Self-Communication Solves Personal Problems

Psychiatrists have caught up with Socrates and cashed on this technique. They employ this technique as a powerful self-communication instrument to bring about personality change and improvement.   The troubled person just talks (to himself) while the psychiatrist records his expression—verbal as well as facial. He also carefully watches his body language.   The aim is not to advise him but to give him an opportunity to unburden his mind, to see his own thinking in a new perspective, and thus find solutions to his problems.   Here is one example from my own life. I was at cross-roads of my career, after a spell of unemployment. It so happened that I got three offers almost simultaneously. These were PR job in Haryana government, a similar job in a Haryana University, and a lecturer's job in Panjab University. I debated the dilemma of job-thinking in my mind for a couple of days, and opted for the PU job.   It was self-communication that helped resolve the dilemma. The role of the self can be adequately played by a good listener.   One person who is truly understanding, who listens to you as you struggle with your problems, can change your outlook on the world.   Few people go to professional psychiatrists with their problems, but many take their troubles to friends and some to relatives.   When a person in trouble knows that he has a good listener he shares his thoughts fully, which makes it easier to solve his problems. As he talks he finds a solution to his problem himself.   The emphatic listening is described as non-directive. The word refers to the reaction that a listener should present to a talker who is trying to discuss his own problems.   Another way of putting it is to say that the listener makes an effort to understand what is said, but does not give direction.   The listener realises that he is a sounding board. The talker does not want advice. He wants to talk freely so that he can listen to his own thoughts as they are put into words.   With this opportunity to hear himself speak, he is able to furnish his own advice.   In brief, the good listener accepts that is said, tries to understand it, and above all, makes no judgements.   Empathic understanding with a person, not about him, is an effective approach. It can bring about a major personality change.   If you want to find out how it is to listen without making evaluation judgments, test this experiment. The next time you find yourself in a heated discussion with your friend or spouse, let this rule be followed:   Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately and to the speaker's satisfaction.   This means that before presenting your own point of view, it would be necessary for you to achieve the other speaker's thoughts and feelings so well that you could summarise them for him.   Sounds simple, but you will discover that it is one of the most difficult things you have ever tried to do.   However, once you have been able to see the other's point of view, your own comment will have to be revised. You will also find the emotion going out of the discussion, the differences being reduced, and those differences which remain being of a rational and understandable sort.   Why is non-directive listening so difficult to accomplish? The answer lies in the fact that such listening requires a kind of courage that few of us have ever required.   When we listen to another person's ideas, we open ourselves up to the possibility that some of our own ideas are wrong.   Most of us fight change, especially when it has to do with altering our own thoughts. Therefore, when we listen, something from inside makes us want to fight the change in our thinking that might be brought about by what we hear.   Hold on there, we are urged to say. You must be wrong. That isn't the way I think. And you are not going to change my mind. I won't allow it.   There is no sure formula for the kind of listening that can help people when they feel the very human desire to be heard. It depends too much on an attitude that must come from inside the listener. No one can spell out a method by which you can become sympathetic and understanding to another person.   The following point will help in forming non-directive listening.   Listen: Whenever you sense that someone is troubled or needs to talk, give him your time. Though it may seem like a waste of time to you, it seldom is.   If by listening you can help him clear his mind, it will also help communication between you and the person talking.   Also, there may come a time when you need a listener, and it is a fact that a good listener has little difficulty finding listeners.   Be attentive: If a verbal avalanche is launched, let it flow uninterrupted until it is exhausted. Make every mental effort to understand what is said. Put yourself in the talker's place to understand what he says.   Verbal reactions: As the talker proceeds, use a series of eloquent and encouraging grunts: Humm, Uh-huh, Oh, or I see.   If the talker pauses, you should remain silent. Or nod your head, until talker starts again.   If he becomes unreasonable, you should restate what has just been said, putting it in the form of a question. Examples of such restatements might be: You really think life that? Or, you believe your mother-in-law is trying to ruin your marriage?   Probe not: There is a difference between willingness to listen and curiosity designed to dig for hidden information. The latter must be avoided. your purpose is not to obtain unwanted information. Evaluate not: You should refrain from passing moral judgment upon what is said. In no case should you give the talker advice—even if he requests for it.   Have faith in the ability of the troubled talker to solve his own problems.   You are witnessing an amazing human phenomenon. the person is talking things over with himself. If you do not inject yourself into his conversation, the chances are that the talker will work things out for himself.   The importance of what lies behind the need for listeners is important. An understanding of what happens when a person talks and another listens is found at the foundations of today's wellness psychotherapy. It is the therapatic value of communication. It works wonders in human relationships. Just know and follow the fundamentals.   The psychiatrist's most important tool is listening. A non-directive counselling, now practised more and more widely throughout business and industry, depends upon persons trained to listen quietly and objectively. In most job interviews one basic approach is to let the candidate speak about himself. This provides a peep into his inner self, the real purpose of interview, a view from inside.   Even in day-to-day living there is a way that you can communicate with yourself but it requires the help of another individual, a listener, and a very good one.   If you find such a listener, he, in a sense, becomes a mirror that throws back a reflection of yourself.   The listener hears your words but, what is more important, you hear yourself talking. If the listener remains active, but silent, giving you a chance to talk freely, thoughts from both the conscious and subconscious levels of your brain are put into words.   As a result you have the opportunity to hear both parts of our brain speaking. Many times this result in self-communication you have been seeking all along. In effect, then you solve your own problems. You don't have to spend enormous money or energy to be yourself. Just talk to yourself.

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with warm regards


Harish Sati
Fortune Institute of International Business
Plot no. 5, Vasant Gaon, Rao Tula Ram Marg
Opp. R.R. Army Hospitial, New Delhi- 110057
Mobile No:- 09990646343
E-mail:- Harish.sati@gmail.com


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