Friday, March 21, 2014

The gentle art of verbal self-defense

Just a few words for now about Suzette Haden Elgin´s work. That is, how to arm yourself so that you can withstand those verbal sticks and stones that you bravely claim don't hurt at all but in fact pierce our defenses and hurt badly. Ouch. Elgin is a linguist and a science fiction writer - a woman with amazing accomplishments.

I am re-reading her "LAST WORD" on this topic - the book was published in 1987. Which means that her first two books - The gentle art of self-defense and MORE on the gentle art of self-defense - were published earlier. She has since written a whole slew of related books on linguistics and how it influences our behavior and understanding of verbal interactions.

Of course, like so many others, I was captured by the title. This is precisely what we dream of when we feel put-down, belittled, ridiculed and all that other stuff that does happen with intent but - as we often forget -  can also be said without malice. Nonetheless, we still feel like we have been punched in the solar plexus.

When running workshops on effective inter-personal communication this subject always came up. It is natural to want to fight back when you feel assaulted. And since we live in a civilized world (…!) we want to defend ourselves with scathing retorts rather than bazookas. When caught in the heat of the moment, however, we are often at a total loss for words - let alone ones that will help us exit the scene triumphantly, unbruised and intact. Participants were hoping that there were some "tricks" they could learn to be able to say just the right thing at the right time. And there are. Just have to unlearn our own patterns and re-learn some other more effective communication strategies.

Elgin adds some interesting perspectives to all the others that I have reviewed in this blog - assertiveness, active listening, principled negotiation and meta-messages. She refers to the work of Dr Virginia Satir, a family therapist who described five patterns of language behavior of people under stress: blaming, placing, computing, distracting and leveling. Elgin uses these patterns as a way of understanding - i.e. getting information about - what we are hearing and seeing in verbal interactions.

Blamers: tend to use words like always, never, nothing, nobody, everything, none, not once, and to ask an excessive amount of questions - usually putting the stress on the question word: "WHAT is the matter with you."

Placaters: exact opposite of Blamers - Satir compared them to "cocker spaniel puppies, desperate to please".

Computers: avoid the words I, me, my, mine, you, your, ours. They try to keep their language as divorced from the real world as possible; give the impression of being emotion-less so little body language or facial expression.

Distracters: exhibit linguistic chaos and panic; skipping through other patterns randomly: "WHY don't you ever ask ME what I'D like to do on the week-ends? Not that I matter … YOU know how I am, I don't CARE what we do, just as long as it makes YOU happy …"

Levelers: can be difficult to decode - use the same words as other categories but - as Elgin notes - with one striking difference: "the Leveler means exactly what the Leveler says". And uses appropriate body language (unlike the Computer, whose body language is restricted).

Elgin emphasizes the importance of stress patterns in language - they provide valuable information about intent - verbal attack or just an innocent question or comment? Compare these two sentences, which she gives as an example. Say them out loud to really hear the difference:

Leveler: "Why do you always smoke so much when you're driving?"
Blamer: "WHY do you ALWAYS SMOKE so much when you're driving?"

Get it?

So here's where the 1st rule of self-defense comes into the picture:
"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, GO TO COMPUTER MODE AND MAINTAIN IT. Always." 
This is in case of an emergency under stress when you don't have sufficient information to make a choice. And most often we don't have sufficient information - we make assumptions instead.

The 2nd rule is to try not to match the Safir mode being launched at you - except for the Leveler. You can just imagine where you would end up if you tried to cross swords with a skilled Blamer or Placater with years of experience!

Stay tuned for more on how to handle verbal attacks with dignity!










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