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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 4; July 02
An Introduction to Communicative Receptivity Training: Part 2
by Peter Wilberg
An Introduction to Communicative Receptivity Training (Part 1)
An Introduction to Communicative Receptivity Training (Part 2)
- 4. The Basic Rule of Communicative Receptivity
5. The Caring Person and the Person in Difficulty
6. The Core Self, Core Contact and Core Communication
7. Communicative Receptivity and Body Awareness
8. Communicative Receptivity in One-to-One and Group Contexts
9. Summary
10. Brief Biography of the Author
The first part of this article was published in the May Issue of HLT 2002 and you can refer back to it, or to any part of it by clicking on the menu above, which also allows you to read this second part in the sequence you chose.
4. The Basic Rule of Communicative Receptivity
If receptivity is central to communication, and if behaviour is understood as a form for communication, then it follows necessarily that we cannot change a person's behaviour through communication unless we first of all receive what it is communicating. A good example here, is the parent-child communication. For the parent, communication may serve the primary function of getting the child to 'do what it is told' or to in some way control or change its behaviour. For the child or adolescent on the other hand, the behaviour may serve principally as a means of emotional communication. If the parent is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the emotions and emotional needs communicated through the child's behaviour, any attempt to change or control the latter will be self-defeating. Their emotional communication not being recognised and received, the child or adolescent will either escalate the unwanted or 'difficult' behaviour which serve to communicate their emotions or else withdraw from communication entirely.
We see here a basic paradigm of communication failure that is quite ubiquitous and not limited to the communication of parents and their offspring. The difficulty people have in receiving the emotional communication of others has deep roots, for to do so means to relax the ego-boundaries, the artificial dividing line we establish between our own emotions and those of others. To fully receive another person's emotional communication requires a capacity to actively attune to and identify with the emotions they are communicating — to experience them not merely as 'their' private emotions but also as ours. The Difficult Person's behaviour is an attempt to 'get through' to us, to break through the ego-boundaries with which we divide other people's feelings from our own, with the aim of getting us to feel and identify with their feelings. What often happens instead is that we feel threatened by the way a DP's behaviour challenges our ego-boundaries. Instead of receiving their emotional communication and getting a felt sense, through this behaviour, of how they must be feeling inside, we become preoccupied with our own emotional reactions to this behaviour. A self- or "I-oriented" response then replaces an other- or "Thou-oriented" response.
An old Chinese saying has it that "The finger points at the moon. The fool points at the finger." The fact that a person's behaviour arouses an emotional reaction in us is the 'finger' pointing at the moon. The moon is the personal difficulty that the other person experiences and is trying to communicate emotionally through their behaviour. But like the Chinese fool we look at the finger, or worse, we point it accusingly at the other, annoyed at being pressured to see and feel something we don't want to see and feel i.e. another person's difficulties; and annoyed also at then having to manage or control our own emotional reactions to the behaviour which elicits them. Our own emotional reactions come to the foreground, preventing and also 'saving' us from identifying with the feelings of others. We react with our finger (i.e. from our own emotions) without first looking at and taking in the moon, receiving the emotions of others and using them to gain a felt sense of the difficulties they are experiencing.
Rather than reacting to others emotionally, we instead may try to 'play it cool', attempting to conceal, control or cut off from our own emotions and thereby 'manage' them'. Whether our reaction is 'hot' or 'cold', it is essentially a reaction from or to our own emotions and not those of the other. As a result it will leave the latter cold — and/or hot up their own 'difficult' behaviour in a continuing attempt to 'get through' to us emotionally i.e. make us begin to feel what they are feeling. A vicious circle is then created, in which the PD's experience of not getting through and not being received exacerbates their difficult behaviour, turning them into a full-blown DP, and provoking yet stronger emotional reactions in the OP which needs to either release or 'manage' and 'contain'. At one point the situation becomes unmanageable for either or both parties, leading one or other to cut off communication or causing an explosive row that provides them both with a pretext for doing so.
Let us summarise where we have got so far. A Difficult Person is essentially someone with a Personal Difficulty which others are unwilling or unable to see and feel, take in and identify with. This is because to do so would mean loosening their ego-boundaries, the mental dividing line between self and other, other people's feelings and difficulties and our own. The Difficult Person or DP is essentially a Person in Difficulty or PD. But finding that others are not willing or able to fully receive them — to take in and feel their difficulties — their behaviour becomes a form of emotional communication through which they attempt to 'get through' to others by other means. This behaviour causes emotional reactions in the Other Person or OP and leads them to perceive the Person in Difficulty as a Difficult Person e.g. a 'difficult' customer or client, child or adolescent, colleague or employee, parent or partner. The OP reacts emotionally to the behaviour of this Difficult Person or tries to change it without first receiving the emotions it communicates and the personal difficulties these express. What turns the PD into a DP for an OP is the PD's exacerbated or repeated attempt to break down the ego-boundaries of the OP and emotionally 'get through' to them i.e. give others a felt sense of their own personal difficulties. The paradox of the situation is that the emotional reactions aroused in us by others are themselves the surface of emotional perceptions. Like a finger pointing at the moon, they could help us to sense what others may be feeling inside, but only if we orient our gaze to the other — the moon — rather than looking at the finger itself.
5. The Caring Person and the Person in Difficulty
So far we have spoken of PDs, DPs and OPs. Onto the scene now we need to introduce a new figure — the 'CP' or Caring Person. The Caring Person is someone who genuinely desires to help Persons in Difficulty, assisting them in understanding and if possible overcoming their personal difficulties. Ideally, he or she is therefore someone with life experience and emotional empathy, able to understand other people's personal difficulties and the emotions connected with them. One would expect a skilled or professional CP to be able to perceive and fully receive the emotions communicated through the PD's behaviour. Doing so would automatically give the PD a feeling of being fully received. This is turn would relieve the PD of the need to use difficult or pathological behaviour to get through to others and communicate their difficulties emotionally. A genuinely receptive CP would therefore not react emotionally to a DP's behaviour, nor would they seek to alter it through persuasion, or merely to control or manage it through medication. In practice of course, this ideal model of the CP is rarely fulfilled. This is not so much, I believe, because of the personal inadequacies or limitations of those who place themselves in the role of carers, nor even because of the pressures placed upon them by the institutional contexts in which they may work. Instead it is a result of a number of Basic Assumptions about the nature of therapeutic communication — an assumption that is actively reinforced by most forms of professional training for 'helping professionals', whether psychiatrists or GPs, social workers or nurses, psychotherapists or counsellors. The first assumption is that attending receptively to others is a prelude to providing them with some form of helpful therapeutic response. In fact the way we attend to others, the awareness we have of them and our inner perceptions of them are already a form of response, one which communicates to the other whether or not we express our emotional perceptions in words. How we see and react inwardly to another person's behaviour shows itself visibly in our own behaviour, however much we may seek to conceal it. The way we hear what someone is saying in turn says something to them — communicates wordlessly. The things we do or do not 'pick up on' are picked up by the other. The PD will always themselves perceive, consciously or subconsciously, how they are being inwardly perceived by the CP. Indeed the face they show to the CP is itself at least in part a response to the way they are being heard and seen, or not heard and not seen.
The second assumption is that the CP can use their own emotional perceptivity to cultivate a greater self-awareness on the part of the PD without first surrendering their personal and professional ego-boundaries, and taking in what they perceive. The problem here is that perceiving a person's emotions and the difficulties they express, does not guarantee that we fully receive these emotions into ourselves. Ultimately however, it is our capacity for emotional receptivity that determines our degree of emotional perceptivity. And yet it is this emotional receptivity itself, and not the perceptions it generates that is of paramount importance to the PD. Again: to correctly identify an emotion or difficulty is one thing. To identify with it and thereby understand it from within, is quite another. If the CP is able to inwardly identify with the PD's difficulties, then, irrespective of whether or not they share their emotional in-sights with the PD, the latter will automatically feel received. More importantly, the PD will feel relieved of the inner loneliness that comes from having to bear the emotional weight of their difficulty alone. "A problem shared is a problem halved"; but only if it is not just the problem as such but also the emotions connected with it that are partly borne or 'carried' by the person we share it with.
6. The Core Self, Core Contact and Core Communication
A PD will sense immediately and instinctively whether or not a CP is prepared, not only to offer their own emotional perceptions but to receive their emotions and share in bearing them. Easily said. Less easily done. For here again we hit upon the central issue of ego-boundaries, the identity boundary between self and other. We cannot attune to another person's emotions without feeling those emotions ourselves. Indeed feelings as such can be understood not as the private property of Self or Other, but as the very wavelengths of attunement linking us with others through emotional resonance. Similarly, to identify with another person means identifying a specific self-state or 'self' of our own that is on the same wavelength as that person and in resonance with them. This in turn requires a strong sense of our own core self — that 'inner' self whose identity is broad and flexible enough to embrace a multiplicity of different selves and self-states. Ego-identity is an experience of identity as a private property of the "I" or ego. But the stronger our link with our own core self or identity the more we can identify with others, experiencing a plurality of different selves or self-states in resonance with those of others. The awareness of the core self is a 'field' awareness embracing many actual and 'probable' identities. The personal or professional role of a CP is part of their ego-identity. But the fulfilment of that role is a function of their own inner identity or 'self field'. The ego experiences itself as a self apart from others. The core self is the self that can experience itself as a part of others and others as a part of itself. A CP in touch with their own 'self-field' or 'core self' will not only be better able to identify with a Person in Difficulties. They will also avoid the danger of identifying the Person with their Difficulties, recognising instead that both are but one outward expression of the inner human being — the PDs own inner identity or core self. As a result, the PD will feel received not only as a 'Person in Difficulty' but as a self.
If core identity is not the same as ego-identify, then neither is core-relatedness the same as ego-relatedness. Nor is core communication the same thing as ego-contact and communication. The CP's own awareness that the self of the PD is something more than the Person and their Difficulties, automatically communicates to the PD — giving them a sense of this 'moreness' within themselves, connecting them with their own larger identity and sense of self. Healing begins with hearing and heeding the individual as a whole human being. The whole human being is more than just the PD; indeed is more than just the 'person' per se. The person as they present themselves to others is one personification of their inner human being. It is, as Jung recognised, a Persona — an outer face of the Self. What I call 'core communication' is the capacity to fully identify with the Person in Difficulty whilst at the same time not identifying the Person or the Difficulty with the Self, the outer human being with the inner human being. To speak of relating to the 'Whole Person' is therefore a contradiction in terms — for the Self is never wholly expressed in any of its Personae. The CP can only cultivate the PD's 'self-awareness' by receiving the latter within the larger field of their own trans-personal self. The PD, on the other hand, cannot come to a deeper experience of this core self if their outward personality and outward behaviour is not fully received as an expression of it. Without a deeper sense of self the PD is forced to rely on an emotional identification with their own outer personality, with all its difficulties, to maintain a sense of identity. But if, in addition, they are identified by others only as a Person in Difficulty, they will have greater difficulty letting go of this identification themselves. The intrinsic danger of all forms of medicine, counselling and therapy is that the CP inadvertently encourages the individual to identify with their own personal difficulties. If, on the other hand, the PD is received by the CP as something more than the Person they currently take themselves or are taken to be, then the PD's awareness of a deeper Self is automatically heightened in the very act of taking in the Person. Fully perceiving and receiving another person's difficulties allows layers of their personality identified with those difficulties to come to the surface and peel off, one by one — revealing more of the self within.
Receiving the person goes hand in hand with recognising, relating and responding to the individual's trans-personal or core self. This is something we can only do with and from our own core self. What I call 'core contact' is a direct contact with the inner self of another, made with and from one's own core self. Core contact can be compared to eye-contact. There is a difference between looking at someone's eyes and making genuine 'eye-contact'. In the first case, I perceive an object — someone's eyes. In the second I meet the self or "I" that looks out through those eyes. Neither the "I" that I look out with nor the "I" that I meet is the "I" of the ego. For the gaze of the ego is always an 'objective' one i.e. one that reduces the other to an object. The gaze of the self is nothing essentially visual, dependent on the eyes or eye-contact. In listening to others we can also make 'core contact', meeting and holding them with our listening attention, which can be compared to an inner gaze. Inner awareness of and attention to others can be defined as the gaze of the self. Where others merely figure in our awareness as part of some overall purpose, the gaze of the self gives way to the external, calculating or clinical gaze of the ego. As long as we look at or listen to someone purely 'in role' and to fulfil our own agendas, whether as managers or carers, core-relatedness is replaced by ego-relatedness. We may be attentive to their behaviour and what they have to say. We may show respect to the Person but we do not make contact or relate to them on a 'core' level, responding to the inner human being with and from the inner core of our own being. Core contact with the inner selves of others is based on inner contact with our own core self. Similarly 'core communication' is impossible without inner communication with our own core — that self which can feel itself as a part of others and feel others as a part of itself. Just as there is a difference between looking at someone's eyes and meeting their gaze — making core contact — so there is also a difference between perceiving and reacting to someone's 'look' (for example a look of disapproval or hostility) and receiving their gaze — using it to inwardly identify with their emotional state.
7. Communicative Receptivity and Body Awareness
It is not just our through our eyes and ears alone but through our bodies as a whole that we receive another person as 'some-body' — as an embodied self and not just a talking head or 'difficult person'. It is only through our own bodily receptivity to the body of the other that we can receive an inner impression of what they are expressing through their body language. Bodily self-awareness is the vital link between the ego and the core self. It is the key to both awareness of our own emotions and awareness of the emotions communicated by others. By simply allowing ourselves to feel our own emotions in a bodily way — rather than expressing or repressing them, controlling them mentally or discharging them cathartically — we also contain our emotions in a bodily way. In thus containing our own emotions we are also indirectly containing the emotions of others, taking into ourselves part of the emotional intensity or 'energy' driving their behaviour. Feeling and containing emotions in a bodily way, without reacting from them is empowering. If someone's behaviour causes us to feel increasingly angry or disappointed for example, letting ourselves feel that anger or disappointment and fill our bodies will give us an increasing sense of bodily solidity and weight. Reacting angrily or mentally repressing the disappointment, on the other hand are both responses which disempower. They are both a type of active surrender to the behaviour triggering those emotions, cutting us off from our own bodies and with them our own solid, bodily sense of self. Conversely, feeling our emotions in a bodily way we can follow them back to their source in the behaviour of the other — gaining a deeper bodily impression of the conscious or subconscious emotions communicated through this behaviour. The field of our bodily self-awareness has both an inner and an outer dimension. The outer field is the space around our bodies and surrounding the body of the other. By being fully aware of the other person's body as a whole with our own body as a whole, we embrace and receive them in the outer field of our bodily self-awareness. By staying grounded at the same time in the withinness of our bodies and the emotions we feel there, we are better able to connect with our own inner self to the emotional 'withinness' of the other person's body and the self that dwells there.
8. Communicative Receptivity in One-to-One and Group Contexts
The practical focus of Communicative Receptivity Training is not on mental self-management but on the bodily dimension of emotional awareness and receptivity. Its theoretical dimension, however, focuses on the emotional dynamics of groups and organisations, and in particular their capacity to realistically confront difficulties and contain the emotions connected with them. The Difficult Person often serves as a container or target of these emotions and their 'challenging' behaviour as a symbol or symptom of difficulties and challenges confronting the group or organisation as a whole. Every individual within a group speaks not only for themselves but for the group as a whole, expressing the unspoken thoughts and feelings, questions and difficulties of its other members. The group's difficulty with an individual and the individual's difficulty with the group are thus not only an expression of its member's personal difficulties but of difficulties confronted by the group as a whole and all of its members. The dynamics of dyadic or one-to-one communication between people follows similar principles. Any dyadic inter-relationship between person A and person B is also quadratic, for it also involves a relationship between a side or aspect of A mirrored in B's behaviour and a side or aspect of B mirrored in A's behaviour. In speaking for themselves, A also gives voice to an aspect of B and vice versa. A expresses B's unspoken thoughts and vice versa. A's behaviour communicates not only emotions 'belonging' to A but also emotions unexpressed by B — and vice versa. That is why communicative receptivity is more than just 'empathy' with the feelings of others but rather a process of acknowledging and attuning to the aspects of ourselves in resonance with those feelings. A dyad can be understood as a group of two. In any dyadic relationship there is always a degree of asymmetry, with one partner being the one to take responsibility for the relationship as such, and the mode of communication that takes place within it. Where communication runs into difficulties, it is this partner's capacity to embody a stance of communicative receptivity that breaks the vicious circle of conflict created by two people trying to get through to one another without either of them fully receiving the other.
To create a culture of communicative receptivity rather than overt or covert conflict requires that individuals participating in a relationship or group recognise their difficulty in feeling emotions and acknowledging aspects of themselves which are mirrored in the behaviour of the persons they find most 'difficult'. It also requires a capacity to make 'core contact' with others — to receive and respond to the other as a self and not just as a difficult person, a person in difficulty or a player or puppet within a group or organisational agenda. Leadership in creating a culture of communicative receptivity means more than just getting people to do their job effectively despite their personal difficulties or difficult behaviour. The leader is neither someone who finds ways of getting others to do things nor someone who merely 'facilitates' their action, but someone who is themselves a model of communicative receptivity, able to feel and follow their own impulses and intuitions, their own emotional dynamics and those of the group they lead. Just as a true teacher is one who is a master at learning, so is the true leader one who is a master in following. The Leading Person or LP (no pun intended!) requires a capacity to perceive and receive the shared emotions and difficulties communicated by each individual's behaviour. It also requires an awareness of how each member of a group or team gives voice to the unspoken thoughts and feelings of others, and confronts them, through their behaviour, not only with their personal difficulties but with difficulties confronting the group or organisation as a whole. It is no accident that the true leader, like the true carer, is neither someone with an authoritarian or controlling ego nor a personable wimp but someone with a feeling of authenticity and embodied presence. That is because, what is spoken of as emotional 'intelligence' is a bodily intelligence rooted in bodily self-awareness. Out of this comes the capacity to feel and contain emotions in a bodily way, and to relate to others from their embodied self. The purpose of CRT is precisely to cultivate this capacity for core-relatedness, core contact and core communication with others, principally through a bodily receptivity to their emotions and those of others.
The benefits of CRT are twofold. By offering a new understanding of what lies behind 'difficult' behaviour, it makes it a lot easier for managers and those working in groups and organisations to relate to the so-called Difficult Person, without having to resort to methods of emotional manipulation and control. This is something of particular importance for the Leading Person, who also needs to recognise the DP's role in containing emotions and expressing difficulties experienced by the group or organisation as a whole. For the Caring Person and all those who work professionally with Persons in Difficulty, it offers a new understanding of what it means to really receive and take in a client's personal difficulties whilst at the same time (1) not identifying the client with these difficulties (2) not making it their prime aim to control or change the behaviours through which these difficulties are expressed, and (3) not classifying the behaviourally difficult client as a Difficult Person.
10. Brief Biography of the Author
Peter Wilberg is a humanistic thinker, psychologist and psychotherapist with a background in ELT. During his ELT career he concentrated on intensive one-to-one courses in English for business and professional purposes. Here, he developed a unique working style and methodology based on communicative receptivity to the learner as a person and as a professional. This involved studying the learner's unique professional 'intralanguage' whilst at the same time listening for important gaps in their personal use of English as an 'interlanguage' and understanding their difficulties with it. His current work is focused on developing a humanistic approach to medicine based on the understanding of illness as a language and as a form of bodily communication The practice of humanistic medicine is based on communicative receptivity to the felt body and felt dis-ease of the patient, rather than the use of either orthodox, traditional or alternative remedies to 'treat' their symptoms. The health of the individual is seen as inseparable from the health of human relations and human communication in society, family and the workplace. .
For a comprehensive list of all Peter Wilberg's essays and publications on language, health and human relations send a note to wilberg@wilberg.f9.co.uk.
