Changing with Families - A Book About Further Education For Being Human
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By systematically insisting that he be able to understand the messages from individual family members, the therapist is setting an example for clear communication as well as teaching the family members specific ways to clear up their verbal communication.
Therapist: Dave, what are you aware of right now?
Dave: I feel kinda tight . . . stomach flipping around; you know . . . when Marcie looks at me that way, I
feel kinda funny.
Therapist: Funny how?
Dave: You know, there's a lot of confusion . . . dependency makes me feel tight.
Therapist: You feel confused about what, Dave?
Dave: You know . . . dependency makes me feel confused . . .
Therapist: Whose depending on you makes you feel confused?
Human speech is one door to understanding between the speaker and the one to whom it is spoken. Understanding how human speech reflects this is an essential tool for therapists. We will, therefore, go into detail to show how this concept is illustrated in this interview.
There are several important patterns in this portion of the transcript. First of all, Dave has begun to use a language pattern known as nominalization.[7] Nominalization is the name of the linguistic process by which people represent active portions of their experience by words which are usually used to represent the more static portions of their experience. Nouns are usually used to represent these more inert portions of our experience — chair, table, stove, mirror, etc. — while verbs are normally used to represent the more dynamic parts of our experience — running, jumping, watching, listening, etc. However, through the language process of nominalization, we represent the active portions of our experience in a static way. For example, in the following two sentences, both of the words in italic seem to function as nouns.
I see cats.
I see frustration.
The word cats serves to separate from the world of experience a particular type of animal, while the word frustration represents something quite different. Frustration is associated with the verb frustrate which sounds and looks very much like it and has a similar meaning. The verb frustrate is the name of a process by which someone/something is frustrating someone. Using the kind of visual representation we developed previously in our discussion of the linguistic process of deletion, we have,
FRUSTRATE (something/someone doing the frustrating, someone being frustrated)
So, when the therapist (or any native speaker of English) hears the sentence,
I see frustration.
he can, by checking his intuitions about the meaning, discover that there is more implied by the sentence than actually appears on the surface. Specifically, we have,
In the example we are presenting, the linguistic process of using a noun for a verb description (the process of nominalization) also includes the process of deleting the information associated with the original verb description.
In the transcript, Dave uses two nominalizations, confusion and dependency. As the therapist continues to try to comprehend the present family system and what its members want, he encounters these nominalizations. As is typical of nominalizations, so much of the material associated with the verb of process representation has been deleted that the therapist cannot fully understand Dave's communication. The following exchanges then occur:
Notice that the therapist is systematic in his responses; he identifies the nominalizations, and
(a) Turns the noun word back into a verb word:
(b) Assumes that Dave is one of the deleted parts of the nominalization:
(c) Asks for the other part of the nominalization which has been deleted:
There are two ways which we have found very useful in our work to systematically identify and challenge nominalizations in the communications of family members in the context of family therapy. First, people are unable to cope when they represent processes in their experience as events, static and fixed, having deleted most of the information about the parts which went to make up that process. If the missing something which they want in their lives is represented as a process with the parts of that process identified, then there is a possibility for them to act to influence and change the process to get what they want. Understanding how they arrived at the place in their lives where they are now helps them to identify the next step toward getting what they want for themselves. If, however, the thing they want is represented as an event with most of the pieces missing, they have little hope of influencing and changing it. They, literally, are victims of their representation. When the nominalizations are converted into process representations and the pieces of the process are identified, coping becomes possible. Dave feels confused about what he is to do when Marcie looks at him in a certain way. Understanding the specific process by which "a lot of confusion" is created is an important first step in changing it.
Secondly, when a family comes to us for assistance, they are usually able to agree that they seek some nominalization such as love, warmth, support, respect, comfort, etc., for themselves. However, unless the therapist is alert to connect these words with experience (de-nominalize these nominalizations), filling in the deletions, etc., for each of the family members, there is little hope that the individuals will be satisfied. In other words, since each family member regards a different experience as love, warmth, etc., these words connect with experience (de-nominalize nominalizations) differently for each of them. What one of them regards as warmth another may consider smothering. By systematically connecting words with specific experiences (de-nominalizing) with each of the family members, the therapist can identify the experience or set of experiences which all of the family members will be able to accept as fulfilling their desires and hopes for themselves as individuals and as a family. By de-nominalizing, the therapist establishes the experiences which will be satisfying for the family and which he can then work with them to create. These experiences constitute the desired state of the family system; they allow the therapist to compare what the family resources are at this point in time with what they will need to create in order to reach the state they agree upon (through the process of de-nominalization) as being appealing to them. By this process, a direction is established for the therapist and the family members to organize the experience of family therapy.
Many times in our experience, using the verbal techniques of de-nominalization, a family member will begin with one nominalization and, in the process of connecting it with specific experiences, will supply another nominalization as one of the missing pieces. For example,
Dave: You know, there's a lot of confusion . . .
Therapist: You feel confused about what, Dave?
Dave: Dependency makes me feel confused . . .
Notice what has happened here: Dave uses a nominalization, confusion, which is somehow connected with a part of Dave's experience which he wants to change. The therapist applies the verbal de-nominalization. Dave responds by supplying one of the missing pieces; however, the missing piece which he provides is, itself, a
nominalization. The therapist alertly applies the verbal de-nominalization again:
Therapist: Whose depending on you makes you feel confused, Dave?
This kind of cycle is one which we find frequently in our family therapy work. By systematically applying the verbal de-nominalization technique to each nominalization, the therapist succeeds in assisting the family member in identifying by exactly what process he is perceiving or failing to perceive what he is experiencing. This process of cyclic de-nominalization (by tying the word description to things which are in the "real" world of experience) allows both the therapist and the family members to understand the specific experiences which they can create together to continue the process of change and growth.
A second important pattern in this portion of the transcript is contained in the statements which Dave makes:
Dependency makes me feel tight. . .
Dependency makes me feel confused . . .
These two sent
ences have the same form — each of them claims that there is something (dependency) outside of the person involved in the description which causes that person to experience a certain feeling. In other words, each of these sentences claims that there is a Cause-Effect relationship over which the person involved has no control and which, literally, makes him have a certain experience.
Linguists have identified a certain class of sentences such as:
Max makes Sue weigh 357 pounds on Tuesdays.
And
Mildred forces Tom to be 8 feet tall on Saturdays.
as semantically ill-formed.[8] That is, sentences of this class make claims which are at odds with our usual understanding of the way the world operates. Specifically, these sentences claim that one person is causing another person to have a certain experience. However, since the experience which the sentences claim the second person is having is an experience which most of us consider to be beyond the conscious control of human beings, the sentences, literally, make no sense. In other words, since Sue (or anyone else) cannot control what she weighs on a certain day of the week, it makes no sense to claim that Max is causing her to control her weight in that way.
Within the context of therapy, we have found an extension of this linguistic class very useful. Specifically, any sentence such as:
He makes me sad.
is called Cause-Effect semantically ill-formed.[9] Several examples may help to identify the pattern in your experience:
She makes me really mad.
He really makes her sad.
Walking along the beach makes me feel refreshed.
We understand that these sentences may be a valid description of a person's experience. However, what we are saying is that the Cause-Effect relationship which each of these sentences seems to require is not necessary. We have determined in working with people in therapy that, all too frequently, their pain and lack of freedom and choice are connected with parts of their experience which they represent in the Cause-Effect semantically ill-formed pattern we have just identified. This, typically, takes the form:
This caused that.
I am helpless.
It is final.
We have found it useful in our work to assist people in having a choice about whether a particular movement, act, smile, word, etc., from someone else necessarily has to have the effect on them that they claim. Typically, people who do not have such choices experience little or no control and responsibility over their own lives. Specifically, as therapists we have found that we can effectively assist clients in coming to have these choices by asking them to describe in detail the process by which someone causes them to feel or sense what they are experiencing. The process of assisting the one with whom we are working in understanding the specific way in which he fails to have a choice in his verbal and non-verbal communication with others typically involves the linguistic patterns we have already presented, especially de-nominalization and the specification of verbs. We have found this pattern to be a very useful model.
We return, now, to the transcript.
Dave: You know, dependency makes me feel confused.
Therapist: Hold on a minute, Dave; let me see if I understand this. When you see Marcie look at you in a certain way, you know that she's depending on you and you feel tight, is that right, Dave?
Dave: Yeah, that's right. I never have been able to get a handle on it; you know, altogether, like I felt when you just said it now.
Therapist: Let's check this out, Dave, (turning to Marcie, the wife/mother in the family) Marcie, you heard what Dave said about knowing that you're depending on him when you look at him in a certain way, and I'm wondering whether . . .
Dave: (interrupting) Yeah, you know, Marcie, like right now, when your eyes get narrow and you lean forward, I know that you're unhappy with me, and .. .
Therapist: Wait, Dave, (turning again to Marcie) Marcie, are you unhappy with Dave right now?
Marcie: No, I'm trying to understand what's going on here, and …
One of the ways in which people in families create pain and unhappiness for themselves is by assuming that they can come to know the thoughts and feelings of another person without that other person's directly communicating those thoughts and feelings. We call this Mind Reading semantic ill-formedness.[10] Mind Reading occurs in any situation in which one person claims to know the inner experience of another without a direct communication of the second person's experience. Frequently, this takes the form of:
If you loved me, you would know without my telling you.
Extracting from the transcript, we have:
In these two exchanges, we can identify both the Mind-Reading pattern and one of the ways in which the therapist can usefully challenge this process by specifically asking for a detailed description of the process by which the person (Dave, in this case) obtained the information he claims to have. This process (Mind Reading) is one of the most tragic ways by which well-intentioned people in a family can distort their communication and cause pain. We realize that it is possible to understand a great deal about the inner experience of another person without his having to describe it in detail in words. One of the skills which we continue to sharpen in our work as therapists is the ability to identify and understand another person's experience through the analogue (nonverbal) messages which they present to us. The tone of voice, the posture, movements of the hands and feet, the tempo of speech — are all important messages which we each utilize in our work. We accept for ourselves the rule of explicitly checking our comprehension of non-verbal messages rather than basing further communication upon our assumed understanding of those messages. What we have noticed time and again is that, under stress, people tend to hallucinate the inner experience of others and to act upon those hallucinations without checking first to find out if they match the actual experience of the other person. Once this process of Mind Reading without checking begins, clear communication becomes difficult and finally collapses, and we see a family in pain. In our experience, the therapist's ability to identify and effectively challenge the Mind-Reading pattern is one of the most important interventions in assisting a family to move from a rigid, closed system to one which allows freedom to grow and change.
Closely associated with the general pattern of Mind Reading is another important pattern, that of Complex Equivalence[11] — the names which people attach to their experience.
Dave is presenting us with an excellent illustration of the way in which people calibrate their experience. Dave has decided that, whenever he sees Marcie looking at him in a certain way (not specified), she is depending upon him; she is experiencing an inner state which he labels "dependency." In the second example, Dave has decided that, whenever Marcie narrows her eyes and leans forward, she is unhappy with him. What is common to both instances is that Dave has equated a piece of Marcie's observable behavior with her total communication and then has labeled it an inner experience.
What we are illustrating here is that people cause themselves pain and difficulty by attaching a word (label) to some part of their experience and mistaking the label for the experience. One powerful phenomenon we have seen in our work is the fact that people pay particular attention to different portions of their experience and, subsequently, may come to attach the same label to a very different experience. For example, for people who use their visual skills most extensively, the word respect will, typically, have something to do with eye contact, while people who emphasize body sensations (kinesthetic representational system) will pay more attention to the way others touch them. By this process, people may use the same word to describe very different experiences. We call this process Complex Equivalence (the experiences which the words represent) and, typically, it may be quite diverse for different people. In other words, instead of using feedback (for example, asking Marcie what was going on), Dave has calibrated his experience so that, whenever he detects certain movements by Marcie, he "knows" what she is experiencing. Notice that the therapist
makes two different types of responses to Dave's Mind-Reading— Complex-Equivalence statements. First, the therapist re-states the claim that Dave has made about Mind Reading and the specific Complex Equivalence which he uses. This serves two purposes: The therapist checks to make sure that he understands the Mind-Reading process which Dave is presenting; at the same time, the therapist's re-statement allows Dave to hear a complete description of the process. In fact, those with whom we work frequently will laugh out loud when the contention which they have just made is repeated to them, recognizing that the connection claimed is spurious. For others, the therapist's re-statement allows them to fully understand the process for the first time. Dave's response is a good example of this:
I never have been able to get a handle on it; you know, altogether, like I felt when you just said it now . . .
The second response which the therapist makes is to challenge the Mind-Reading—Complex-Equivalence pattern in the family by turning to the other family member involved — in this case, Marcie — and asking her to state whether or not Dave's Mind Reading—Complex Equivalence was accurate. As the transcript shows, Dave was hallucinating. (We use this word [hallucinate] when we are referring to ideas which are "made up" when factual data are not available. Our brain must make something from everything. We do not consider it pathological in this context, only descriptive.) Marcie was not, in fact, unhappy with him at that point in time. In our experience in therapy, so much of the pain experienced by members of a family is connected with calibrated communication, communication based upon Mind Reading and Complex Equivalence. This makes the therapist's ability to detect and effectively challenge these patterns extremely important.