How to win an argument the psychotherapeutic way

The late psychotherapist Carl R. Rogers discovered back in the 1950s that people were having trouble communicating with one another because of this insidious habit: The tendency to evaluate what others are saying rather than intensely listening to the content of their statements.

Nothing has changed since the 1950s.

Human beings have a natural urge to judge, evaluate and approve or disapprove others’ statements.

The good news is Rogers also discovered that people can learn to listen for meaning and understanding, overcoming the impulse to evaluate. That dramatically improves their communication with others.

This technique is an extremely potent approach in psychotherapy, according to Rogers, and the most effective way therapists of the time knew to alter basic personality structure and to improve the person’s relationships and communication with others.

Though Rogers acknowledges that the concept is absurdly simple, it is much harder than it sounds.

Although making evaluations is common in almost all conversation, problems arise in situations where emotions are deeply involved. Rogers says that if you’ve ever been a bystander at a heated discussion, you’ve probably gone away thinking, “They actually weren’t talking about the same thing.”

Indeed. When we miscommunicate we are talking past one another.

Real communication is achieved when we stop evaluating others’ statements and instead listen with understanding. This means seeing the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view – perhaps even sensing how the person is feeling by understanding his or her frame of reference about the subject being discussed.

Rogers offers this technique for testing the quality of your understanding. The next time you get into an argument with your business colleague, spouse or friend, stop the discussion and suggest this rule: “Before each person speaks, he or she must first restate the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately and to that speaker’s satisfaction.”

This requires that, before presenting your own point of view, you must first thoroughly understand the other speaker’s frame of reference.

Though it sounds simple enough, Rogers says you will find it one of the most difficult things you have ever attempted. Do it successfully and three important things occur:

1. Your comments will have to be drastically revised based on the clarity of information you’ve received.
2. Many of the differences between you and others disappear, and the differences that remain become rational and understandable.
3. The emotions tainting the exchange start dissipating.

You might wonder, if this “listening” approach is so powerful why isn’t it more widely used? For starters, most people are unaware of the technique. Meanwhile, those who do know the technique often lack the courage to put it into action. Rogers says that listening with understanding means taking a very real risk.

“If you really understand another person in this way, if you are willing to enter his private world and see the way life appears to him, without any attempt to make evaluative judgments, you run the risk of being changed yourself,” Rogers wrote. “You might see things his way; you might find that he has influenced your attitudes or your personality.”

One solution suggested by Rogers is to use a third party, a disinterested person without anything at stake who can listen with understanding to each person and then clarify the views and attitudes each holds. If done properly, there is a decrease in defensiveness, in exaggerated statements, and in evaluative and critical behavior. Mutual communication is established and some type of agreement becomes more possible.

Give Rogers’ prescription a try. Set aside your analytical and combative instincts (we all have them). Don’t respond to an argument until you first restate the ideas and feelings of your colleague accurately – and to his or her satisfaction.

Your popularity and influence will soar as others gain respect for your open-mindedness and deference for their feelings and points of view.

 

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