Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 3; May 02

1. Introduction

Next time you have the opportunity to observe a serious or emotionally charged conversation between two people, notice how much time they give themselves to digest and metabolise the other person's words, to sense and absorb their undertones and resonances, to silently take in what the other person has said - and to take them in - before responding. Notice too, what it is that they each take in and respond to. Do they respond only to what the other has been talking about - or do they respond to the person as such and the emotions and state of mind they have been directly or indirectly giving voice to. Do they take each other's words "at face value" or do they also respond to the face that the other person is showing them through these words. In a word: do they simply exchange words and opinions or do they engage in a genuine dialogue; listening and responding not only to what is expressed in words but also to what is communicated dia-logically, ie through the word.

What I call Communicative Receptivity Training is the fruit of seven years intensive research into the psychology of listening. In earlier articles (see References) I gave emphasised what a marginal place the subject of listening and the nature of the listening process has in areas where one could expect it to be regarded as of central importance; in particular in the training of physicians and psychiatrists, psychotherapists and counsellors, not to mention managers and professionals such as lawyers and teachers. One reason for this is that listening and communicative receptivity as such is regarded merely as a necessary prelude to some form of communicative response, whether in the form of agreement or disagreement, approval or disapproval, reinterpretation or reformulation, advice giving or empathic 'mirroring'. Even where instructions on developing 'listening skills' are offered, these turn out to focus on the way the 'good' listener can or should respond to others, and not on what it takes to genuinely receive the other person. The idea is not to actually hear and receive but simply to make the other person think they are being heard and received - whether they are or not. This essentially manipulative concept of 'listening skills' says nothing about the nature of communicative receptivity as such. In my own articles and books on listening I argue that our way of listening to others and the degree of receptivity to them is not merely a prelude to finding a response - it is already a response to others. Conversely, what another person says to us and the way they say it is itself a response to the degree of receptivity they sense in us and to the way they feel perceived by us; the way we are listening or not listening, to what they sense we are willing to take in and what not.

The practice of Communicative Receptivity Training arises from the observation of just how difficult it is for many people to withhold from immediate or calculated responses to what another person says and instead take the time to really receive and take in the other person. This primary difficulty in taking the other in is central, I believe, to all communication difficulties and conflicts in both personal and professional life, medical practice and psychotherapy, politics and international diplomacy. The basic philosophy of CRT stems from the Jewish social and ethical philosopher Martin Buber, a figure who exerted a great influence on so-called 'Person-Centred' approaches to communication but whose essential message seems somehow not to have been fully received itself. Buber's renown comes from his clear differentiation between communication focused on some-thing, an "It", and dialogue based on receiving and responding to some-one, a "Thou". Not only technical communication as such, which by its nature deals with some 'thing' or other, but any calculated use of communication techniques for 'handling' others and realising a preconceived objective are modes of what Buber called the I-It relation, a relation in which a genuine other or 'Thou' is absent.

In our age the I-It relation, gigantically swollen, has usurped, practically uncontested, the mastery and rule. The I of this relation, an I that possesses all, makes all, succeeds with all, that is unable to say Thou, unable to meet a being essentially, is lord of the hour.

Today we find countless competing methods of communications training and personal development such as NLP in which the sole function of communication is the calculated technical mastery or control of an "It", and its sole purpose that of enabling the individual, group or organisation to "possess all, make all and succeed with all" ie to obtain any 'It' that the 'I' may desire. In doing so, however, they tragically prevent the individual from experiencing any other self or 'I' than the would-be omnipotent I of the I-It relation; the very I that is unable to truly receive and meet another human being as a Thou.

2. Basic precepts of CRT

"How to defuse challenging behaviour, manage difficult people and control your own emotional responses." These were some of the key phrases used to promote a management training workshop entitled 'Dealing with Conflict, Confrontation and Disputes'. Each of the three phrases, reflects, in my opinion, a wholly distorted view of the nature of behavioural communication and the emotional 'difficulties' that people have with it. The basic precepts of Communicative Receptivity Training stand in marked contrast to the type of thinking embodied in the phrases quoted above. In CRT 'challenging behaviour' is not something to be 'defused' but a form of emotional communication that needs to be acknowledged and fully received. The 'challenge' lies not in the behaviour as such but in our capacity to receive and identify with the emotions it communicates. To do so does indeed challenge our 'boundaries', calling upon us to let go of the rigid mental dividing line we normally establish between our own emotions and those of others

All communication difficulties are the result of a single primary difficulty - that of fully taking in the other person, group or culture. For this is exactly what the essence of communication is - receiving and being received. Communiccation is not about imparting ideas or information to others or even 'expressing' emotions. It is about receiving others - whatever they impart or do not impart to us, express or do not express - and being received by them. Unfortunately, the will to impart and express, to make our point and get through - the will to be received - often replaces the will to receive others and take them in. When the will to impart and be received dominates over the will to receive and take in, communication becomes a self-defeating form of competition. All the more tragic then, that "successful communication" is still defined as success in 'getting through' to others, rather than success in receiving the other. This misunderstanding of 'successful communication' and the resulting formulae offered for becoming a 'successful commuicator' are the principal cause of communicative conflict. For the fact is that in order to 'get through' and be received by others we must first of all fully receive the other. This we cannot do if we are receptive to others only in order to be received by them and only to the degree necessary for us to 'sell' our own message to them - the effective definition of 'marketing communications'. Such false and calculated interest in others may temporarily win them over - win 'markets' and customers' - but it cannot bring the joy and human enrichment that comes from authentic receptivity.

Where communication and organisational cultures are founded on the practice of mutual receptivity the need for different forms of manipulative, controlling aggressive or violent behaviour to 'get through' is undermined, and with them the defences aroused by these behaviours. In most cases the so-called 'Difficult Person' (DP) - the one who appears to disrupt inter-personal or group communication or to express an underlying pathology - is in fact a 'Person in Difficulty' (PD). By this I mean specifically someone who has never or rarely had the experience of feeling fully received by others, and who therefore is constantly attempting to 'get through'; communicating through behaviours that arouse strong emotions in others, challenging their defences and boundaries.

3. Difficult Persons and Persons in Difficulty

We all perceive others as 'difficult' at times, and we are all sometimes perceived as 'difficult'. Each of us knows what it means to be seen as a Difficult Person. Similarly, we each have our personal difficulties and know what it means to experience ourselves as a Person in Difficulty or to be treated as one. The problem is that the PD is often perceived as a DP. Thus a doctor whose job it is to help a PD may also perceive them as a DP - a 'heart-sink' patient. Psychiatrists and social workers, psychotherapists and counsellors , on the other hand, may be called upon to treat a Person in Difficulty precisely because their 'difficult' behaviour is troublesome to others and causes them to be classified as a DP. The professional helper or carer may understand that the DP is actually a PD in need of help, but this does not mean that their sympathies may not be stretched or that they may not experience the PD principally as a DP, and respond to them as such. By the term 'Difficult Person' then, I understand anyone at all who another person experiences difficulties in relating to, whether in a private or professional context. By the term 'Person in Difficulty', on the other hand, I mean anyone with an experienced personal difficulty or problem of any sort, mental or physical, psychological or somatic, social or behavioural. Anyone in need of help, whether or not they acknowledge this need themselves and seek help from others.

Communicative Receptivity Training is based on an understanding that the challenging, disturbed or 'difficult' behaviours often manifested by Persons in Difficulty are not the problem - that in this sense there is no such thing as a 'behavioural disorder'. So-called 'difficult' behaviour is instead understood as a form of behavioural communication through which a PD seeks to 'get through' to others, to reach out to them and be received by them as a whole human being. This thesis may, in itself, seem unexceptional to many, but is has a range of hitherto unexplored and unacknowledged implications. One of these is that the so-called Difficult Person is someone whose behaviour is not intrinsically difficult or pathological but indicates a Person in Difficulty whom others have difficulty relating to - whether privately or as helping professionals. Indeed, I would argue that it is this difficulty on the part of the Other Person or OP in relating to the PD that reinforces and sustains the 'difficult' behaviour of the latter, causing them to be perceived and socially categorised as a DP. A PD is someone who does indeed face difficulties of their own. As a result they may be seen as a DP. As a DP however, their primary difficulty is not their own difficulty, but that of the OP. The difficulty of the Other Person in relating to the DP may have a personal dimension but it also has a general social dimension - a general social misunderstanding of communication that places communicative receptivity in second place to communicative activity, and fails to recognise the active nature of communicative receptivity itself.