Five Secrets Of Effective Communication-Part 1: The Disarming Technique
In a previous post, Talk with Your E-A-R, I introduced the E-A-R framework of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, in which we use Empathy, Assertiveness and Respect to use relationship conflicts as opportunities to grow closer. Imagine there is someone you have a conflict with and you want to have a better relationship with them. If you are willing to do the hard work to improve the relationship, including looking at your own role in the problem, there is a huge opportunity to transform the relationship into a close, warm, joyful, more intimate one. This is the purpose of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication.
Let’s look at the E = Empathy part of E-A-R. Empathy is so important that three of the five secrets fall under this category. The first Secret is called The Disarming Technique. In his book “Feeling Good Together,” Dr. David Burns defines the Disarming Technique as a way to find some truth in what the other person is saying, even if they are being unreasonable or unfair. There is something about hearing the words “You’re right” or “I totally agree with you” that can cause a person to lower their guard and feel less negative towards us. Like all of The Five Secrets, disarming is simple to understand but often difficult to put into practice. To disarm effectively, we need to always remember the R = Respect part of E-A-R. In fact, respect must be used with all of the five secrets if they are to be effective. To disarm effectively, we often need to look underneath the surface of the literal words a person is saying in order to find a deeper meaning– something true we can agree with. I’ll try to bring this to life with an example of a possible conflict I might have with a therapy client.
Let’s imagine that a client I am working with is feeling hurt by some things I have said and says this to me: “Kevin, sometimes it seems like you don’t like me very much.” This would be so hard to hear! It would be very challenging to respond to this effectively. Like most people, my first instinct would be to say something like “Oh, no that’s not true! I like you very much!” However, if I said that, I would be making a pretty big mistake and lose an opportunity to build a better relationship with this client. But how can I effectively disarm this statement? It would not be respectful or effective to literally agree and say something like “You’re right! I don’t like you very much sometimes.” Ouch! That’s not only hurtful but also probably not true. Disarming, like all of the Five Secrets, is only helpful if it is actually true and something I really agree with. So, how do I solve this problem? The client just told me it sometimes seems like I don’t like them very much. How do I find the truth in this?
Well, let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of this client. If they feel like I, as their therapist, do not like them, what have I probably not done very well? It’s likely that I have not done a good job listening to them and providing them the empathy, warmth and support they need from a therapist. This is something I can find truth in, agree with and use for disarming. Imagine how much more effective it would be if instead of saying “That’s not true! I do like you!” I say something like “That’s really hard for me to hear. I can see that I haven’t done a very good job of listening to you, or giving you the empathy and support you need.” I would be finding the truth in what they are saying and agreeing with them that I have let them down. Now, I have an opportunity to use more of the Five Secrets to repair this relationship and possibly take our work together to a whole new level.
In my next blog post, I will explore how the second secret, Thought and Feeling Empathy, can be used to communicate even more effectively in the example of the therapy client described above.
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