A friend of mine recommended a book on how to have a conversation with someone who is upset. This is a topic that has interested me for some time, as I have noticed that saying the wrong thing can cause an upset individual to spin their wheels and maybe even get irate.
The book my friend recommended is called Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change. The authors provide a long list of strategies that do not work when supporting an upset person, ranging from criticizing to consoling them. Instead, the authors suggest making reflective responses that summarize what the other person is upset about. In feeling understood through your reflection, the other person begins to feel more at ease and can process and move through their frustration.
A reflective response aims to capture the state of mind and emotions of the person who is upset given their situation. It is not framed as a question, but rather a statement of conclusion. The reflective response also aims to accurately summarize the magnitude of the person’s frustration. Here is an example reflective response made to a person who has tried something in their life without getting the expected results:
“You’re rather discouraged about trying again.” (Motivational Interviewing (2nd ed) p. 100).
I started practicing making reflective responses to people around me and was surprised at how well they worked. When done properly, I could really feel the other person’s energy shift in a positive direction. I have found that people generally respond to a reflective statement with a confirmation that the statement summarizes how they feel. Subsequently they express additional thoughts and emotions about what is most troubling them about the situation. Being able to express these additional feelings results in a cognitive and emotional shift; and they start to feel better.
Soon afterward, I started to wonder whether I could converse with my own self by making a reflective response regarding something that upset me. Trying this out, I found that it worked as well.
I was recently frustrated by a recent social interaction. The other person generally had only negative things to say about other people and virtually nothing positive to report about them. When this person asked me questions about how my life was going, I had the impression that they were looking to find something negative about me as well. This frustrated me tremendously and I was still thinking about my interaction with them after our time together. I made the following reflective statement to myself about the incident: You generally felt that they were looking for something wrong with you.
This reflected statement prompted a sequence of thoughts within me: Yes; I had the impression they were not interested in who I was at all. They did not want to see me for who I am and did not appreciate my personality. As soon as these subsequent thoughts formed in my mind, I felt a somatic cognitive and emotional release within my body and felt better.