MIND MOVES: I know you say that you understand what it is that you think I said but I'm not sure you realise that what you heard is not what was meant when it wasn't said.
This paraphrases the form of communication that at one time adorned plastic desk plaques guaranteed to provide a conversational piece or puzzlement in those who read them. But plaques of this kind did say something. They said that communication was complex. That it was important and that it could quite easily go wrong.
The human urge to communicate is intense. It begins at birth and is retained throughout the lifespan. It is the challenge for parents and newborns as each tries to decipher the signals of the other. How to communicate, how to understand oneself and others and oneself in relation to others is a lifelong quest
One of the most frequently cited sources of psychological discontent is when communication breaks down. This lies at the heart of most human angst.
It is the primary factor between parents and teenagers. Parents encapsulate their irritation at the irrationality and circularity of adolescent arguments by the phrase "there's no talking to them". Young people retort that their parents "don't listen".
Each new verbal exchange carries the baggage of the previous one. The defences are up before the conversation has begun. Speaking ends. Listening stops. Each "knows" that it is a waste of time trying to talk to the other. And that is so. Because it is time to listen not to talk.
In this respect, silence, listening, respecting, attending to, staying with, hearing out, giving voice and allowing another person to speak until they have finished, whatever it is that they want to say, is one of the first steps towards reinstating understanding and communication.
So important is listening, so effective is the strategy of listening, that many therapeutic interventions are based simply on asking people to take turns in speaking and listening, so that no comment, interruption, contradiction or even affirmation can be made until the other person has finished saying what they want to say. Then a response may be made, equally uninterrupted for the same length of time.
This conversational turn-taking reinstates the listening/speaking sequence that is the essence of effective human communication. Communication cannot take place if both parties to it speak simultaneously or if neither listens to the other at all.
Marital therapy is equally based on giving couples the opportunity to speak and be heard. Men frequently complain that they are blamed for not doing what they were never asked to do, not saying what they did not know they were meant to say, not being where nobody told them their presence was required.
Women classically complain that men do not tell them they love them, an anathema to men who say that women should know. Presence is proof. Why say what is self-evident, they say. Love is not the issue. Communication is. But miscommunication can destroy love.
One of the most therapeutic aspects of family therapy is that it facilitates families hearing, often for the first time, the perspective of all the other family members on the family.
The therapist does not search for truth but for understanding of the perspectives of each member in the family. Family therapists are aware that individual family members hold different perspectives. Asked to describe what has brought the family to therapy, some family members will be in alliance about who or what is the problem. The truths of other family members may be different.
The task of family therapy is to provide a space in which each person can hear and understand the people with whom they share their lives. Families are often stunned as they hear the observations of each family member about their family interactions.
For example, every child "knows" who is closest to whom, who is angry with whom, who defends whom, who is most favoured, least listened to, most worried about, most provocative, most placatory, most defended, who is most happy and who is most sad and who always feels left out. They know who notices when a family member is angry or depressed, who rescues everyone and who steers clear, who cares and who has had enough.
Family members "know" who colludes with whom, who opposes and exposes whom and the events that have been significant in family life. The dynamics of daily interaction, often unarticulated, usually taken for granted and therefore not always consciously observed, are made visible and clear when families get together for family therapy.
There will always be differences, even when the first session begins, between who wanted to or did not want to attend for family therapy, who thinks there is a problem and who doesn't, who thinks it should be solved by the family and who thinks that professional intervention might help.
But there is rarely a problem that cannot be solved. That's why "it's good to talk".
Marie Murray is director of psychology, St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview. For information on Family Therapy contact The Family Therapy Association of Ireland, at tel: 01-2722105 amdps@indigo.ie