What is: Effective Communication

-Library-

A master asked his disciples: 
‘Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?’
The disciples thought for a while, and one of them said
: ‘Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.’ 
‘But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you? ‘Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you’re angry?’ 
The disciples gave him some other answers but none satisfied the master.

Finally he explained: 
‘When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.’

Then the master asked:
 ‘What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small…’

And he concluded: 
‘When they love each other even more, what happens? 
‘ They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love.

‘Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’
 
 (Unknown Author)

When I ask you to listen and you start giving me suggestions, you are not doing what I am asking.

When I ask you to listen and you start telling me why I should not feel the way I feel, you are stepping over my sensations. 

When I ask you to listen and you think you have to do something to solve my problems, you disappoint me.

As strange as it can seem…

Maybe that is why prayers work for many. Because God is mute, he does not suggest, he does not try to fix things. Simply, he listens and knows you will solve your things by yourself. So please, hear and listen. And if you wish to speak, wait for your turn and I promise that I will be listening. (L.Buscaglia, La coppia amorosa, Mondadori, 1995)

Anybody who has ever been in a relationship said or heard the sentence “Why you don’t understand me?” This question should be changed into: “How do we build a relationship based on reciprocal understanding?” Realizing what is effective communication is the key to build a better relationship.

To understand does not mean to agree, because it is possible to perfectly understand the other’s point of view, without agreeing with it.

To understand does not mean to give up, on the contrary, the more we can understand and know a person, the more we can be trusted, the easier will be to “sell” our ideas.

But to understand is necessary to be able to listen. We all think we can do that since we are born, but most of us are actually pretty bad at it.

Not be able to listen is the biggest cause of arguments in a couple. During an argument it often happens to not really pay attention to the other’s words, because we are mentally busy preparing an answer.

Active listening means to manifest real interest for what the other person says with words and with non-verbal communication. In Active listening the mind and the body are protruded towards the other, and this allows us to understand the reasons behind a word or an action before to judge or to feel offended or hurt. Basically to listen each other helps to understand each other, and therefore to love each other more.

Author: Roberto Cavaliere, Psychotherapist

For the original post check out here or here 

The fear of judgment

-Ask the Expert-

Question:

Hi, my name is Mark and I am 30 year’s old. My problem is this: my mood depends almost entirely on the behavior that other people have in my regards. If I notice detachment from them, I immediately think that they are mad at me. My reaction to this is a strong depression (it is 7 years that I take drugs for depression and panic attacks). I have a strong fear of judgment.

If I think that someone is mad at me, I create any excuse to come in contact with that person as soon as possible because I feel an unavoidable need to understand the reasons of their anger or if that anger that I perceived is actually inexistent. All of this creates a chain mechanism that sometimes annihilates me for days (for example if it is Friday and I cannot see that person until Monday.) I lay down on my bed and I keep thinking about it all the time. Obviously I do not reach any conclusion. In this way, I am destroying my life and myself.

I cannot find joy, enthusiasm, and energy to do my daily stuff anymore. The future of my days is strictly linked to the mood and the behavior towards me of the people around me. I cannot live in this situation any longer, I feel oppressed and “driven” by someone that is not I.

Help.

Answer:

Mark,

I see that you are asking for help, but you do not really formulate any specific question. I am not sure what do you need to be helped. You say that you have a strong fear of judgment. What I see is that you have clear ideas on your situation. The description that you give is lucid and rational. You are in a depressive state that makes you feel like “in a cage”, you cannot see the exit. There is no way out! That is what the panic attacks are telling you. And somehow it is like that. You live everyday based on others, what others think about you, what they do, their expressions, their behavior, etc. You are always living outside of yourself, and surely influenced by someone that is not you. You survive thinking about what you think is the other people’s judgment about you. In this way you are out of yourself, you gave your power out forgetting your entire world that gets inevitably neglected.

Of course this has its advantages! The most obvious is that you are busy, you fill your mind, and you have something “else” to think about. Apparently to think about others, or through others, creates less pain and responsibility than doing it directly.

You must be very strong! You need a lot of strength to survive in this condition. It is a shame that this energy gets used in such a destructive and painful way. Imagine what you could do or you could feel if you would use this energy for yourself! First of all working on your situation, to change old mechanism and put yourself on the podium, at the center of your mood and your world. This implies putting yourself at the center of your pain, but also of your joy! In fact you, living outside of yourself, do not know the real taste of life and the joy that exists in it. You live constantly annihilating yourself, even though from your words I can see a deep need for love and relations. In fact, what you fear the most is the detachments from others and their judgment, almost like if their love was vital for your existence.

You said that you are taking anti-depressants since 7 years, but as you can see the drugs are not enough to modify the situation you are in. Drugs dull the symptoms, but they are often not enough to modify your life. To do so you need to start a journey in your emotional world, supported by an expert psychotherapeutic guide.

Mark, I am not sure if this is what you wanted to hear, if it is what you expected asking for help. Mine can seem like a simple and banal answer. Surely, it is not easy to take the situation in your hands. It is hard, and I mean it, to stop feeling sorry for yourself, and to drop the victim’s benefits. There is only one way: find your center! There are no shortcuts or easier ways.

I wish you a good journey.

Answer:

Sabrina Costantini, Psychotherapist

Question:

Mark, 30 year’s old

Publication date: 01/17/2007

If you were looking for panic attacks or anxiety related topics read about What is Anxiety Disorder?

Check out the original article here

Is depression a sickness?

-Ask the Expert-

Question:

I want to know if depression can exist at 20 year’s old and how to cure it. Is depression a sickness? Or is it just a frame of mind? I am worried about whom I will become once I grow up, and I cannot find the way out of this tunnel. I spend most of my time in front of my computer alone, and I have almost no relations with the outside world. 

My depression is creating me troubles while looking for a job, and I believe it is changing my personality. I meet with a psychotherapist once a week. I want to change and to grow up. I want to start over. Am I still in time? I think and hope so. 

I will be waiting for your answer.

Answer:

Dear Max,

Yes, depression at 20 year’s old can exist and it is curable! I believe you already knew this, since, as you said, you meet with a psychotherapist.

Depression is both a sickness and a frame of mind. It is a sickness that manifests itself with a frame of mind, but it can also be a frame of mind that becomes a sickness. Depression is a very complex pathology, and its origins are many, like many are its cures.

Before to talk about depression, it is important to understand that psychic pain is part of human nature. Sadness and emotionally painful events will always happen sometimes in one’s life. Like joy, pain is proof of our humanity, of our ability to love and live following out wishes and projects, with the risk to meet suffering in the path.

Today we tend to call depression every sadness, every disappointment, every bad day. This creates a great confusion. We are talking about depression only when the sadness becomes deep and dark and come with anguish, low self-esteem, loss of desires and interests toward the world, or intense fatigue while doing daily routines (just to mention some of the symptoms of depression.)

Even when pain is the consequence of a loss or a big trauma, we talk about sickness only when one is not able to recover autonomously after a certain amount of time. In that case, it becomes necessary a psychiatric or psychotherapeutic help.

Depression is often cured with drugs, but to heal is almost always necessary a help that is not only medical. Since it is a pathology that deal deeply with feelings, thoughts, emotional experiences, and how the subject perceives its identity and psychic health, the cure goes trough reanalyzing past experiences and traumas looking for ways to create new starting points in one’s life.

When you are twenty year’s old, you just left adolescence and you are beginning your adulthood. It is normal that you are asking yourself many questions, and that doubts are coming up. It is important that these doubts do not become obsessive thoughts that may prevent you to new decisions and actions. You are aware of the risk that you take by spending most of your time in front of a computer. I do not know what kind of activities you do there, but the excessive use of the Internet, like of anything else, can become addicting, just like a drug. In some cases it can restrain the abilities to relate to others, or, in severe cases, it can deform the perception that one has of his identity, especially in those subjects that have a negative perception of themselves. This is not about demonizing the Internet like often happens in medias, but it is to understand the risks involved in the excessive use of this great resource.

“Am I still in time?” you asked. Of course yes, not just because you are very young, but also because there is no time limit to take a look into yourself, or too look outside and take important decisions. It is always possible to wake up in the morning and say: “today I am going to change.” My suggestion for now is to keep meeting with your psychotherapist and choose everyday the time to turn off the computer and organize some external activity.

Best wishes,

Answer:

Patricia Calabi, Psychotherapist

Question:

Max, 20 year’s old

Publication Date: 01/19/2007

Check out the original article here

Scared of Everything

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Question:

How can I go back to be the easy-going and the carefree girl that I once was? I am scared of everything: scared to drive, to stay with people, and I even suffer of agoraphobia [ed. the fear of open spaces]. Is this an anxiety disorder related problem? How do i change this?
I get to the end of each day with great effort, and I mainly do it for the sake of my daughter.

Answer:

Dear Debora,

You pictured a dramatic image of your suffering in few short lines, more than you could have done in many pages. You are scared of everything, you said, maybe even to send this help request? Your question seems like a scream in the void, or the message in a bottle that one could abandon to the sea. Looks like you are asking for my help without knowing if and how this help could get to you. I do not know your story and to suppose it is impossible, since each of us is special and different, but I can feel the intensity of your fear, maybe the depression, and the enormous effort that you make to keep all this anxiety under control for your daughter’s sake.

To be hit by such a deep crisis never happens randomly, and somewhere in your life there must be the origin of this pain. I mean that maybe something happened lately that started this anguish, and maybe this pain could have the purpose of forcing you to analyze some aspect of your present or your past. From another point of view, it might be that in this moment you are prisoner of a compulsive and obsessive thinking mechanism that could be interruptible by redirecting it to something more positive and proactive. This is not a task that you will easily accomplish alone.

I do not know if it can comfort you, but you should know that the pain that you described is fairly common and yes, it is one of the possible conditions of anxiety disorder. There are many people that everyday fight to not fall into depression or victims of panic attacks. It seems to be a problem of our age, of the society in which we live. My opinion is that at least part of the problem is caused by the isolation in which men and women often live, constantly forced to many tasks: be efficient, produce, be independent, keep going at all costs… This makes the pain of the soul to be lived as a shame and a weakness, and pushes us to force ourselves to hide the pain deep inside. That nameless pain eventually will come back, and all the forgotten emotions will form a blanket of anxiety that can be cause of many intellectual and physical issues.

I don’t want this to discourage you though: overall I am optimistic and I believe that each one of us have the resources and skills to come out of pain, and to go back to wake up in the morning with a joyful heart. Sometimes though, to begin a healing process is necessary to have the help and guidance of a therapist, so to be able to better express the pain, to find and solve the causes of the problem, and find the key for a real transformation.

Good luck and take care,

Answer:

Patricia Calabi, Psychotherapist

Question: Debora, 24 year's old

publication date: 11/20/2006

For additional informations, check out the article What is Anxiety Disorder?
Check out the original article here