One of the pitfalls people encounter when trying to communicate well with each other – even when they’re using empathic dialogue – is that we often don’t make it clear who is speaking and who is listening.
If you’ve read the book or followed my Instagram posts, you may recall that fundamental to empathic dialogue is that one person is sharing their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and the other is not.
The one who is not speaking is doing the listening part of empathic dialogue – they are not sharing their thoughts, feelings, and experiences; they are simply listening to their partner share theirs. (Of course, they are also offering the full LOVE suite, as discussed at length in the book – Listening, reflecting in your Own words, Validating, and Empathizing – also very fundamental to empathic dialogue!)
When both parties are trying to get their point across at the same time, we call that an argument. By structuring the conversation and identifying separate roles for the speaker and the listener, both partners have a MUCH better shot at getting heard.
And both partners SHOULD be heard – sequentially.
The problem is, what if both of you think you are the one speaking right now? No bueno.
Flubbed Communication
Recently a couple I am working with (whom we will call Jack and Jill, because that is not their names) told me that they tried to have a proper dialogue about a negative incident that had happened in which Jill had expected Jack to clean up the house while she was away, and, in her estimation, he had not at all done that.
So she found a time to tell him about her feelings, following good protocol for empathic dialogue. Her complaint to me in session was that what she got back was defensiveness – an excuse as to why he had done what he did.
Jack, meanwhile, protested to me that he had merely shared his own feelings after she had shared hers, and after he had properly listened, reflected, validated and empathized.
What went wrong?
Identifying the Speaker
Fleshing out the conversation a bit, I understood that the error was exactly the point I started with: they both thought they were the speaker in that moment.
Jack, having very adequately fulfilled his role as listener, went on to share his own perspective next, which is in principle a totally fair thing to do. Not only that, but Jill had actually asked him something to the effect of “so why did you do that?”
And he took the bait.
You see, Jill wasn’t actually ready to hear the answer to the question. She was still living in her world, in her perspective. She had come home to a messy house, she was mad about it, and she wanted to be heard.
In order to switch from being the listener to being the speaker, you must be clear and explicit about this. Jack should have said at that point, “Have I understood you so far? Are we ready to switch to my perspective?” At which point, Jill would have said, “no, actually, I’m not.”
When I asked her in session whether she felt heard and understood, she said no. (Jack was surprised; he thought he had done a good job of listening! I reminded him that just because she didn’t feel heard doesn’t mean he didn’t hear her.)
What had happened is that Jack had proceeded to share his feelings about the situation, assuming that he was speaking and she was listening. Jill, still looking at the world through her own lens (and not Jack’s, as she would be doing if she had taken on the listener role), had heard his description of his feelings as a defense of his behavior, which it was not intended to be.
Had they been more clear about what role each of them was to be enacting at the moment, this moment of conflict could have been avoided.
Bottom line: when you are trying to engage in empathic dialogue, make sure it is crystal clear who is speaking and who is listening.
Otherwise, nobody’s listening.
