport. Our social brain dreads us feeling isolated, which arises when we feel misunderstood. People yearn to feel understood, which helps facilitate rapport and initiate a more genuine interpersonal exchange. This dynamic is so profound that it can transcend cultural differences.
“What most people see are the results of their bad actions, and there is so much suffering in being put in a box – judged. They feel totally alienated and misunderstood. What seems magical in being able to nudge these people to trust and talk more honestly is making them feel listened to.”
As an Asian who worked with clients of different ethnicities and genders in the U.S., I have seen it work. Don’t get me wrong, most of these people have made terrible mistakes in their lives, wallowing in regrets and shame. What most people see are the results of their bad actions, and there is so much suffering in being put in a box – judged. They feel totally alienated and misunderstood. What seems magical in being able to nudge these people to trust and talk more honestly is making them feel listened to.
This is to tap into a human need to connect with another person, to communicate, and feel understood. Sadly, most of these people have also lost the ability to communicate genuinely as a result of a lifestyle based on illusion, a false image, and lies. Part of therapy is restoring the client’s confidence and ability to trust. To have confidence that they can regain their mental health and to trust that another soul can help and understand them.
To a lesser or greater degree, we all carry certain personal dysfunctions because of our past negative experiences. Our senses by which we perceive the world are colored by these experiences, so we see around different spectrums of reality, the nuances of various perspectives. Some of us are more self-aware of these facts about ourselves and other people, which guide us in navigating our social relationships. When I look out at the world through my looking glass, I hear too much talking, which is nothing but noise, and little listening.
——————————————–
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Fernando B. Perfas is an addiction specialist who has written several books and articles on the subject. He currently provides training and consulting services to various government and non-government drug treatment agencies regarding drug treatment and prevention approaches. He can be reached at fbperfas@gmail.com.
