Notes on Talking as a Bible
Talking as a Bible by Friedemann Schulz von Thun
Original notes here.
The four aspects of interpersonal communication: fact, relationship, self-revelation, and appeal
Schools and workplaces place excessive emphasis on facts, making communication fraught with difficulty
The psychology of communication once held that good communication should be “beautifully packaged,” but this denied genuine emotions and did little for either party’s psychological well-being. Dissatisfaction that never surfaces only grows beneath the surface. Metacommunication (communication about communication) offers a possible way out of dysfunctional communication
Readers can begin improving communication from three angles: the individual (improving communication skills), the mode of interaction (how people interact within groups), and social conditions (the ways people come together—for example, colleagues cooperating within a rigidly hierarchical workplace, while at the same time being forced to compete for promotion)
Factual information: what I want to tell you
Self-revelation: what I want to make known about myself
Relationship: how the two parties see each other
Appeal: what I want you to do
These can be drawn as the Four-Sides Model
Husband to driving wife: “The light ahead is green.” The four aspects are respectively: “It’s green,” “I’m in a hurry,” “You need me to help,” “Step on the gas!”
Crying: (nothing), “I’m very sad,” “You’ve really gone too far!”, “Please comfort me!”
Silence: (nothing), “I want some quiet,” “You’re not someone I’m interested in talking to,” “Don’t talk to me”
Inconsistent messages contain contradictions and can be assessed along the four dimensions:
Situation: the husband, eyeing the food in the pot, says, “I admire your cooking skills.”
Description: a person with an upset stomach says, “I’m dying.”
Body language: a rejecting gesture accompanied by “I like you.”
Tone of voice: “I’m so glad to see you” said in an extremely cold tone
Such messages are helpful to someone who feels completely at a loss. Gestalt therapy, which arranges a dialogue between two inner selves, can help clear up this kind of internal confusion
If the receiver places too much emphasis on one aspect, the message will be misunderstood
Which aspect one focuses on is itself a choice: faced with a student saying, “Lily threw the map on the floor,” a teacher might respond:
Fact: “Did she do it deliberately?”
Self-revelation: “Are you angry about this?”
Relationship: “Why are you telling me?”
Appeal: “I’ll go take a look!”
Example: A mother urged her daughter to put on a coat before going out. The daughter pointed outside and said, “It’s eleven and a half degrees, not ten.” She eventually stormed out without the coat
Although her response was directed at the “fact,” the emotion was actually directed at the “relationship” (“You still can’t make the right decision”)
The daughter could respond like this, creating a more multidimensional form of genuine communication: “I think your suggestion is reasonable, but please don’t give me orders like that. I feel that you’re treating me like a child”
Over-sensitivity to a single aspect—the four “ears”:
Fact: Wife: “Do you still love me?” Husband: “We first need to define love.”
→ Talking past each other
Self-revelation: “&$–&” “You seem to have been upset and are taking it out on me.”
→ Psychologizing (interpreting everything as the other person’s issue)
Relationship: “You look very energetic today.” “I know. I always look so gloomy and dispirited…”
→ Excessive sensitivity
Appeal: “Is there any coffee left in the pot?” “I’ll make some more right away!”
→ Functionalization (paying too little attention to one’s own needs).
Misreading a message
Example: Husband: “What are those green things in the soup?”
Analysis of the four aspects: There are green things in the soup; I don’t know what they are; you want to know; tell me what they are
The wife hears: There are green things in the soup; it tastes bad; you cooked it badly; don’t add any more!
Response: “Oh my God, you think it tastes bad? Then go eat somewhere else!”
Metacommunication resolves the misunderstanding: “When I said I was disappointed, I wasn’t saying that you had done anything wrong. I was only describing the situation.”
Reasons for misreading
Self-concept: for example, an especially sensitive relationship-oriented “ear”
Impression: one’s knowledge of or assumptions about the other person (“imagination”)
Association: the usual subtext (“Could you tidy up the room?” is often heard as “You should have done this ages ago”)
Three stages of interpretation: perception → interpretation → feeling
Example: The husband frowns, and the wife says, “You’re making that horrible face again!”
Broken into three stages: “I see you frowning” → “I assume you don’t like my plan” → “I’m very disappointed and angry because I want you to support me”
This allows the other person to confirm it (“Yes, and there’s more…”) or correct it (“I was just thinking that I still haven’t arranged that part…”) or reflect on themselves (“I frown completely unconsciously. Maybe I am a little disappointed that you didn’t… beforehand”)
Testing one’s assumptions
Imagination arises within oneself; it may be true or false. It can be kept inside or brought out for examination
When kept inside, a false assumption can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: for instance, fearing that you will disturb others makes you act awkwardly, which ruins the atmosphere, thereby making the prophecy come true
Four principles:
Keeping things inside places an even greater burden on communication and makes the atmosphere tense
Unexpressed feelings become poison, attacking body and mind from within
Expressing them can change emotions: only by expressing hatred, anger, and disgust can one become capable of feeling love again
Only the other person can decide whether an assumption corresponds to reality, because we are not mind readers
Assigning oneself the role of victim
When a person displays a certain behavior in a relationship, it must involve at least two people
If one person is authoritarian, who are those who willingly submit to the oppression?
If one person talks incessantly, who are those who remain silent and patiently listen?
This perspective can “depersonalize” and “demoralize” the issue
From this point of view, it is not that someone is ill; the problem lies in the interactional network of the entire group
Husband: “She is always complaining, so I withdraw.” Wife: “He is always withdrawing, so I complain.”
According to systems theory, communication is circular and has no beginning
Problems with the self-revelation dimension
From childhood onward, people learn that others use the self-revelation “ear” to evaluate them, scrutinizing themselves as though they were taking an exam. This creates anxiety about being exposed as a failure: imagining others as harsh judges, treating innocuous situations as connected to achievement, and seeing other people as rivals
Techniques for constructing self-revelation can be divided into:
Casually elevating oneself: for example, “Agreed. We ran into the same difficulties when we were building the house in Bangkok” / “Don’t take IQ too seriously. Mine is supposedly 131, but I’m often terribly slow-witted.”
Saving face: silence to shut things down; verbal concealment (“Everyone does that” [when angry]; “We” [a mother, after dinner, says, “We’re going to bed now,” rather than “I’m going to bed; I hope you go to bed too!”]; questioning (“Why did you buy this?” rather than “I can’t stand this shirt you’re wearing”); using your information (“You really can’t tell you anything” rather than “I’d be mortified if you told people”))
Self-deprecation: for example, “I’m not much use,” concealing the appeal “Don’t expect much from me”
Or inducing the other person to give more. Ruth Cohn: someone who gives less than is required is a thief; someone who gives more is a murderer ( Von der Psychoanalyse zur Themenzentrierten Interaktion. Stuttgart, 1975, p. 123.)
Being excessively preoccupied with self-revelation and striving to gain an advantage makes it impossible to overcome interpersonal distance: solidarity requires openness and candor, including acknowledging one’s weaknesses
The best form of authenticity has always been selective; absolute sincerity is destructive
Direct contact with one’s inner feelings without self-deception promotes psychological health; deliberately deceiving oneself while remaining unaware of what one feels is even more troubling
Departing from “experiential congruence” can produce emotional distortions, life crises, and illness
Under conditions of congruence, expression is often more important than the outcome: abandoning one’s position and feelings may avoid conflict or failure, but it also sacrifices vitality and joy
Undercover work is inauthentic, but internally consistent from beginning to end
Research has found that people who benefit greatly from group therapy tend to have profound experiences connected with openness and candor
Cohn’s auxiliary principles (but do not overuse them and turn yourself into the “communication police”): use “I” in observations to represent oneself; when asking questions, say why one is asking and what the question means to oneself; make communication authentic but selective; restrain oneself from explaining whenever possible; pay attention to bodily signals
Problems with the fact dimension
Address disruptive problems first, then summon the courage for metacommunication: How can we work together as one? What makes me always reject you immediately? Why am I afraid to state my real position? How do I feel about this group?
Four elements of intelligibility: simple and easy to understand, clearly structured, concise, and interesting
Problems with the relationship dimension
Respect includes “reversibility”: the receiver must be able to speak to the sender in the same way without endangering the relationship
Contempt includes treating the other person as an inferior: rejection, belittling, insulting, indifference, looking down on them, slighting them, embarrassing them, expressing aversion, and “irreversibility”
The other dimension alongside “respect/contempt” is “control.” Combined, they produce four types of interaction: controlling and contemptuous (authoritarian style), controlling and respectful, permissive and respectful, permissive and contemptuous
The reason “beautifully packaged” messages cannot deal with genuine feelings is that they conceal desires to belittle others and elevate oneself, while also assuming an ideal behavior unaffected by circumstances, individuals, or relationships, as though interpersonal conduct were a tennis technique. But the problem is that interpersonal behavior only has meaning when behavior is consistent internally and externally. The “ideal” inner emotional state cannot be trained: the actual learning objective of “communication skills” should be a complete course aimed at promoting overall personality and psychological health
Behavior is also influenced by the following: relational interdependence (different personalities emerging with different people), institutional factors
The tool known as “Transactional Analysis” posits that everyone has three ego states:
Parent (P): helps, protects, advises, and lays down rules
Child (C): three forms—compliant, rebellious, and spontaneous/natural
Adult (A): assesses the actual situation and checks whether impulses coming from the other two are appropriate
In the green-light example, the husband appears to speak from Adult to Adult, but covertly is speaking from Parent to Child
The wife can respond in various ways: compliant Child (“Oh, sorry”), rebellious Child (“Who’s driving here—you or me?”), Adult to Adult (“Thanks”), Parent to Child (“Don’t be so impatient!”)
Four possible responses to relationship proposals: acceptance, accommodation, rejection, and ignoring
Relationships have three basic forms: symmetrical (both can display equivalent behavior), complementary (the two behave differently but complement one another, such as one teaching and one learning, one ordering and one obeying), and metacomplementary (one person induces the partner to dominate, control, or help him or her)
Situational example: In a park, a man asks a woman whether he can sit beside her (although there is really no need to ask, making it metacomplementary). The woman smiles and says of course (acceptance). The man launches into a long account of his troubles (seemingly seeking a complementary relationship). The woman receives the appeal “Please understand me” and summarizes it (confirming the definition of a complementary relationship). The man’s subsequent self-revelation, however, highlights his superiority at work and as a man (rejecting the role of the client and insisting on a symmetrical relationship between the sexes). The woman becomes somewhat uneasy and suggests leaving (seemingly saying that since neither accepts the other’s definition, the relationship should end now). The man says he has enjoyed the conversation (rejecting that definition and claiming that the relationship is good). The woman politely agrees, saying that she “rarely talks like this with a stranger” (at most a partial confirmation; the word “stranger” expresses distance)
Relationship barriers are sometimes diverted into the fact level, like a drawing pin pushing upward from below to interfere with what is above. At such times, one should withdraw from discussing facts and begin with the relationship, then move on to self-revelation and appeal
Example: the mother-daughter argument about the coat:
Daughter: I feel that I’m being treated like a child and told what I should do. I want to make my own decisions like an adult. I want to feel that you trust me, and that is important to me
Mother: I feel that my role is important, for example in taking care of all the household affairs, but as a person I feel that I am not valued, and that makes me very sad
Example of a relationship being functionalized: A young engineer with a tendency toward workaholism was deprived of the opportunity to apply his invention simply because it conflicted with the interests of another company owned by a major shareholder of the company. The question was how to motivate him again. One psychological answer was to understand his inferiority complex, value the relationship, and consult him more on different matters. The author criticizes this kind of advice for trying to use psychology to solve an objective problem. The diagnosis of the person’s psychological makeup is superficial, assumes the other person is unhealthy, treats him as a patient, and falsely functionalizes human value. These social techniques will not work; they will only distort the relationship.
Problems with the appeal dimension
A message always contains two orientations, expression and appeal, and these need to be balanced
Every appeal enters another person’s territory, especially when one’s personal kingdom is small and it is easy to interfere too much in other people’s affairs
Examples of failed appeals:
Oversensitivity to relational appeals: for example, fearing that one will appear authoritarian and therefore feeling embarrassed about issuing commands even when the situation warrants it, leading to pseudo-democratic communication such as “Perhaps we could…,” which creates communicative confusion
Appeals for total transformation: for example, telling a jealous husband to stop being jealous overnight. When inappropriate behavior arises from inner feelings, all advice is ineffective. Therefore, the therapist makes no appeal at all, but instead allows the client to explore himself more deeply. Good advice can rarely replace a psychotherapy session
Stealing the experience: generally, when an action arises in response to an appeal, the psychological quality of the action changes. The feeling of acting spontaneously is a basic human desire, so a well-intentioned appeal deprives the initiator of that experience
Making spontaneous behavior impossible: the paradox of spontaneity, as in “I wish that just once you would buy me flowers of your own accord!” and “You should love me!”
Inappropriate appeals to oneself: for example, demanding that one be happy when sad. Feelings only become visible when they are genuinely experienced; when negative emotions are allowed to be expressed, they are therefore “lived through,” and the path toward positive emotions becomes accessible
Interfering with inner peace: if an appeal is correct, it can still disturb one’s inner peace. For example, someone accustomed to hitting children hears an educationalist say that corporal punishment is counterproductive and inappropriate. There are three solutions: tolerate the cognitive dissonance, change one’s behavior and beliefs, or reject the appeal. Otherwise, one can denigrate the person making the appeal and forcibly recreate a sense of peace
Hidden appeals are often more effective than openly expressed ones, while also allowing the speaker to avoid responsibility. For example, when a younger brother sees his sister, with whom he has an inheritance dispute, he says, “After our last conversation I felt as though I’d been knocked flat; I couldn’t sleep for several days,” which is more effective than directly saying, “I don’t want to talk about the inheritance today.” Hidden appeals are also common in attempted suicide, anxiety, and children’s bad habits
Responding to hidden appeals: one can monitor oneself to understand where the wind is coming from, then identify what private interests are enticing oneself to dance along with it, and finally ask what alternatives are available. For example, the sister could state the appeal openly: “I hear you saying that you don’t want to talk about the inheritance today. Is that right?”
Common advertising strategies include demonstration (inviting imitation), promise (a certain floor-cleaning product makes everything shine brilliantly, surrounded by happy faces), and association (hard liquor placed against a mountain landscape)
Even when we are not advertisers, we use existing associations to express appeals, such as labeling certain people as “beggars”
“The common law of contradiction”: a person unable to make a decision keeps stating a “yes—but” position. When the other person supports the “yes” position, the undecided person supports the “but”; when the other person supports the “but,” the undecided person supports the “yes.” Example: “I really want children, but won’t the burden be too much?” “Children will bring lots of joy!” “But children will tie you down completely!” “The burden is enormous. You’ll lose all your freedom and exist only for the children!” “It’s not that serious. Children can also enrich your life!”
The counter-direction appeal law proposed by Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. H., and Fisch, R. (1974): first-order solutions and appeals follow the expected direction, whereas second-order solutions move in the opposite direction. For example, instructing a constantly bickering couple to argue twice a day, from 0800–0810 and 1945–1955, in an extremely agitated and hostile manner; or telling an insomniac to keep their eyes wide open and remain awake until sleep finally defeats them, at which point they may close their eyes
When behavior conforms to an appeal, its psychological quality changes. When an action is essentially spontaneous, it loses its original character: a two-year-old dances on the table, and her older brother orders her to “stay up there,” turning the act from a bold act of defiance into compliance with a command
Reasons for avoiding open appeals include: anxiety about self-revelation (every appeal contains an element of self-revelation), fear of rejection, conditioning (children learn not to reveal their wishes), worrying about being unreasonable, wanting the other person to act spontaneously, worrying that the other person lacks the courage to say no, hoping that in love the other person will sense what one wants without being told, and avoiding responsibility
A desire that is never openly expressed turns into poison and emerges as accusation, making people even more stubborn and resistant: “Can’t you at least wash the dishes today?”
When faced with complaints and accusations, one can question the appeal: “I hear a lot of grievances. What do you want us to do differently in the future?”
An atmosphere in which desires can be expressed openly and freely helps communication. This requires the person making the appeal to accept responsibility for his or her own action; the person whose appeal is rejected to be disappointed by the content but pleased with the process (an appeal must be allowed to be rejected for interaction to have meaning); and the person rejecting the appeal not to hold a grudge against the appeal as an “unreasonable demand”
In the afterword, the author reprints a satirical article that had been published in a journal. It concerns a psychologically trained man who suddenly tells his date outright that he admires her liveliness but is not interested in the topic they are discussing. He then uses various “techniques” to hint that she should discuss more personal subjects, saying that there is a barrier between them that needs to be resolved. He eventually gets a drink thrown at him, illustrating how an excessively psychologized approach to dealing with people can lead to a lack of empathy, a mismatch with one’s inner feelings, and rigidity, while also neglecting expression in favor of results and becoming manipulative
“Psychology was once an ally in breaking old chains, but has now been coerced into becoming a shackle.”
Karin van der Laan wrote to the author: “I hope to build a living connection, so that I can forget all the rules of communication.”
Can psychology contribute to improving interpersonal communication? Yes, if psychology makes it clear that what it deals with concerns attitudes, especially rather than behavior. Other people read attitudes between the lines, and this benefits the mind, so communication and personality formation are two sides of the same coin
Finished reading on Dec 23, 2020