In general, communication is challenging because each person has a different perspective about many aspects of the very subject of communication.  For instance, how one’s family of origin communicated when we grew up impacts how we will communicate our wants and needs to those close to us.  Some have learned to avoid communication altogether because in the past (usually family of origin) the needs of the individual were not allowed to be expressed, let alone met.  This leads to a dysfunctional way of communicating as an adult.   In the book ”Fighting for Your Marriage” by Markman, Stanley and Blumberg, a communication method called the  speaker-listener technique is used  with the idea that the two of you are a team when it comes to communicating.  In this technique, the speaker has the floor, represented by an object.  The speaker finishes speaking and then the listener paraphrases what is heard, including feelings, etc.  The speaker then clarifies.  Then the reverse is done.  This method is nothing more than what I learned in formal counseling classes during college, yet it is worth taking another look at because it is easy to get lazy in our communication with each other and cause much unnecessary misunderstanding, anxiety, possible anger and resentments, etc. if we do not attend to our communication with those close to us.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Problem Solving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.