As someone who went out of their way and studied being a good listener, none of these are wrong, but I don't see it as being the best way of learning how to be a good listener.
Reading about how to be a good listener can only get someone so far - watching someone demonstrate it and talking about it is the surest way to understand what it means.
Specifically, Reflective listening[1], Clean language[2], and the approach used by Eugene Gendlin[3], jump-started my own skill of practicing being a good listener. You may also hear the term "holding space" as a sort of umbrella term for this as well.
You would be amazing at how far these go toward creating a safe, non-judgemental, space for people. Simple, open-ended, genuine questions worded in their own language, has afforded me the opportunity to hear people open up from the very bottom of their souls. It's absolutely amazing that the simple act of listening can do that, but it does.
On the flip side, if you are too good of a listener, people stop listening to you because they enjoy being listened to. You become the calm person that attracts all the anxious into their lives.
Sometimes, you have to stop holding space for others for them to finally understand that, no it's not ok what they are doing anymore. To help others listen to you, you realize you have to learn to scream, because as the author implies, the world is not good at listening.
I got better at listening, and more curious in general. I've met a lot of strangers recently as I am travelling. I sometimes sit with people for hours, learn everything about their lives, and never get to say what I do for a living. Never a single "and you?"
I notice it happening at home too. Sometimes you'll talk with a friend for 30+ minutes, then think "I'm fine too, thanks for asking".
I was lucky to meet good listeners early on and learn from them. I wish more people's first partner told them "you should return the question sometimes".
I've been on several dates like this. The other person talks about themselves for 30 ~ 90 minutes, exclusively, depending on how charitable I'm feeling that day.
They don't ask me any questions about me at all. Like, not even one.
I ask myself if it's because they're like that on any date with any person, or because they realized at first sight they weren't interested in me, so it doesn't matter to them if they learn anything at all about me during the date, since they don't expect to see me again either way.
Sometimes I've tested this by doing a second date. They show up and talk about themselves non-stop.
But then I ask myself the same question as before.
Is it possible many otherwise neurotypical people can get into their 30s and 40s without ever having learned how to carry on a two-way conversation?
There is a friend in my life who I meet with regularly in a small group setting that falls into this category - never seeming to reciprocate.
When I imagine asking him, "What don't you ask questions about my life?" I assume I'd get a response something like, "You can tell me anything," or "I'm open to hearing what you want to talk about," or "You're free to talk about anything."
If I had to devise a quick mental model, it might seem like the difference between talking at someone vs talking with someone? I might have to think about that a bit more. Do you have any insight here?
> When I imagine asking him, "What don't you ask questions about my life?" I assume I'd get a response something like, "You can tell me anything," or "I'm open to hearing what you want to talk about," or "You're free to talk about anything."
I think this is the insight!
> If I had to devise a quick mental model, it might seem like the difference between talking at someone vs talking with someone?
Excuse me if I read that wrong, but I'd be curious why you think label "talking at" vs "talking with" is semantics.
I see a significant difference between the distribution of behaviors and utterances when I'm "talking at" vs "talking with". There's also a significant difference in response I seem to receive from people when I employ one distribution of behaviors vs the other. But, maybe you see it differently?
I agree. “Talking at” might as well involve a cardboard cutout of my face and a tape recorder that plays back “hmm” and “wow” utterances at random intervals.
My being there in person doesn’t materially affect what the other person experiences from me anyway.
I was trying to compliment you! When you talk about your friend, about what you might ask him, and what he might answer, I think you have insight there. I think that's valuable.
And I should have stopped there. But I went on to try to make a point about the quick mental model you proposed about "talking at" vs "talking with". Which I think leads to arguing about semantics (with others or yourself).
What you're saying about the difference between the distribution of behaviors and utterances sounds reasonable to me (if a bit abstract). I just think the specific insight into your friend's behavior is a lot more valuable.
What if your date finds you attractive already? Could be because of real or perceived popularity or high "status" in you? (I'm guessing you're a man?) And maybe you're ok handsome?
Then, what does it matter what you do during the days?
If you're high status enough already -- what do the reasons for that matter?
And so she'd rather talk about herself and her interests.
When you mentioned you tried a second date, I thought, I bet she'll show up.
(I suppose there are men who date cute women and they (the men) talk only about themselves and cars and soccer. What does it matter what she does during the days? When she's good looking already)
I kind of expect strangers to start talking about themselves if they are comfortable talking and not to talk when they dont feel like talking. I dont ask anything that can be considered private and let them pick what they want to talk about.
Great point! I have a tendency toward co-dependency so understanding that being needed is different than internal validation is important. Being choosy about when and with whom one is listening is crucial. Burnout is real and always listening is a fast track to it. Anyone, including the listener, can tap the breaks and slow or stop things if they need to for any reason at all.
Wise words. In any kind of caring situation, the person giving care can most effectively do so when they themselves are in a good place, so it actually benefits everyone for you to leave some space for yourself.
I feel like i've been in this space for a few years. I have some close friends, who I really like. But I realized that its almost all them opening themselves up to me. When I am struggling myself I find it really hard to open up and talk about what I want to talk about. I think some of it is something I can improve on myself though
This is also something I had to learn, not only to be a good listener, but also to be a good talker. It’s really hard to open up and talk easily about oneself.
I have also found that instead of screaming, staying silent is a very powerful technique. If someone is spewing nonsense or making personal attacks, I sometimes just "hm mm" to confirm I heard them, and then stay silent. Nine out of ten times they will backtrack immediately.
Dr Burns' Feeling Good Podcast has examples of listening to people, possibly not the same exact thing the parent comment means, but his T.E.A.M.S CBT therapy stands for "Testing, Empathy, ..." and Empathy is where the patient tells their problem, and the therapist has to communicate that they heard it and empathise with it. Otherwise if the therapist does a "yeah ok got that, let's move on" the patient will get stuck not wanting to move on and keep going back over what's wrong, thinking the therapist isn't properly understanding why they are there. [Happens in life elsewhere, e.g. if you complain to a company and get a generic 'sorry' and you feel like you haven't been heard and try complaining again. Whereas if you feel heard and understood, you don't need to try complaining again]. There's a ton of his podcasts and this comes up in many of them; some talking about it:
003 on E=Empathy
014 on The Five Secrets of Effective Communication
066 on The Five Secrets part 2 - Disarming people (by showing that you hear them)
Some demonstrating / using / modelling it:
029 and 030 a recording of a therapy session with Mark
049 recording of a therapy session with Marilyn
other 'live sessions'
Sorry, but the nature of the material and the HN audience at large is leading me to hesitate. I'd be happy to share privately, the material that spoke to me. Contact info in bio.
That's going to fall under clean language. There are some written examples on the aforementioned Clean Language wikipedia article[1] under the examples section.
The point I take away from it is the following question, "Who's doing the framing here?" If you're supporting the other person in framing things themselves, then it leans toward clean language. If you're interjecting your own framing, then it leans away from clean language. Personally, I struggle the most with trying to avoid labeling something as "good" or "bad" for the other person. They're full human beings with their own ability to decide how they feel about something and the best way, in my experience, to decide how you feel about something is to put it into words and notice the feelings that come up as the words are said.
If someone is interjecting their own takes, it gets in the way of that noticing.
I'm really curious what you think about manipulation when you envision yourself listening this way.
A lot of times I use what I think you term as unclean language to inject some energy into the conversation. Without it I feel like the conversation dies, so I relate with my own story, or pass a half-judgement, do something to fire them up.
I don't know, it doesn't feel like the best solution, but it's the one I use, any thoughts?
Like many skills, learning to be aware is 80% of the work, 10% is the actual skill, and the remaining 10% is knowing when it's appropriate.
That's what works for me too. My experience tells me that just being aware of how much clean language I'm using and when I should and shouldn't be using it gets me to where I want to be. Being unaware, or trying to use as much as possible are, for reasons you mentioned, not the best approach.
Maybe the most interesting things about clean language is how little of it you actually need for it to be wildly effective. Applying just a bit when you sense someone opening up or being vulnerable is, in my experience, a loving way to receive that message gracefully.
Caring enough to listen, then communicating that you actually did listen by repeating some of the words they said back to them. How is that manipulation?
In this context, wouldn't manipulation be where you don't listen then say some words which try to (falsely) communicate that you did listen?
(Contrast: not listening, and showing that with "I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened". Contrast: actually did listen but they think you didn't, leading to "I'm so angry about X!" / "How come X is bothering you?" / "I am not bothered by it, I am angry about it!, weren't you listening?!" poor communication. Where "what about X is making you angry?" instead reflects the feelings they said, showing you heard what they said, but does not seem manipulative).
There is a nuanced, but important point to make here regarding responsibility.
One of resources I watched (a therapist) described therapy as 90% active listening. It's important to be aware of that proportion and the tendency of people to really open up when someone is truly listening.
For example, I was at a bar talking to a stranger when they had to take a break. They were on the brink of tears because they were talking about something that was so deeply meaningful to them[1]. I missed the flag and will always think back to my responsibility - just to pick up on those signs and ask the person if they're doing ok. There's a vulnerability index which I like to reference that conceptualizes some of this.
The difference between open inquiry and probing/drilling is an important distinction to keep in mind when listening too. Laying some of these skills on too thickly can come across as more of an interview than a conversation.
I went through a yearlong coaching program and one of the modules was learning how to listen.
Imagine a friend tells you about a situation where their dad is starting to show signs of dementia and the strain it's putting on them as a caretaker.
Level 1 listening (you're focused on yourself):
- "Oh my dad had dementia, too. It's awful."
Level 2 listening (you're focused on them, but parroting):
- "caring for a parent with dementia must be a huge burden; I can hear the toll it's taking in your voice"
Level 3 listening (a focus on what's not being said):
- "when you were telling me about your dad's dementia noticed that you smiled a little bit when you said 'strain'. What was that?"
Listening is a muscle that needs to be trained.
Part of it was learning what it feels like to be -listened to-, too. Feeling heard is 80% of the way to a deep connection with another person. It's amazing how safe and trusting someone can seem if they simply, truly, hear you.
Replying in exactly that way, as if you’re a sentient observation bot, is probably not a good idea but the approach itself is solid. It’s mostly about context
I do agree. I am familiar with three levels of listening, but in a slightly different way where the three levels are more about where your focus is as a listener.
Roughly it comes down to:
1. Listening but focussed on yourself, interjecting with own experiences and sometimes in the process take over the conversation with your own experiences.
2. Focussed listening but on a factual level. Asking clarifications about events, etc.
3. Focussed not only on what is being told, but the emotions behind it. Asking about how certain things impacted the person sharing something with you.
I am hugely oversimplifying here, of course. But for point 1 it doesn't mean that you can't briefly let someone know you have a shared experience. It does mean that you shouldn't make your experience take over and then dominate the conversation.
Personally, I find 2 and 3 to be creepy and robotic. 3 also feels intrusive.
The conscious analysis of tone and body language is obviously important for many people to get by socially, especially for neurodiverse people or people outside the norm of the situation. However, I think it is important to avoid remarking directly on body language.
You can still let these non-verbal observations guide a conversation, of course. Rather than remarking on someone's smile when they mention a subject, you might ask them to elaborate on the subject.
Unless they've asked to be psychoanalyzed, most people do not like the feeling of being analyzed.
Uhhhh no it's focusing on the fact that responding to someone in the way you describe as level 3 makes people uncomfortable. You want to put the other person at ease so you consciously avoid revealing the ways in which you've analyzed their behavior. Nobody wants to feel like they're being observed so intensely by the person they're talking to.
Without their permission, absolutely. This is in the context of coaching in which there is an agreement that yes, you may be observed pretty intensely. It does feel vulnerable, and it's up to the coach to make the person feel safe.
Lvl 4 is not worried about how it makes them look, they're worried about presuming to inexpertly psychoanalyze the other person when they're just wanting to be heard.
I wonder if how it's done matters. Like if you are genuinely curious and non judgemental it might not come across as creepy. Of course depends on the circumstances.
Because the point is to listen, not solve problems.
If you told me "ugh today was a really hard day at work" and I said "why don't you quit? then you wouldn't have hard days at work anymore!" would you feel heard?
I see this recommendation all the time, but I know I do it all the time, and personally I often _like_ it when other people do it to me. Sometimes it's nice to commiserate or share a connection on a similar experience, and maybe even learn from what the other person already went through.
Does anyone else question this common piece of advice? Can't relating be useful if it's not being used to steer the focus over to the "relater"?
I think that it depends. People have an idea of where they want the conversation to go ("I want to talk about my rough breakup") and you should not steer it too hard ("No let's talk about my funny breakup story").
Sometimes people want validation in numbers and it's fine to relate. "Ha! I've been there too. My kid did the same last week. Children am I right?"
Sometimes they want to process something by talking about it and you should let it happen. "Oh man that must suck. How did it play out?"
Besides, relating can feel like one-upping. For example someone tells you about their trip to Paris and you mention how you've stopped there on your unicycle trip around the world. Oh well guess their trip is nothing to celebrate then. Use your experience to relate to their feelings, not to diminish them.
Usually, you can relate while keeping your anecdote to yourself. "Oh it's a beautiful city isn't it? How did you like it?"
Just wanted to mention here, though it may not be the most subject-appropriate place, that i'm fascinated by your website (allaboutBerlin) and wanted to ask you a couple of questions about it.
The contact section on your site emphatically states that you're on vacation and not answering emails, so I have to ask, would you mind if I contact you briefly by some means that works for you, at a time/date that you find convenient? I promise to be brief and not to release a flood of correspondence verbiage. Also, in case I might be giving the impression, this is not a sales pitch of any kind. Thanks!
I question it quite often. I think relating can be very useful for both people involved. I do think that sometimes it may be useful for one and not the other, but I don't think it's as simple as saying to not "one-up" someone. The intention may not to be to one up and yet the other perceives it that way. Or the intention actually could be the one up and the other _doesn't_ perceive it that way.
Overall I think we talk way too much about getting better at listening and not nearly enough at getting better at talking.
EDIT: OK, I can get better at listening/reading lol, as the author said the following:
> One reason is this myth: that the good listener just listens. This egregious misunderstanding actually leads to a lot of bad listening, and I’ll tell you why: because a good listener is actually someone who is good at talking.
I agree that I disagree with this as a blanket statement, but as a baseline, I would agree. The real issue here is why/how you're relating A lot of people relate poorly. The common mistake is as the author points out: to compare experiences. This comparison is almost never useful. Either your experience was worse, which feels invalidating to a listeners feelings or your experience was not as bad, which feels like an inauthentic relation.
IMO relating does a lot better when it serves a purpose useful to the listener. A few that I have found:
1. when you're validating how they've already expressed how they feel. sometimes people doubt their own feelings and so you can use your own related experience to show them that you felt a very similar way when you were in a similar situation. caveat: dont ever tell them how they should feel, only validate what they've already expressed. also, if theyre not doubting their emotions, dont do this either...its not useful at best
2. when you're trying to understand how they're feeling (e.g. one time my dog died and I would just always expect to see her around the corner, but she was never there...is that like what you're feeling?)
3. when you're helping out with things that need to be done: (e.g. my parents passed away too, do you want help with sending out funeral invitations / finding a cemetery / etc)
4. if they dont know what to do / what options are and you relate different experiences about how you may have dealt with a similar situation.
Caveats:
1. Relating without a purpose will come off as a comparison, dont do it.
2. Not every purpose is valid for every person. A lot of these reasons require that the person trust you to an extent. E.g. offering to help a stranger with their funeral obligations will come off very poorly.
3. You have to have actual relevant experience with something, trying to shoehorn something tangentially related comes off very poorly.
4. You have to know how to deliver the related experience
5. They have to be ready to hear it: if someone is talking, dont interrupt. dont change the topic. only use the solutions above if the person seems like they are looking for it.
6. tons more.
In sum, there are reasons to relate, but there are lots of potholes here so its very easy to get wrong. So, as a general statement I would agree, but if you can do these above things well, it can really help people when they may need it.
This was the only point I also disagreed! And i also share the same sentiment you observed.
But thinking about it, it highly depends on the situation and the way someone phrases it. The example used in the article is exaggerated. Relation creates a sense of shared feelings only if you are trying to approximate the other person's feeling and thoughts and if you disengaged directly after you said "i also stubbed my toe once". Most of the time, people don't stop there and keep on telling THEIR story and how they felt, instead of just being an interjection. This is not the fault of people, but a normal way of most people doing conversation. I guess the author is thinking about these persons.
I guess this is advice specifically for if you're a therapist, or a not-really-a-therapist-but-acting-as-one such as a manager trying to support an upset employee. The distinguishing part of these conversations is they're not symmetrical - the focus is supposed to be on one person much more than the other.
(Maybe "if they're crying, don't relate" would be a more focused heuristic.)
In an everyday "you've met someone and want to get to know them better" situation, relating sounds like a good thing all round: they share something about themselves, you share back with something related about yourself.
I agree, I've read/heard this quite a few times, I'll continue to do it, apologies to whomever might suffer at my hands/words because of it.
I find it a lot easier to empathise with things that I've experienced, and it feels natural to me to share that. It would also console me better if someone "related to me", for example, sharing a few words about a common experience. Given that I don't think I'm too deviant, I'll assume enough other people would feel the same.
If I know someone else prefers a different approach I am probably able to deploy reason and correct course.
I too like the "sharing a few words about a common experience" approach (without hijacking the conversation). It's nice to know that the other person has better chances to actually understand for real :-)
Yeah I'm skeptical of that one, depending on the context. I think relating is a critical part of normal human relationship building. How could I ever get to know someone who only ever listens to me and never relates back to themselves? They would get to know me, but I would never get to know them.
However, I do think it seems like the right advice for the orthogonal goal of being supportive to someone, either in a professional support setting (therapy, mentoring, coaching, etc.) or just if you can notice in the context of personal relationships when that's what the other person needs or would benefit from in that particular setting.
Like, if I'm just out for a normal drink date with a friend or my spouse, just chatting and shooting the shit, it would be ridiculous to never relate back to them. But if they texted me and said "hey can we meet up? I'm really struggling with my dad's illness and want to talk", then yeah, keeping myself out of it is the way to go. (Which I don't often do a good job of though... so maybe doing that more often in more situations would be good as practice.)
Maybe relating is for certain contexts. If we are listening in a business meeting, there is a need to understand an idea or concept, not the person saying the thing. If we are listening in a personal relationship, the need may be to listen to how someone feels or what they are experiencing (which sometimes is work related).
If we feel something while listening to those types of conversation, experiencing a physiological emotionally-driven output, we can "relate" to the feeling through things that have happened to us personally. We may want to say, "I felt that before!" by explaining why, but it's likely enough to just say, "I feel" without changing the subject to our own personal experience.
Empathy, which is what many types of listening is about, is a whole other factor in good listening skills. If we simply note we understand the emotional output, that's not real empathy. It takes understanding it, feeling it in body, and then maybe taking a compassionate action to really hear and feel someone.
In my case, relating is what makes me felt listened and understood. I feel that by "relating" many people mean "comparing" - and this one is annoying.
At the same time, I cannot stand "it must be hard" or similar platitudes, which can be given without any context; these would not even need ChatGPT but can be generated by a simple Python script.
Autistic people are usually great relaters, which gets them disliked as conversation partners when the other side tries to confess something or talk about some personal issue they have.
I think conversation is one of those things that can't be distilled down into an exact science. You just have to figure out what is and isn't a good thing to say based on the context and they other person's behavior and tone. Any list like this will always feel off because good listening is an intuitive process.
>Does anyone else question this common piece of advice?
Absolutely. One thing I notice is that the people sharing this "advice" - while positioning themselves as amazing listeners - seem to have a disgust reaction to people sharing details about their own lives in a conversation.
Personally, if I have something I would like to speak about and feel heard about, I feel most heard when the other person is able to share some of their own thoughts and experiences. I absolutely do not feel heard when they completely remove themselves and their life from the conversation, and hit me with lifeless "open-ended questions" and "that sounds tough" platitudes that could have come from a blog post.
I commented this earlier as well. Relating brings a lot of energy to a conversation, but it's also trickier.
I wish I had a better solution
When I was at Amaravati the head monk constantly brought up stories from his life, sometimes endlessly, and it was always nice to sit next to him since it was so energetic.
Here, I related something, and it brings a new thing to talk about, a few new edges.
I definitely do this a lot. I would say I’m somewhat self-centred, but not a sociopath!
I think I just make a connection with what they’re saying and then share my experience to commiserate, and to find wisdom/learnings from that experience to see if they apply.
That’s my conscious assessment anyway. But I feel like I shouldn’t do it.
Anyone have tips to avoid this? How do I prevent myself from relating their experience to my own?
I feel that being able to completely ignore your own experience (or even opinion) and adapt purely to what they need at this moment is true selflessness, and it’s something I’ve always struggled with.
I'm not sure if there really is true selflessness. I think, for example, for me to even understand what's happening in this text exchange, I'm trying to imagine how you interpret the words while also recalling how I interpret the words and comparing the two. I'm trying to imagine how you're feeling, while also paying attention to how I'm feeling.
It just seems to be a pretty constant (if not always there) comparison and harmonization.
In other words, how are we supposed to understand the world without relating it to our experience?
Could you expand on this argument more? My first reaction was negative ("Why would the world be worse if more people felt safe sharing their feelings??") so I would like to hear more and challenge my assumptions.
For my part, I'll point to research that suppressing emotions increases risk of suicide[1] and that many more men die from suicide than women[2]. I'm willing to hear out an argument that the world would be worse if these tragic deaths hadn't happened but it requires extraordinary evidence and argumentation IMO.
I'm not advocating for either side here, just want to explore my ideas for a bit.
During some rough patches of my life, I found solace in being vulnerable with my friends and speaking about how I felt.
At other times, taking a more stoic approach worked wonders. Learning to notice feelings and emotions without them leading you into a spiral of debilitating self-pity or self-loathing, for me, is the ultimate life skill. And to be honest, I only could really progress with such a skill in relative solitude.
The way I have it now, the approach of reaching out for help with mental space is more like going to a doctor. There's a certain threshold of suffering that needs to be reached, for you to take deliberate actions. Practising mindfulness and all the stoic narratives is more like doing fitness. It helps with the ongoing, everyday, low-key pain, as well as prepares you for the bigger issues in the future.
As someone who spends most of his life and work focused on more openly expressing how I feel and wanting others to do the same, I'm curious to explore the other side as well.
I think one of the largest conflicts that I've encountered with this work is that a lot of culture, philosophy, religion, etc., seems to advocate for more emotional suppression. That the goal is to detach and have a quiet, steady, peaceful existence, absent of conflict, but also absent of too much connection.
And if those groups advocate for more suppression, to start to express more can create some deep conflict and possibility of ostracism or excommunication. For example, many people consider it to be an emotional affair if you say how you honestly feel to someone who is not your exclusive romantic partner. Many families consider it the ultimate betrayal to share family secrets with those outside the family. Etc.
So when I think of more men doing it, I worry that if not all men did, then culture could have that strong clash. Maybe we already have it. Some advocating to open up more, to be more aware of how we're feeling, and some advocating to go in the opposite direction.
I would love to talk about this more and I worry this post is already long enough for now :-)
from my personal reflections, it's hard to distinguish sharing feelings and simply complaining and becoming more and more negative in nature
sharing simply amplified the negative content within, it's like there is a negative thread in my hand, the more you share and put it into words the more you are following that thread going into a state where you shouldn't be
same goes for complaining how the life is unfair
and when it came to positive feelings, it seemed much better to do "little things" than sharing the feelings
(Since we're discussing counterfactuals and could-have-beens)
In a macabre way, maybe suicidal ideation due to suppressed emotions is nature's way of managing male populations? What if men stopped killing themselves because they felt safe sharing their feelings? What if that led to testosterone fueled "musth" rages where men started to go on rampages just to let off steam? That world would be worse for everyone involved.
I don't think that to be the case testosterone fuelled raging is an effect of suppressed emotions. Imo sharing of feelings would lead to more soft, feminine personalities which is the direction we are slowly heading towards.
Emotional suppression isn't the same as not sharing your feelings, per the linked article.
I don't think the world would be worse if men started sharing their feelings, but I do believe there are societal factors that force men into stoicism, and that it's not feasible for change to start with men alone.
I guess that depends whether they do it on the way up or on the way down w.r.t. productivity. If people offed themselves before they became a burden on others that might be a positive for society.
It's not so much the folks who suck it up and carry on, though they might be doing themselves a long-term disservice; it's the ones who project it outwards that are doing most of the harm in the world. Boys and girls, of course.
I am not a therapist or the like. I opened the article bc I really think I should be a better listener (specifically with my tendency to interrupt, which I even do unconscuously, not bc I want to not listen, just my mind accumulates information like very fast and things pop up quickly).
However, I think I found a kind of "be super sensitive", let things come out article... unfortunately that behavior, in my experience, does not help the other part.
Sometimes we should tell the truth or give good advice or warn of the consequences of a bad decision. Yes we should listen, but not fooling the other part with "fake-positive" stuff, I am not sure I am expressing myself well. What I kean is, stay positive as much as possible, do not create unnecessary negativity, but keep it honest.
But according to this article, it seems that those should be disregarded.
Everything looks so soft in the article, at least from the point of view of my culture.
I must also say I was often classified as aggressive in the sense of being too direct. But if you are listening to someone and have a cinversation, I'd rather take the truth of what's wrong better than having compliments from the other side when they are not actually thinking that even themselves. That would just be being fake.
Also, dealing with children, which are still forming their personality, should be treated a bit differently and I can agree with the tips given in the article.
However, if someone comes and tells she is sad, my most likely reaction would be to ask why, do an analysis, try to stay positive BUT not lying about it so that it ends up genuinely helping that person. Same for many other situations.
> But according to this article, it seems that those should be disregarded.
Depending on the context, yes.
You are coming into this from a perspective of "listening to fix" and not "listening to understand" which are two different things.
Even if your intent is to help people by listening, you first might want to get the entire picture and understand the entire context. Because if you don't, what change do you really have of meaningfully helping someone?
In order to listen to fix first you must understand...
I mean that the kind of "I hear you", "yes, blabla" seems nice but it is the same thing anyone would tell you. Someone that does not know you maybe would react the same.
For me it is better (as in valuable) to get a: "because you fail to see you are doing it wrong? Don't you see that..." or something that tells you why you are being dumb and you should not be sad. For example: I am sad bc... the reason is important. If it is bc your father passed away there is nothing I can help with but if you just lost your job or did not get the marks you wanted, there is good advice to make people feel better and try to suggest to analyze what went wrong instead of saying: "oh poor you, I feel you" which does not help except to make that person feel better at that very moment and nothing else.
That "negative" information is more valuable to correct something.
If ehat you have is always people who just listen and let it go, you will end up without any helpful information and maybe even thinking that the problem is elsewhere.
> you just lost your job or did not get the marks you wanted, there is good advice to make people feel better and try to suggest to analyze what went wrong
Your assumption here is that people did something "wrong". This isn't always the case, you certainly can't decide that without actually having listened to them.
Other than that, all I can say is that you seem to be jumping from one extreme end to the other and by doing so missing the important middle ground by a huge margin.
I'd even go as far as saying that you also did that while reading this article. Because it feels like to me that you didn't read it with the intention of understanding it, but the intention to have an opinion on it.
My point actually is not even abt wrong. It was just an example. The point is that saying "yes, yes I listen" without further feedback can be more counterproductive than not. There is nothing write about being sad probably. But giving advice about how to rationalize your feelings can be helpful.
> In order to listen to fix first you must understand...
You're missing the point - it's about whether you should "listen to fix" at all. In my experience, when most people are "sharing", they don't want you to solve their problems - chances are they know everything you're about to say anyway - and if they did, they'll more specifically ask for your help
What people want is just someone to listen, to feel heard. This relates to the oft-repeated advice of not trying to solve your partner's daily problems, but just to respond with "That sucks". It's also why responding with your own experiences all the time doesn't make you a great listener
> which does not help except to make that person feel better at that very moment and nothing else.
Not sure why you're implying this is some sort of bad thing.
True, they might know, but a push is probably what they need.
Listening is disjoint from giving advice. In fact you need to first listen to be able to give advice.
And yes, some people just want to be listened. I am not against it as such
I usually talk actionable stuff more than not actually but I understand that some people might not be like me.
Yes, my last quote there means that making someone feel just better for a moment while keeping something for which there could be something about is probably suboptimal. Idk if bad, just suboptimal. The honest feedback in a conversation is critical to solve our own problems.
Sometimes I found out things noone would have ever told me by people that really appreciate me and that is a good thing that improves me, not a bad thing that should make me angry or annoyed.
I have the feeling that we are doing something wrong with this kind of advice. The generation that comes 20 years after me or 30 (I am 40) are mentally way softer than before and I think this kind of behavior promoted by the article promotes this kind of feedback.
The biggest difference I have seen compared to Europe from living in Vietnam (for 12 years) is that they have a much stronger mind.
They have better and worse things, as every culture. But I relate this kind of advice as a fundamental mistake.
We need positive listening, we need things like that, sure. But we also need to deal with frustration, with failure and with negative feedback.
Those things teach us to deal with fristration, to naturalize it and to be able to deal with it as well.
So my advice would be more, without being a therapist, train your kids as Toni Nadal trained Rafa Nadal. Hard minds are ready for good and bad times.
Soft minds only for the good ones.
So I would be wary of promoting that kind of "everything's cool let's be positive never mind". I'd rather promote "be careful, this is the problem, can we deal with it?" If so, how? If not, we cannot win all the time which is also a lesson that humbles us.
Not with the emotional or tolerance (tied to emotional) ones at least in my country.
I also see, if you are american, at least from my perception (I could be wrong!), that many attitudes from the younger generations are the result of overprotection.
Something I do not see in Asia to the level I see in developed countries in the westerner countries.
> just my mind accumulates information like very fast and things pop up quickly
People who think that happens to them often turn out to just talk a lot of irrelevant and useless drivel (very much exactly like a LLM; just keep generating stuff no one wants to hear as part of the conversation); they talk just to talk with the excuse that they think they are very smart. They might be if they would shut up and use the listening time to actually form a better return. Not saying this is you, but saying ‘accumulates information very fast’ about yourself is a somewhat red flag imho.
It is rarely the case, even for famous smart people; most listen and then take a bit of time to come back with an answer; interrupting is terrible, more so when it’s not really relevant to what the actual point was (just hanging on to the first sentence and not listening to anything else until you can make your point about that sentence even though that was not the point of the discussion, at all). Or say they have to ponder it somewhat longer instead of having an instant response. Of course it depends on the subject; in political talks it seems more normal to blatantly step on someone talking, but then again, not all talks are political.
Yea, I think the author was spoiled with always being "listened to", in the way the author describes, and then the author was shocked, that the world doesn't revolve around him. That people don't care what he has to say. So now the author teaches us how we should get into this EXTREMELY passive state, where we mirror everything our interlocutor says, agree completely, never say anything about ourselves, and back away from any confrontation.
The guide is useful in a way, but it's useful for a particular situation: when you want to help someone emotionally. This is not a (good) general listening guide, however. Actually, it's a terrible, toxic guide.
> You know the obvious no-brainer ones already—don’t interrupt, don’t look at your phone, make (frequent, but not creepily constant) eye contact, turn your body towards the speaker…
These "obvious" things are so unnatural for me that doing them consumes so much of my attention that I don't actually hear anything the person is saying.
Ahhh, ok, I hear you now. I wonder if just practicing the skills more, maybe even in a practice environment, would help you feel more comfortable with them.
Have you found that over time there have been some things you feel more and more comfortable doing?
First paragraph of the OP and I knew in my bones it was written by someone with a personality disorder. Since her death, her husband published his memoir in 2023. The serial cheating, open suicide ideation, unresolved childhood trauma and general toxicity to herself and others is completely consistent with the tone of the article.
that's the exact opposite of my takeaway from the memoir. that book was written with intense love and i encourage anybody to read it, one of the best books to come out in a decade.
it appears you took the tabloid stuff and ran with it as a reason to disregard anything she says due to mental illness. at least that's how your first comment seems. including all of your comments against her in this post, you clearly have a bone to pick and i disagree with all of them. but that's all i'm gonna say about that, except, maybe you should listen to what she has to say in the article and also read the book "molly" by blake butler and have your views on love challenged.
I went by the reviews - I don't intend to read the book. Her husband believes she suffered from borderline personality disorder. Have you had a friend or family member with BPD, or another cluster-B PD?
These are clinical standards for self-absorption and toxic personality traits. In their relationships, cluster-Bs select for supplicants who will love them despite their toxicity. What you're saying about the memoir is consistent with this.
Her mental health conditions aren't a reason to disregard everything she says, but she is providing social and interpersonal advice here, in a way that is likely to encode the dysfunctional schema and disordered thinking she suffered from in life.
For an opinion piece that is about how to empathize with other people, I think it is relevant information that the author probably had a clinical impairment in their own ability to empathize with and understand others.
got it: don't take interpersonal advice from somebody who has a personality disorder. especially when their advice is a piece of literature that is quite obviously a cry to be listened to. also, disregard my own judgement in the assessment of the piece of literature, and ignore my own criticism of the piece. really, just ignore the piece as a whole because of my judgements.
and yes, one of my best friends has BPD and i dated somebody who had it, and listening to them and their subjective experience and tips on how to communicate with them was the best thing i could ever do.
> and tips on how to communicate with them was the best thing i could ever do
I'm interested in how you concluded the advice was so beneficial. Was it a reduction in conflict and fewer emotional outbursts from your BPD partner? A feeling that you're better able to soothe them and manage their feelings?
i read it and i'm not sure the point you're trying to make? that section is about empathy from the POV of the person with BPD, not about empathetically listening to somebody with BPD
edit: it appears we're talking past each other. i like this piece of writing and you don't. that's fine. do you have any suggestions for me to read about how to listen, written by one of your favorite writers or poets? this will help me better understand how to listen to you.
> evaluate the content in context, the author is irrelevant
But the author is part of that context. Especially with this kind of content where one explains how they think people should behave we can ask the question if the author embodied the guidelines they are talking about, and if so where did it took them. Did they had an enviable life full of things the reader would find valuable?
I disagree. The speaker is not part of the context when evaluating the correctness of a given assertion. This is a fundamental fact, for example when the speaker is unknown. If it helps, in situations where you’re reading something controversial or where you’d be tempted to make unfounded inferences based on the speaker, you can simply pretend that you’ve “discovered” the assertion rather than that someone has said it to you.
Granted, it can be a bit unnerving to accept something without a human being willing to stand with you to defend it when you reach the limits of objective reality (such as the issue of varying perspective). Typically the advice here is to “stand up for what you believe in” - but honestly that’s overrated when survival is on the line (and you potentially haven’t yet absorbed the info as part of your identity).
> The speaker is not part of the context when evaluating the correctness of a given assertion.
On a philosophical level this sounds true. On a practical level evaluating correctness has costs.
If you tell me the James Webb Space Telescope detected this and that i won’t launch my own space telescope to verify it. I need to figure out if I trust you as a source. There if you are a crackpot journalist with seemingly no connection to JWST my trust will decrease, at least until i find independent sources.
And that is a hard scientific claim where in theory one can conduct an independent experiment and judge the facts for certain.
The kind of claim this one is on about is much harder to verify. It is of the form “live by these rules and you will have a better life”. There both the interpretation of the “rules” and the “better life” is fuzzy. And even if you get it right in your own experiment it will take years until you see results.
Just on a practical level. Imagine that a thin and sporty person tells you that the secret of them maintaining their healty weight is starting every day by eating two scoops of ice cream. Now imagine that the same statement is said by an obese person. In both cases it takes the same amount of effort to evaluate the correctness of their statement but which case is going to make you want to investigate it more deeply?
The people in autism research these days, at least on the sociological end of things, well tell you about the "double empathy problem" (after Milton, 2012 - it's enough of a "thing" now that it has its own wikipedia page). The idea is that if you put one autistic person in a group of "neurotypicals", it'll seem as if they are bad at relating to people - but in a group of (sufficiently high-functioning) autistic people, sometimes everyone gets on just fine, and if you put a single non-autistic person in a group of autistic people, an observer might conclude that they are the one having difficulty "reading the room" and relating to the unspoken norms of the group. It's as if, to make an analogy, autistic people are not worse at picking up "signals" from other people, they're just signalling on a slightly different wavelength.
And certainly, relating to others by sharing your own simliar stories is a big thing in some neurodiverse groups, where it is often experienced as a positive. But that then intersects with other cultural aspects, for example the stiff-upper-lib Brits versus outgoing Americans stereotype, with neurodiverse people acting as their own subculture if you like.
Sharing your own story is hardly a uniquely autistic trait though: imagine you meet a new co-worker, share that you like Nightwish, and they go "oh, I love them too! I saw them live in Helsinki back in 2022!" and before you know it, you've made a new friend over shared taste in music even if what they did is technically story-topping.
But, if you are line-managing a "neurotypical" person and they're in your office crying because of some bad thing that happened to them, it's an essential skill for your job to know that you don't make the story about you. Same if you're training to be a therapist.
In my experience the less judgement I bring to a situation, the better I will be able to listen. If someone is telling me a story where I feel like they were morally wrong or where “one easy trick” would have solved their problem, it is very hard for me to not want to blurt out advice, admonishment, or shut the conversation down.
The funny thing is that being quickly opinionated is highly valued in tech, so my maladaptive behavior (in part) got me accolades and promotions. I actually think this tendency to have a hot take on everything immediately is a large portion of why engineers rub non-engineers the wrong way
> The funny thing is that being quickly opinionated is highly valued in tech
I don’t really agree with this in the context you seem to put it. It’s not that it’s completely wrong, it’s just that engineers who rub non-engineers the wrong way are most certainly also rubbing engineers the wrong way. That being said, tech teams are often rather “quiet” and having that crude loudmouth is often better than having nobody speak their opinions at all.
I wouldn’t say it’s valued though. At least not in my experience. What is valued is engineers who can voice their opinions in an assertive and friendly manner. This is because that unlike the crude loudmouth, these people lead to the quiet people joining in. Which can lead to actual discussion and at the very least put forward more opinions from the team, without you having to be the elementary school teacher picking the quiet student in order to hear what they have to contribute.
I guess being a crude loudmouth can lead to promotions, but it’s probably also a quick way to become one of those managers/architects which are called hot-air balloons or the emperors new clothes behind their backs.
I’d recommend getting into role playing and paying attention to how good game masters get their players to elaborate on what sort of actions they want to take.
Good post. Have found that active listening like this is extremely important within the context of feedback. Both parties need to be active listeners. It's vital for the recipient of feedback to repeat back what the giver is saying to make sure everyone is on the same page. Minor step, but has a massive impact on how feedback is perceived and acted on between parties.
This reminds me of some things that Chris Voss (Author: Never Split the Difference - Negotiating as if your life depended on it) refers to as "tactical empathy"
* mirroring
* labelling
Anyone else had positive or negative experiences in this area?
The weirdest thing is when someone interrupts you, you point it out, and then they get mad, as though you had the audacity to point out their interruption. It’s the most bizarre thing.
After many times of this occurring with one family member in particular, I’ve sort of passive aggressively started responding “Sorry, I didn’t mean for the middle of my sentence to interrupt the beginning of yours.” But sometimes they don’t even hear that because they’re still talking right on over me.
This is one of those tricky things...interrupting someone is rude but pointing it out is rude too. It makes the tone of the conversation confrontational, which will almost never be received positively. The best way to deal with being interrupted is to handle it gracefully in the moment and if it continues to be an issue eventually address it with the person in a way that doesn't feel accusatory. A lot of people don't even realize that they're doing it or they're used to a different conversational style where it's normalized to interject when you have something to say. You can't call someone else out for being rude and expect them to be happy about it, especially if it's for something they're not aware that they're doing or that they personally don't consider rude.
Very nice article and very relatable. But I think for this to work, a person practicing must have a capacity for empathy, or at least some degree of it, in the first place.
"...a good listener is actually someone who is good at talking". Totally agree! In aorder to be a good listener you need to be able to give a good feed back
If a person is debating a decision, there’s no need to stress out about what advice to give him or her. Forget what you know. And don’t talk about your experience unless the person is specifically asking for it in hoping to learn from you (see #5). The person already knows the answer or the best solution—or at least, has a preference. All you have to do here is just repeat what he’s saying back to him.
??????????????????
How is this not toxic? If I'm talking to someone I want to know what they think.
I think it depends on whether someone has actually explicitly asked you for advice or not.
If they have, then you should be careful to consider their position regarding this decision.
But if they haven't actually asked, then probably best to not advise which decision to make. I would think that trying to help _them_ make the decision would be a good thing to do, though.
I agree with “don’t relate” as a general concept, but I had to stop shortly after reading this:
“There are two reasons a person redirects the conversation/attention back to himself: (1) the person is deeply self-centered and incapable of processing information about anyone unless it relates to him. It’s likely this person is cripplingly insecure, and therefore his worry about himself has turned into his only functioning pathway to the world. Or possibly this person is a sociopath.”
I know the author goes on to state a more benign reason as the second reason.
But opening with the possibility that someone is a sociopath for over-relating is wild. I’d expect the child of a therapist would choose their words with more purpose and with their intended meaning.
I'm no expert on listening, but I think do have a sense of when I personally feel heard.
I don't agree with this piece at all, and I don't like the vibe of the author. The very first paragraph has a narcissism in it that rubs me the wrong way. Like the whole world let her down for not centering her in conversations the way her therapist caretaker did.
> Some simple and powerful phrases to use when someone is feeling feels: “I hear you.” “I bet it is hard.” “That makes sense.”
All three of these seriously suck to hear. IMO these are actually worse than the phrases the author says to never say. Someone telling you "You have no reason to feel that way" can easily be challenged. Someone disingenuously saying "I hear you" like a robot can't be.
The entire idea that there are boilerplate "powerful phrases" you can drop to make someone feel heard is nonsense. These generic phrases are determined ahead of hearing someone speak, so they can not reflect the act of hearing.
There's a reason why this brand of non-communication is so popular in HR circles. What this author is advocating is that we import patronizing HR speak into every day conversation. No thanks.
>Replace all of the shocking, mean, hateful, incorrect, ignorant, offensive, cruel things coming out of this person’s mouth with “I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt. I’m hurrrrt.”
This is narcissistic logic. When people are angry at you, and attacking you - and they do not have a clinical mood or personality disorder - you must accept that there may be a reason behind it. Things said in the heat of the moment are not always fair or measured, but they are rarely meaningless. When you decide that nothing someone is saying is valid because they are hurt, you will probably just invalidate and hurt them further.
The idea that the most important thing in a situation like this is to not be upset yourself is also narcissistic logic. Although presented as practical advice to not escalate, it's really just the authors need to "win" the interaction. It says "I'm the level-headed and rational one, while the other person is crazy and flying off the handle." Acting this way can escalate the situation even more than becoming angry yourself, but it will do so in a way that allows you to avoid taking any personal responsibility for that escalation.
I have to wonder what situations and interpersonal relationships the author is in that she finds this to be such a relevant piece of advice. These experiences don't sound like a model for healthy communication.
>5. Don’t relate.
This entire section is deeply narcissistic. The one-upmanship thing does happen, for sure. But it's not the reason people share their own experiences in the course of you sharing yours. Her conception of why people share reflects a deeply disconnected view of other people. Reads as "sometimes I'm talking to someone who is so self-absorbed they don't understand the conversation is 100% about me!"
Of the whole article, this section was most reminiscent of the cognitive style of diagnosed NPDs I've known.
>6. Ask questions.
This is the only decent advice in here, and I can't really fault it. But there is still something off here. It's like the goal of asking these questions is to "make someone feel heard" rather than to actually hear them.
Agreed; it seems like a really weird mix of perfectly reasonable advice and wild assumptions about how "normal" human relationships work, both given in a condescending tone.
Also, I hope I'll be forgiven for doubting that someone is an expert on empathy when they write something like this:
> Then, try this: look at the person in the eyes. If you can’t stop thinking about yourself, know that you have a problem. Your self-centeredness renders you incapable of intimacy. Get help.
I have a family member with BPD and this feels like the kind of article she would write. She loooooves hearing those hollow therapist-isms that I personally find artificial and deeply alienating. Someone commented elsewhere that the author of this piece committed suicide in 2020 and her husband published a memoir about her in which he suggested that she might have BPD...so that tracks. It reads like a manual for how to have a conversation that completely centers the other person in a way that the majority of people would find uncomfortable and disingenuous but that appeals to someone with cluster B tendencies whose main goal in relating to other people is to feel emotionally validated and cared for at all times. It's not a good strategy for relating to a normal person; normal people enjoy reciprocal conversations that feel authentic and involve a healthy degree of relating to the other person's experience.
My family member with BPD isn't really capable of connecting with other people in a reciprocal way...she only understands relationships in which she is the caretaker or she is the one being taken care of emotionally, so she sees all relationships through the lens of that dynamic. That's the vibe I get from this author as well.
"Replace all of the shocking, mean, hateful, incorrect, ignorant, offensive, cruel things coming out of this person’s mouth with “I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt. I’m hurrrrt.”
This is narcissistic logic. When people are angry at you, and attacking you - and they do not have a clinical mood or personality disorder - you must accept that there may be a reason behind it. Things said in the heat of the moment are not always fair or measured, but they are rarely meaningless. When you decide that nothing someone is saying is valid because they are hurt, you will probably just invalidate and hurt them further."
I understand your point but I think there's actually merit to that part.
Sometimes people are just mad for no reason. My mother would release her frustrations on me when I was a child whenever things weren't going well in a marriage, and I don't think whatever I did deserved that.
There is a good point in saying that there's sometime a real greviance let out in a bad form but sometimes there is nothing to this and nothing you can do or say to change their mind.
I agree with you here. Your example is an abuse scenario. In that case the hurt is the point, there isn't really meaning to it, and it really sucks that it happened to you.
The thing that gives me such a bad vibe from the OP is that this type of behavior is presented as normal in a listening scenario to such an extent that learning to dismiss it is a core listening skill. I think she was either abusive towards the people she expected to listen to her, or the BPD/NPD hypersensitivity to criticism caused her to habitually mistake feedback and boundary setting as cruel and hateful attacks.
Either way, the model of human relationships presented in the OP is completely dysfunctional. It deeply pains me to see it presented as advice.
It's because a lot of people who frequent HN have difficulty with social skills and are always looking for a manual for how to handle tricky interpersonal situations. The problem is that their difficulty with social skills renders them not-so-great at assessing the quality of advice about social interaction so they upvote things that they think sound nice or valuable without realizing that that's not actually the case. I hope this comment doesn't come across as judgmental or mean, it's just something I've noticed as a person who works in tech but has always had strong social and communication skills. This article describes a communication style that is repellent to anyone with normal social skills who doesn't have cluster B tendencies.
> Replace all of the shocking, mean, hateful, incorrect, ignorant, offensive, cruel things coming out of this person’s mouth with “I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt! I’m hurt. I’m hurrrrt.”
You're replacing what the person is saying with what you think the person means. Surely if you could just go with what you think they mean, listening would be easy. In fact this sounds like the opposite of listening.
Reading about how to be a good listener can only get someone so far - watching someone demonstrate it and talking about it is the surest way to understand what it means.
Specifically, Reflective listening[1], Clean language[2], and the approach used by Eugene Gendlin[3], jump-started my own skill of practicing being a good listener. You may also hear the term "holding space" as a sort of umbrella term for this as well.
You would be amazing at how far these go toward creating a safe, non-judgemental, space for people. Simple, open-ended, genuine questions worded in their own language, has afforded me the opportunity to hear people open up from the very bottom of their souls. It's absolutely amazing that the simple act of listening can do that, but it does.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_listening
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_language
3. Wiki reference, but best seen, of course, on Youtube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Gendlin