Rectifications (28) – “…and more”

Rectifications (28) – "…and more"
Torrey Orton
January 17, 2013

After enough comes more

 

"…and more" the Subaru sales advert promised full stop after a series of small value adds which dear buyer prospect can get with your model year 2012 demonstrator currently on clearance – a Forester I think it was. You know, "leather" with an asterisk to a footnote so small and finely printed anyone who could afford to would have trouble reading it. Actually, it's leather trim sort of. After three more such gifts, all of which are standard issue "features", we are offered "and more". A clear case where more is not a lot.


This offer, which I've seen in so many places for so many products, makes me feel confident it's a reliable indicator the phrase has entered normal usage. So, what is "…and more"? Another receptacle for the unrequited phantasies of the potentially buying public…? A teaser, like prices ending in $.95 used to be, stopping which could allow us to retire the 5 cent piece? …but I egress to the productivity door rear left. It is what they (merchants) say when they've run out of things to say and can't admit it to themselves. My butcher doesn't say things like that, perhaps because a steak is a steak unless wagyu or grass-fed, in which cases it's still steak and there's nothing more. Imagine "two rib eyes, and more"? The least they can be is one (two ribs uncut).


Another thing the "…more" is: an afterword when the speaker / writer doesn't think they've offered enough of whatever (not whateva, which is already too much to think about); when they think unconsciously that everything is quantifiable and quantity is what every buyer is looking for (have a look at guided tour adverts in the fast emptying local broadsheets' weekend special sections for another take on this view); or, what happens when your favourite gustatory indulgence runs out after two rounds. More!!


And, there's the Nissan "MORE" I saw last nite (15/01/2013) on the tube as the adjunct to the new model's name and the maker. Just MORE. A culmination of a trajectory I had just barely noticed, carrying an implication of (much MORE) in its slipstream as Nissan struggles to sell the new Leaf which is supposed to produce less, not more.


Then there's the grammatical status of 'more' – started as an adjective, accepted as an adverb, now morphed to a noun and soon to transform into a verb? Like 'impact', 'grow'? What would it be to more something or someone? Perhaps, an undifferentiated swamping? A colourless overwhelm? A tasteless effluent?


Actually, anything would do that adds to the featureless expostulations of spin city, an all-purpose excess for the descriptively incompetent. It's, at the end of the day, another let out word: intends something and specifies nothing…like outcomes, put in place, going forward and so on ever after. Ever so moreish.

Learner therapist (25)…… Congruence, integrity and self-defence in the anger position

Learner therapist (25)…… Congruence, integrity and self-defence in the anger position
Torrey Orton
Nov. 14, 2012

The "anger position" and congruence, integrity and self defence

One of the things that my patients struggle with is their anger. Not the anger which they know but that which they do not. They had the anger drilled out of them by their abusers early in their abused lives. They learned to hide it so as not to attract additional abuse – the abuse beyond the everyday abuse which they survived by dissimulation, pre-emption or collusion with their abusers, abetted often by abuser partners' collusion with the abusers. Failing these tactics, they caught occasional reminders of how much worse things could be than they already were.

One of these patients remarked she did not want to be in the "anger position". The disparaging of anger's reputation among the human emotion suite is systemic well beyond childhood of course. Women are often sharply aware of male aversion to their anger. Tears often get to do double duty as media for sadness and anger. If these fail, there's the backup position of self-denigration for being angry – one patient sharply calls herself "a bitch" for directly voicing her anger to others, especially other women. Then, she doubles down on it by saying "I don't want to be that person in the anger position."

Denizens of white collar work-places often report the unspoken rules of many offices mandate feeling-free interactions while the value espousals warrant 'transparency", "openness" and "honesty" – all states whose fulfilment require perceived authenticity. That is, the values have to feel real in action, not just mouthed, parroted, etc. But real = emotional in this case. And if the truth or honesty is an important honest truthfulness, then appropriate feelings are required for its expression (as were required for its perception in the first place). The plea to 'be rational' and similar encomia to feeling-free thought are among the most resilient fooleries we are beset by in our public lives, especially from various cultural and social heights.

Another patient recently explored her rage at a deeply manipulative move by her clearly incompetent boss. The rage went two ways at once: towards him for his professional chicanery and toward herself for being powerless in his face (and consequently shamed and guilty before imagined friends who she might discuss the situation with but couldn't). This bifurcation of attention reflects a lifetime's self-doubt and high achievement for her, with the doubt dominating the inner battle and achievement the outer one. All up, a lot of conflict expressed in various anxieties.

So what for patient anger?

Why does it matter? Just as satisfaction registers a pleasure with a successful action, anger registers the invasiveness of another's attack or disapproval of one's own mistake(s). The abused carry many signs of injury. One of the less obvious is injured feeling receptors and expressors. Their emotional range is confined, as was their action range, by the abuse. The distance between the ends of a feeling spectrum like irritation - anger - fury - rage are driven closer together; it's harder to express any degrees of difference. One public figure who looks and sounds like this is Malcolm Fraser. Similarly, Julia Gillard does a too good job of reducing her speech to flat, ponderous, sleep-inducing noise. They share facial immobility. Were they abused? If not, then the disease of self-restraint is much more deeply spread among the competent than I imagined.

Three steps to effective anger: becoming congruent (knowing what you feel), acknowledging integrity (deciding from what you feel) and acting in self-defence (acting from what you feel). They can be learned, usually building on some pre-existing residuals of natural capability created while preparing for engaging an established threat.

Congruence – the ground of awareness in the fizz of anger, when inside and outside are aligned

The only way to avoid congruence when repressing anger (or even irritation) is to be numb to the feeling…in which case, though, the fact of numbness will be broadcast by incongruous non-verbals like stiff faces, rigid speech delivery, and clumsy movements. This will be on display for those who want to see. We may be congruent in this way without knowing it and others assist our ignorance by not pointing out explicitly what they can see, often to their advantage in the sense of saving them from an imagined conflict they want to avoid. And around and around it goes until an explosion point is reached inevitably but unpredictably in the experience of those involved. By that time the anger is way over the top…and undirected to an appropriate or workable subject between the parties. Such explosions are the stuff of everyday couples breakdowns, tit-for-tat accusations of bullying at work and the public micro-rages we are increasingly exposed to. Emotional congruence may occur most compellingly when long gathered anger bursts on the unsuspecting and minimally deserving heads of its sources, or maybe just lookalike passers-by that trigger the gathering emotional storm. Brilliant, flaring and frightening for all because almost out of control.

How does this oh so common scenario come to play out? The persistent disapproval of any form of anger yields an effective self-restraint which fakes self-control until the actual perceived offenses pile high and wide enough to threaten suffocation. But it attracts real rage in return, it creates it, authorises it, validates it and those involved are cast into a who's to blame game that is irresolvable because the sources incite more rage. "This is what we usually do." Congruence is a starting place for engaging real issues, but not a restful one.

Integrity – is the place of truth in oneself when the real self can be used…
 

… to decide the realities we want to engage (if we can choose to do so). That real self, the reliable background to our everyday life, is the home of basic values, notably justice and fairness, and virtues like persistence and courage, which seem to be alive across all kinds of cultures, even the most spiritual, communal or familial included. These values are understood to apply equally to self and others, though their application may, unsurprisingly, lean towards self and own group. They provide a sense of direction for action and a mixture of confidence and compulsion to take action. For example,

…instead of falling into despair, Shawna got mad at what she felt was a betrayal. 'Mad' was not ideal, but it was better than depressed and full of self blame! Indeed, her anger actually seemed to lift her depression and allowed her some energy to decide what to do about taking care of herself…

 

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA
• VOL 18 NO 4 • AUGUST 2012 pg. 19

For more information visit www.margaretwehrenberg.com.

And, so to ….

Self-defence – the steps which stop and eventually pre-empt previously enraging threats

Self-defence may need to be either forward (assertion-aggression) or backwards (explanation, delivered assertively). So, what to do in everyday pre-rage circumstances? Start with the real anger only when timely, etc. Otherwise, acknowledge and defer the anger to a later time, place and content in order to take care of present business which is not directly implicated in the anger and loss of which would undermine most foundational conditions for engaging the anger usefully (for instance, by ending an employment relationship or intimate one prematurely).

Practising anger – some steps and tools for patients, and others

To get better at expressing anger requires practice as does your golf, singing, dancing, writing… through persistent small steps as in any skill building.
1) Start expressing anger by punching a pillow, boxercise, hitting a tree trunk with a stick, speaking somewhat louder than you normally do and increasing the volume slowly up to yelling or screaming. A good walk in the woods or on a perhaps windy beach will provide venues for this step.
2) Continue exploring it through martial arts, boxing, any gross motor sport – preferably within a meditative framework! Notice how hard it is to embody your anger without falling into freezing or wild Flight or fierce Fight (losing control).
3) Cultivate control of body mind and heart by choosing one physical discipline for long term development. Physical is critical because cultivating a capacity for appropriate expression of anger is an engagement with the freeze/fight/flight response system, all three of whose terms are physical. The FFF system readies the body for action. Those of us with repressed feelings may not even notice them coming into play because our bodies are out of tune for them. The body is our instrument of feelings in two senses: for perceiving them and expressing them. An untuned instrument will never play well.
4) Start employing anger. Build skilled competence by strategic intervention planning and execution along the lines of basic graduated skill development programs of any kind: a sequence of motivation (identifying the defence need), observation (of competent actors), approximation (visualisation of proposed actions, etc.), initiating (trialling the actions), debriefing (did well, do different, etc.), replanning, re-initiating, debriefing…..Some of the relevant communication technologies to be mastered are available in previous "Learner therapist" posts in this blog.
Finally, it should be apparent that what's proposed in this post is applicable to everyday life, not just catastrophic circumstances. Act well – congruently, integrally and self-defensively, remembering that the best defence is a good offense.

Learner therapist (26)…… Communication Intervention Techniques

Learner therapist (26)……
Communication Intervention Techniques
Torrey Orton
Oct.31, 2012

Pathways to influence

These techniques are needed for moments when you lose sight of what's intended
by others, or are shocked or distracted by your own thoughts, or wonder what the other's expression means as they are listening to your response....and so on. All are points at which you may 'lose the plot' or be thrown off guard.
I call them "intervention techniques" because they provide a variety of ways to act assertively in a range of different conversational settings and purposes. Each technique is presented with some possible words you could use to implement it. You probably won't find them all comfortable, so some rehearsal will be particularly appropriate for these.
They were originally designed as a suite of tools for taking power in employment interviews and taught to 300 members of a public sector organisation undergoing what came to be known as downsizing under the guise of "restructuring". Whole departments' positions were declared redundant and members were invited to apply for the new versions of their old work. 25 years ago this was the leading edge of organisational transformation.
No one found it liberating except the managers who imposed it, until their time came later. It is a seriously disempowering process. There are many more of them now, similarly masked in econospeak. Here are some counter-measures at the personal level. I have added more everyday relationship examples to the interview focussed ones of the original versions of these techniques.
Ethical assertion

They are also ethical, I believe. That is, these techniques are actually the normal communicative behaviour of people in balanced community with each other – couples, families, clubs, associations, workplaces – but almost never in politics or "high performance" organisations. Where you find people comfortably engaging with each other you can observe many of these techniques being used without strain on any side. In that sense they are natural, but only to relatively low pressure settings. Looking for them around you is one starting place to learning them.
There are a few underlying principles shaping these techniques:

1. Self-disclosure is the best way to lead others to be more self-disclosing
2. Taking charge of the process of the discussion is the cheapest source of power available.
3. There's a strategic relationship between these techniques which moves towards more "shared facts" or agreed approaches.
4. Questions keep assertions balanced and,
5. Keep it short – small communication steps are clearer and less demanding of brain space. The greater the pressure the smaller the steps should be to ensure everyone is brought along together
   
   
   Opening statement: this is something strongly recommended if you are opening a new topic or concern in any relationship. The purpose is to get you started talking from your point of view and making an impression that you choose, not just a response to their direction! Actually having an excuse to start talk yourself gets you into action, makes you feel you have some initiative, gets the motor running. Following are a number of approaches you could take in an opening statement.
   As part of your opening statement about how the discussion might go, consider advising that you will check out your understanding of their questions and responses to your answers because you want to avoid misunderstanding (which you know is very easy in these circumstances); so you may "jump in" at points .
   Or, you may want to mention some factor(s) beyond your control which are likely to influence your performance - such as the fact that all your children were sick last night and you've only slept 2 hours.
   Or, at least, you may want to say how interested you are in this subject and that you're looking forward to the discussion!
   The techniques…
   
   1) - Evidence: how do you know they accept what you provided as evidence of the case you are making?
   
   "Some evidence for this is....... does that sound to you like a relevant example?"
   Note - an area in which this may be important is with questions about things like "proven ability to work as a
   member of a team" or "how will I know that you are doing what you say you will to change what we've agreed?"
   2) - Clarifying the question:
   when you don't understand what they're getting at, like:
   
   
   "....I'm not too clear what you're asking: could you say that in another way, or give me an example of what you mean...?"
       Or,
   Tell them that you are going to restate their question to them in slightly different words to test your understanding of it. Then do it.
   3) - Managing nerves:
   at the moment you are feeling nervous, say so if it is obviously going to get in the way; they will know it's happening anyway, so pretending it isn't doesn't work; saying something like the following may help:
   
   "I'm a bit nervous about this and one of the things I do when I'm nervous is.................; so it's nothing personal". Nb: this can be included in an Opening.
   A more confronting version might be:
   "I'm nervous about…. so maybe we should talk about it first before trying to deal with our main agenda…"

4) - Distraction:
when you've lost the plot for a moment and can't find it....

"Sorry, I got side-tracked for a minute... could you repeat that for me please..?"

Or,

"….and what I noticed was that…."

5) - Puzzlement at other's expression: you  are distracted by one interviewer's non-verbal response to something you're saying.

"You look a little surprised (shocked, put off, etc.) by what I'm saying... Am I getting the right impression?" If yes, then:

"What's striking you that way?"

6) - Strengths and weaknesses: one of the most difficult and unavoidable parts of many conversations

a) How to raise a question of weaknesses which may be seen to be the
difference between success and failure in this discussion?? Or, which may constrain your actual ability to do something you are discussing …

"I think I have a couple of weaknesses: x and y; I am in the process of doing something to reduce them - for example: ......"

Or,

"I'm not really too good at …. so I may have to proceed slowly, or get some experience elsewhere before starting on what we're talking about", etc. Note - this can be used in an Opening when you have a weakness like a quiet voice: invite the other(s) to signal non-verbally if they can't hear you clearly.

b) How to raise strengths which are competitively critical: that is, which are reasons why you are the candidate of choice.

"I think there are a number of strengths I have which make me particularly suitable for this position - for example:.."

7) - Suggestions:
for how the job ought to be done which go beyond the requirements of the job description or advertisement, or for factors affecting the matters you are discussing: like alternative viewpoints, new facts, persons with a stake, etc.

" There's some other things I think are important for anyone doing this job; they're not in the description, but......."

Or,

"I'd like to add a couple of things which haven't been mentioned so far."

NB - This intervention may need to be paired with Managing Nerves (3, above) for effective delivery.

 

8) – Jumping in or Interrupting - how to interrupt a process or remark to suggest re-direction, ask for clarification (see #2 above), make a suggestion (#7 above), etc.

"Excuse me a moment, but I would like to check out something you've just said before you go on, namely,..."

"Can we stop here for a minute?"

Nb – it's often useful to signal non-verbally the intent to interrupt by putting up your hand, shifting in your seat, clearing your throat; then, watch for a space and step into it with phrases like those above.

9) - Pre-empting - if you believe there is a common perception of a weakness in your performance which is likely not to be mentioned, but would be a major negative hidden influence on your chances, then.......raise it yourself! Or, if there's a hidden issue – one of those open secret things, elephant in the room – name it.

"One thing I'd like to raise is a weakness that people often say I've got....... I do (don't) think this is true because....."

Or,

"It seems to me there's something we all know: that this idea is a bit scary for everyone because we've never done anything like it before."

10) - Pause speech - acknowledging your surprise at a question - eg. -

    "I'm not too sure about that: I'll have to give it some thought for a second..."

Note - this is another way of giving yourself thinking space; your brain works at about ten times the speed of your mouth; so you can construct a hundred-word response in the time it takes to say this. This technique is an obvious relative of #2 Clarifying the question, but under greater pressure.

11) - Deflection
- to another point in the discussion when you think one issue belongs with another; or one question links to another for you.
    "Yes, I'd like to talk about that in a few minutes in connection with...."