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How We Approach Interpersonal Problems: The Good, The Bad and the Lovely
114 Plays4 years ago
Fara and Grant discuss common ways we approach challenges in personal and professional relationships. Using real-world examples, we bring in key concepts including attachment style, common pitfalls including ways we self-sabotage, and tips for successfully navigating tough situations.
Read more:
https://medium.com/beingwell/exploitable-me-how-we-leave-ourselves-open-to-people-who-use-others-9dfef7c43747
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Transcript
Introduction to Flexibility and Boundaries
00:00:03
Speaker
Being flexible also means saying no sometimes. Hi, thanks for listening to doorknob comments. I'm Farrah White. And I'm Grant Brenner. We are psychiatrists on a mission to educate and advocate for mental health and overall wellbeing. In addition to the obvious, we focus on the subtle, often unspoken dimensions of human experience, the so-called doorknob comments people often make just as they are leaving their therapist's office.
00:00:29
Speaker
We seek to dispel misconceptions while offering useful perspectives through open and honest conversation.
Attachment Styles and Conflict Resolution
00:00:35
Speaker
We hope you enjoy our podcast. Please feel free to reach out to us with questions, comments, and requests. Hi, this is Farrah White here with my Doornau Comments co-host, Dr. Grant Brenner. Thanks so much for tuning in today. We are going to talk about interpersonal problems and how they are solved. And I think this is something that we give a lot of
00:00:58
Speaker
time and energy to dealing with. And we're going to explain some of the research just in the hopes that when we understand ourselves and how we relate to different situations, it can cause us less distress and really benefit us and our relationships in the long term. Or how people try to solve them. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's interesting. I mean, you brought up some research. I'm not sure what exactly got you thinking about it, but that they were really able to
00:01:26
Speaker
learn a lot about how people's attachment style, which is something that we've talked about in other episodes, can sometimes inform how people approach these interpersonal conflicts. Yeah, attachment style, that's a really hot topic nowadays, sort of across the boards. Do you think that people want to know their attachment style?
00:01:53
Speaker
Like if you're working with someone therapeutically, are there ever times where you help people understand how they behave with others through the lens of attachment? Or do you mainly leave it implicit? A lot of these theories are very, very helpful in that they help us understand ourselves. But I try to stay away from the idea that even something like attachment style, which
00:02:22
Speaker
is supposed to be, let's say, determined by our earliest relationships to our caregivers, I think, and you know, we have the secure attachment, which is really the healthiest one, right? But there are ways that even people who are securely attached can feel avoidant or can feel anxious in a certain relationship. So yes, I think it's helpful to understand our attachment style, but only if
00:02:49
Speaker
were able to sort of be aware that, hey, this relationship is making me feel really nervous. I never know if this guy's going to call. And that's not usually how I am when I'm getting to know someone, right? So those deviations are just as informative as let's say, you know, what we know about ourselves consistently.
00:03:11
Speaker
So attachment style varies from relationship to relationship and situation to situation. I think a lot of times people are interested in their attachment style as it pertains to intimate relationships, typically romantic, sometimes familial, less commonly in the workplace. And then of course it's part of therapy. Exactly. So that is where these things really come out and can be discussed.
00:03:40
Speaker
you know, it is connected to how we deal with any interpersonal conflict. But what you were looking at when you wrote these articles, it seems like you were really interested in the way that people sort of handle things routinely. Well, that was one thing that I really liked about the research that I came across, because instead of looking at
00:04:05
Speaker
a person's attachment style as an individual, they based it on attachment style and they based it on another model of personality, which we can talk about. To look at the strategies that people use when there's an interpersonal situation, when there's a situation, as they say, when something isn't going the way you want, how do we approach it? And
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, people in general who are more secure approach things more adaptively. And people who have problems with their attachment and feel insecure, tend to use maladaptive patterns, and may even leave themselves susceptible to problems like being taken advantage of, for example, or sabotaging relationships by being too withdrawn. The first type is the healthiest one is the flexible adaptive. And
00:04:57
Speaker
that's characterized by sort of openness and agile way of handling conflict, right? And it is associated with people who are securely attached.
Flexibility in Relationships and Scenarios
00:05:08
Speaker
I think it makes sense that, you know, when people are open and looking at things just with curiosity or compassion that they'd be less distressed and more likely to be able to handle things.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I think implicit in the flexible adaptive approach is having a very good understanding of one's own needs and where the boundaries are with other people. I think there's a common misconception that being flexible sometimes means compromising too much. It's a slippery slope sometimes. Yeah, I think that there's being flexible in these different ways, right? One,
00:05:51
Speaker
example that I can think of, like, let's say, a salary negotiation, maybe someone who's flexible, you could interpret that as, okay, well, they're not going to negotiate as well. But if they're really flexible in all the right ways, I would imagine that that's someone who can say, all right, well, if I can't get, you know, the base pay that I'm expecting, maybe I can be compensated in other ways. And that person might negotiate for more vacation or something because they're
00:06:21
Speaker
not getting hung up on the sort of negative aspects of, of the negotiation or there, there are not as many bad feelings. Right. What would the negative aspect be? You know, I'm worth X amount of dollars a year. And if they can't pay me that, then it's an insult or maybe even just, you know, deriving some meaning that, that isn't really there. Right. Cause it's just business. So having some kind of.
00:06:50
Speaker
emotional reaction that distorts or strongly biases the way the negotiation is perceived so that it's seen sort of as being disrespectful or insulting or seeking to take advantage of rather than being understood as equitable business arrangement where both parties are presumed to be able to advocate for themselves.
00:07:21
Speaker
without taking things personally. Yeah. Do you think there are other ways in which like the flexible, adaptive type of resolution, you know, something more intimate, like relationships, either family relationships or romantic relationships, friendships? Yeah, certainly. I think the part that's harder to see is that being flexible also means
00:07:47
Speaker
saying no sometimes, and being adaptive means sometimes not being adaptive. In personal relationships, this happens a lot, I think even more so or in different ways at least than in business relationships.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to distinguish. I know that we want to stick with talking about this type, but I do think that it's important to distinguish being flexible and adaptive from being exploitable or subservient, right? So being flexible and adaptive might look like finding ways to get together with friends where everyone is comfortable.
00:08:25
Speaker
you know, especially with COVID and everything, people have different levels of things that they're comfortable doing or not doing. But when we, let's say, know what our limits are and can find a way to connect with others who might be either more relaxed or maybe more stringent, I would say that's a more like flexible adaptive. You always bring it back to the same dynamic. I think when one party is laid back and the other is
00:08:54
Speaker
More, what's the word you always use? Up tight. Up tight. You can't help it because I'm just.
00:09:01
Speaker
You always bring it back to that. Do you think that the uptight person is less flexible and adaptive? Or do you think it's ever the laid back person actually who's kind of rigidly laid back so much so that they expect everyone to behave the way they do and tell themselves that they're very flexible and laid back? When's the last time you saw the big Lebowski? You know what?
00:09:29
Speaker
that was just recently watched in my household. It was recently watched. Yeah, I can.
00:09:36
Speaker
I can't really follow it. Someone watched it. Well, the main character is played by Jeff Bridges and he's the dude. And the premise of the movie is that he's like super mellow. He doesn't work. And he gets confused because his name, Jeff, not Jeff, Lebowski, I forget his first name in the movie, is the same name as this very wealthy guy whose wife
00:10:05
Speaker
is in hot water with some shady characters and they come looking for money and the dude they're harshing his mellow because they have broken into his apartment and they rough him up as a case of mistaken identity but
00:10:22
Speaker
The point is that it's a real challenge throughout the movie to his very mellow philosophy because people push him too far. And he reveals, he says at one point he went to college, but he spent most of his time protesting in sit-ins. So you know that somewhere inside of his mellowness is the capacity to really put his foot down when things aren't as chill and mellow as he thinks they ought to be.
00:10:49
Speaker
And of course he lives in a world where as long as nothing disturbs him, then he can maintain that kind of illusion and keep people around him who are ostensibly more chill. Though his best friend who is a Vietnam vet played by John Goodman is anything but chill. I would say an extreme example. So it's sort of relative.
00:11:13
Speaker
you know, flexible, adaptive, somewhat context dependent, it varies from person to person. But what happens when there's a problem, right? This is about interpersonal problems, and you're trying to compromise. And what if one person's idea of being flexible and adaptive does not match the other person's idea, but they're both convinced that they're right? Who decides? Who's the judge? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, but I think that that's
00:11:43
Speaker
probably the distinguishing feature is that both people can work it out, right? They can, but that's when you really see some of these other patterns emerge, right? It's relatively easy to be flexible and adaptive when everyone's on kind of the same page. But if you think you're being flexible and adaptive and you're feeling pretty secure, but it's not working,
00:12:08
Speaker
then that's a problem that it's not working. And then it tends to bring out more of the insecurity. Or the hostility, right? If we think we're being flexible and handling things properly and, you know, the other person is not reciprocating or they're not bending, right?
Conflict Dynamics and Maladaptive Responses
00:12:29
Speaker
It might feel like the other person is testing you. They're not going along with
00:12:34
Speaker
what you want, maybe you feel flexible, but the other person experiences, the other person is controlling. And they're pushing back a little bit to see if the person will remain sort of even keeled and flexible and accommodating. And then you start to see patterns of interpersonal problem solving come out.
00:13:00
Speaker
Am I going to be abandoned or not? For example, one of the ones you mentioned is this hostile withdrawn response.
00:13:11
Speaker
which, you know, is often comes across as passive aggressive. The other person doesn't respond to a text message and you, you quote unquote know that they're doing it on purpose. Right. And they start trying to guess what other people's intentions are. But I think it's really important to note that this kind of attitude, I guess, towards other people is really fair based and it's really rooted in this,
00:13:37
Speaker
worry that that person is going to abandon us. So maybe we need to withdraw first because that way we don't have to feel a pain of rejection. When these more maladaptive qualities come out, we have a choice, right? And one is that we can be just as hostile.
00:13:57
Speaker
right back and meet the person wherever they are, we can adapt in a way where we become, I guess, more subservient or pleading or desperate for things to work out. Or we can just look at it and say, well, this person is expressing some sort of an unmet need. They're uncomfortable with the way the conversation is unfolding. And you know exactly how people need to think about it to
00:14:27
Speaker
maintain their own stability, right? That's tricky because on one hand, you might be saying, well, try to empathize and be compassionate. But then, yes, that makes a lot of sense. But at what point is that going overboard, trying to figure out what the other person's sort of real motives and intentions are, is
00:14:52
Speaker
a way of being overly involved and encouraging behavior, and where do you start being self compassionate and saying, Okay, this person really isn't coming through for me. And I'm kind of still interested in why that might be. But
00:15:11
Speaker
because I'm not getting my needs met, it's become more clear to me what my needs are because I'm feeling more and more deprived. And then people have varying degrees of success adaptively meeting their own needs.
00:15:28
Speaker
A lot of times it's not that smooth a process. It's more like a rupture of some sort, right? People all of a sudden realize something isn't right for them. And then they may, as you said, they may suddenly withdraw themselves, even though they were trying to respond in what felt like a more compassionate, flexible, and adaptive way.
00:15:51
Speaker
But that can end up, again, going overboard. Definitely. I think it's up to us to know where our limits are, right? So just because someone says, oh, why are you being so uptight about this, doesn't mean I think we change our attitude or our beliefs. Well, what do you think about name calling? Because that's almost like name calling. Like, don't be so uptight.
00:16:17
Speaker
Is that a form of gaslighting? That's one of the things that's really interesting to me because I think if you read the self-help literature, number one, a lot of times it's focused on the individual. There's a huge amount written about the dark triad personality, people who are Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic, people who are exploitative, users, exploiters, abusers,
00:16:45
Speaker
And there's very justifiably a real caution about blaming people who are victimized. Blaming people who get exploited is very problematic.
00:16:59
Speaker
At the same time, which makes it really difficult, we know that people who have been mistreated as kids, for example, who have been neglected or abused, are more likely to get into emotionally unhealthy relationships or worse in the future, depending on how their parents treated them or whatnot.
Self-Awareness and Changing Patterns
00:17:26
Speaker
And yet that's not
00:17:27
Speaker
the same as blaming the person. Using self-awareness to better meet one's own needs compassionately is very different from feeling pathologized and told that something is secretly your fault. And so I approached the last interpersonal problem solving profile with a lot of caution because it's called exploitable subservient.
00:17:56
Speaker
And yet, in some ways, I think it is the most informative one and the most useful one for a lot of people who find themselves more often than they would like getting into situations where they regret being taken advantage of, where they're confused about how
00:18:19
Speaker
they got into another quote unquote bad relationship, or why they aren't getting a promotion, or why they fell for an internet scam, which they immediately realized was a scam. Yeah, but I think that goes into this idea of how people can sort of understand these patterns, but then how do we change them?
00:18:43
Speaker
The intellectual understanding is useful, but it doesn't always make a change. Right. There has to be some kind of like emotional connection or it has to rewire the brain in some ways. Yeah. Or you know, one thing that I like to bring up a lot is to put in sort of these hard stops
00:19:04
Speaker
Um, like, for example, if you log off at seven o'clock and you don't check your phone, um, you know, after hours, then nobody's going to ask you to do something that's, you know, going to keep you up all night. Right. Because you're just not available. Right. Right. But those things feel really uncomfortable to someone who, you know, in order to just maintain their own safety or survival have had to accommodate everyone else their entire lives.
00:19:33
Speaker
accommodate other people to their own detriment or at their own expense, and they often become deaf.
00:19:41
Speaker
or blind, right, or otherwise emotionally numb. So there's all kinds of ways that I think of this as self gaslighting, where we, for survival reasons, have learned to ignore certain often obvious warning signs, or we do things that are self-defeating and we're kind of aware of it, but we don't,
00:20:06
Speaker
make the change even though we know what change would be helpful. I can give a simple example from something in my personal life, which is having a pet cat and cats are notorious. I hear this from tons of people and cats go where you don't want them to go and they do stuff
00:20:31
Speaker
that you don't want them to do, they knock stuff down, they bother you while you're eating and the obvious thing that a lot of people do is that they feed their cats on top of the table while they're having dinner and then they get angry at the cat for jumping up on the table during dinner and they don't do what you're saying like which is make a rule that
00:20:56
Speaker
you only reinforce that behavior that you want, like feed the cat on the floor and not on the table. But then what people do, which is the most fascinating thing about cats, is then they start ascribing all kinds of motives to the cat. And in reality, usually they're just conditioning the cat to do something they don't like, and then kind of forgetting that they set it up that way. Yeah, but do you think that
00:21:24
Speaker
If people do that, they're conflicted, they want their cat on the table or they want to be able, no, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:32
Speaker
I think it's unusual for people to be unconsciously motivated to be self-sabotaging. I do think it happens. I think usually it's more innocent than that. So I think we like to ascribe motives like that to ourselves and others. It's called the fundamental attribution error that we psychologize things more often than is accurate.
00:21:57
Speaker
So the classic experiment is if you show people a picture of three dots on a computer screen, and one dot sidles up to the other two dots, and then one dot slides off the side of the screen. If you ask them to tell a story, people have no problem at all making up a story. Well, the two dots that were there were friends, and then the one dot that came up, one of them didn't like, and so they left.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm very cautious about describing unconscious intention. We do that as psychoanalysts. You know, we err on the side of doing that because it helps us to understand when there is meaning there. But I think a lot of times it comes from self-contradiction, which isn't intentional or desired. Okay. A lot of people are self-contradictory, for example, without, I think, being hypocritical. Can you give an example of that?
00:22:49
Speaker
I think a lot of times it does come from early developmental experiences. Let's say you had a primary caregiver who was very hot and cold and used love conditionally. And so you don't think about what that means, particularly as kids, because most kids don't develop a refined understanding of their parents.
00:23:10
Speaker
maybe later in life, they look back and they say, at the time, I didn't realize it, but my parents had issues. So they internalize those contradictions, becomes part of who they are, but they're not doing it on purpose. They just absorbed it developmentally.
00:23:26
Speaker
I think that's not a very concrete example, but I think it's I think most everyone is self contradictory. One of the most self contradictory things I think is that we often tell ourselves a story about ourselves, which is that we're not self contradictory when we are, because people like to have
00:23:44
Speaker
like a sense of self, which is not hypocritical. But if you take it, you know, as an assumption that we're inherently self contradictory. It's a very different way of thinking about oneself. If that ideas troubling.
00:24:01
Speaker
So, I mean, that's like a bit of a digression, but I think it's related to using, being too accommodating or too deferential as a way to deal with someone who is upset. Sometimes it's useful though. Yeah. Customer service will do that a lot. If you're mad, they become like very deferential. But of course it's in a very restricted setting. Yeah. And maybe that customer service person,
00:24:30
Speaker
is trying to evoke some sort of sympathy or, you know, compassion. I would imagine that they're sort of trained to deescalate in these different ways. And there's probably, you know, you would know more about this than I would, but different tactics that they employ to try to, I guess, play a disgruntled customer, right? So it's exhibiting vulnerability. Let's say you had a parent who gets angry.
00:25:01
Speaker
or you have a friend who's angry and controlling and is intimidating or coercive and you get into the habit of
00:25:12
Speaker
placating them. And then, you know, like the cat, perhaps they get the message that they can do what they want. And then it's a two person process, right? It takes two to tango. And so over time, the relationship develops into a situation where one person is exploiting the other person. The other person might not be aware they're being exploitative or maybe they are.
00:25:37
Speaker
In a sense, it doesn't matter. And the person who is using the exploitable subservient problem solving approach to the relationship problem is likely becoming more and more resentful. Right. I think we see this, you know, like employee-employer relationships. We also see it in friendships, right? Sometimes the dynamic is that
00:26:06
Speaker
Like a bossy kid, for example, will befriend a kid that gets easily bossed around because those dynamics can fit together in this way, right? Until the kid who's bossy might demand that the friend do something that they don't want to do. But a lot of times people can exist in these relationships without any problems coming to the surface, right?
00:26:33
Speaker
Right. Well, I think the point is that that exploitable subservient style can work for a long time. But it requires that the person be less attuned to their own needs.
00:26:49
Speaker
And so, for example, I've seen this so many times. Of course, people get scammed more easily than anyone would like to be. And a lot of times, we ignore little warning signs. You might think something is fishy about an email that you got. Maybe the logo looks a little funny. But the offer might seem very enticing.
00:27:13
Speaker
or they might be triggering some kind of like obedience response where you just automatically respond the way you're supposed to because they evoke some fear that you owe money or something bad will happen, essentially triggers like primitive responses like brainstem level reactions and it takes the frontal cortex
00:27:37
Speaker
the thinking part of the brain offline. And so you might notice that you feel suspicious that phone number didn't look quite right, or the logo didn't quite look right, but people engage in this sort of micro self-deceit, or they ignore their spider sense, their intuition, or you meet someone at a party and they start making mean jokes.
00:28:05
Speaker
And you kind of ignore that you feel uncomfortable with it. And when they ask you out later, a part of you is going, gee, I don't think they're that nice. But gee, they're really handsome or they're really funny or, you know, something charismatic. And you ignore like your better judgment. And then you're saying in situations like that, sometimes it's helpful for people to have a set of rules that they follow ahead of time.
Cultural Expectations and Personal Boundaries
00:28:32
Speaker
Right.
00:28:33
Speaker
and to be practiced at getting out of situations that are not comfortable. So my favorite thing, which is pretty easy to do, is to say, I'd love to, but can I think about it? And that applies to everything that we need to say no to, but can't say no to. Ideally, we would be able to say, no, I just don't feel a connection. No, I don't have the bandwidth to take on this project.
00:29:02
Speaker
No, I don't wanna talk about this topic right now. But that's very, very difficult for some people to do. Why do you think it's hard for people to say no sometimes? Fear of disappointing someone else. Really, I think, especially with women being brought up to sort of be a good girl and, you know, do what's expected. And then when everything, when more and more is asked of us, right?
00:29:32
Speaker
then we feel that, well, that's the expectation. And I think that that's something in today's world where we're expected to bring 100% to work and 100% to home and 100% to our marriage and social lives and all of these things. And so. That's up to 500% now, I think. And I think that's, that's why people walk around feeling so overwhelmed because they sort of depleted.
00:29:59
Speaker
Right, they don't know what they can say no to and what they have to say yes to. And there are things that seem and feel really important because it's a bridal shower, or it's a kid's birthday. And who wants to be the person to say like, no to that doesn't feel good. But it also doesn't feel good to let's say, wake up at, you know, 8am on a Sunday to travel to some to an event that's not convenient.
00:30:24
Speaker
I suppose a lot of it to me is about what people need to convince themselves that they're good people. And a lot of times that has to do with being overly self-sacrificing and considering normal needs as selfish, which is a lot of times what we're taught. Yeah, I think it really depends on the environment and it also depends
00:30:52
Speaker
on your models, right? Because if your model was someone who worked 24-7 and you decide, I'm just taking Fridays off in the summer, that's establishing something that's very different from what we have always felt to be acceptable. That goes to what psychoanalysts call the super ego, right?
00:31:14
Speaker
Like we internalize the moral system of our parents and it is right and good to work 24 seven or maybe 23 six. You know, I just read an article which is going a little bit viral in the news that Iceland piloted a four day work week and people work fewer hours. It's not, you know, you work 12 hours, four days a week instead of eight hours, five days a week or whatever. And they found that productivity was the same or better.
00:31:42
Speaker
And it's really cultural. There's a recognition that American culture is particularly workaholic, especially in a place like New York or any big city in the North, maybe especially. Maybe there's regional cultural differences compared to Europe, where people take like a month or two off in the summer. I saw a cartoon joke that was like European versus American vacation message.
00:32:08
Speaker
the European vacation message was very different. The American vacation message was like out of the office today, actually it was about medical issue, out of the office today for kidney surgery, but reachable by phone. And the European message was like, I'll be back in a week. Yeah. And I think what's toxic about this sort of
00:32:29
Speaker
you know, culture of overexertion and is really, I think people should be able to do what they want to do, but also not to sideline their own needs for too, like either too severely or for too long of a time. So when it interferes with regular eating and sleeping, you know, let's say, which a lot of doctors do during residency or first year associate at a big law firm, right? They're not going to have
00:32:59
Speaker
time to sit down for three meals a day, but it's a sort of small snapshot of time. I think it sets the stage for really bad habits, but it's not meant to be forever and ever.
00:33:10
Speaker
What happens is it becomes systemic and then there's a power differential and people are paralyzed, unable to change things or the culture that they're in like of medicine or big law discourages people from trying to practice good self-care with some exceptions.
00:33:32
Speaker
because it's considered to not be a good worker. And then, of course, you know, there's some future kind of promise of wealth or success. Yeah, but that's, I guess, less and less significant if we can't enjoy it because we can't actually take vacations. Right.
00:33:54
Speaker
There's generational changes. There's generational differences. It used to be much more a given that you just work hard and you do what you're told. And that's how you get rewarded and successful. But that kind of deal doesn't work as well nowadays. And I think, especially in the workplace, more people are aware about wellness. And there's more of a collective sense of
00:34:23
Speaker
joining together and refusing to follow that old pattern, which changes the power dynamics in terms of hiring. I think it's a healthy thing because with things like LinkedIn, we can connect with people who may have worked someplace and find out in advance what the office culture is like.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah. And you can look online and see what the average pay is. You know, the secrecy is breaking down. And of course, you know, we've seen that with social media as a tool for positive social change as well as negative events. But this individual kind of problem solving approach of becoming exploitable and subservient
00:35:09
Speaker
when is it useful and when is it, you know, the function of an unhealthy, overly anxious or preoccupied attachment style is trickier for the individual who's trying to figure out how to change their lives for the better. And again, you were talking about sort of setting a rule like I'm not going to check emails after seven. But if it's urgent, you know how to reach me, you can you can call my cell phone. But I also think
00:35:39
Speaker
In the moment there's recognizing what's happening at those moments when when you have a choice, but you kind of don't know you have a choice. So when you're noticing something is fishy about an email or someone invites you or asks you to help them with something and a little voice in your mind goes that's not a good idea.
00:36:01
Speaker
Well, you can't do that. It's too much, or the timing isn't good, or last time I agreed to help out. It really didn't go well at all. Yeah. And it's learning to slow down, as you said, and also listen to all the different parts of oneself. Yeah. And think through a little bit what's likely to happen, right? Right. Tabletop it in your head a little bit. That's why it's helpful to say, I don't know if I would say I'd love to help.
00:36:31
Speaker
But I'm not sure how available I am. Let me give that some thought. Right. I think it would depend. Or even last time we tried to do something, as much as I value our friendship didn't work out the way I hoped it would. Can we talk about it before
00:36:53
Speaker
you know, we make a decision. There's a tendency, I guess you're pointing to that a lot of people are inclined to and are trained to be too agreeable. Yeah. Or say yes to things that they might not want or they know they don't want. That they know they don't want. Yeah. Sometimes it's we say yes to something in the moment because it really does sound great. But then when it comes time to
00:37:22
Speaker
get together or a time to get to work, it feels burdensome. Well, I think of that as people, they make a deal with their future self, without their future self's consent. Exactly. But I think that's also how a lot of people get stuff done. They say, OK, I'll write that book chapter. It sounds really good in the moment, but they know that they're not going to be into it, but they've committed themselves to do something to other people. Right.
00:37:51
Speaker
And if we know we have a tendency to do that, we can say, I'd love to be the type of person who said yes to writing a book chapter. I'd love to. That's your favorite expression. I would love to do that. I would love to be that type of person. But I don't know how I'm going to feel. Would you like to be that type of person? I would.
00:38:17
Speaker
But it's not really. Telling someone I'd love to do something, you know, has a particular emotional impact. Right. It's really it's very positive for the other person. Right. For many people anyway. Yeah. And I think it expresses that we wish we could do it all. Right. Is this true, though? Do you wish you could do it all? Yeah, I wish there were enough time for me to read, read more, think more, write more, present.
00:38:44
Speaker
take care of my patients, take care of my kids, take care. Yeah, but that's just not reality, right? So yes, I would love to have 30 hours in every day or not need to sleep or eat, but that's, you know, I just have to work with what I have. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people feel the way you feel.
00:39:06
Speaker
Though I think there's another there are other ways which are along the lines of no, I don't wish that I that I could give more and more and more and more and more. OK, OK. You know, I'm actually I'm OK that I'm available in the ways that I'm available. And then, you know, the answer isn't I'd love to do that. Let me think about it. The answer might be that isn't something I'm interested in, but thank you for thinking of me. Yeah.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is just a little bit tougher. It's harder for a lot of people. Yeah. And you're more likely maybe to get labeled negatively if you say, I'm not interested. No offense, but it's not where my professional goals are right now. Yeah.
Decision Making and Emotional Awareness
00:39:52
Speaker
A lot of people have trouble being candid in that way. I see this sometimes
00:39:58
Speaker
in the parenting world when you try to make plans and people say yes or they do this in business too yes yes yes and then later on it's no or they don't get back to you sometimes a lot of times they do this doesn't happen to me a whole lot but when it happens it's pretty remarkable
00:40:18
Speaker
It leaves me often wondering whether the other person is being manipulative or not, whether they knew that they weren't interested, and just, it's not their style to say that doesn't work. It's like easier to say yes to someone's face.
00:40:33
Speaker
and then later on not answer a text or just say, oh, something came up or whether they were really interested, but they're weighing their different options. I got invited to do a radio spot, for example, for a fairly well-known outlet.
00:40:49
Speaker
And they messaged me I said, Sure, you know it's a Sunday, but it's prestigious it's an interesting subject. What time is it. And then pretty quickly they messaged me back and they said oh well I think my producer found someone else. But if it doesn't work out can I have your phone number and we'll call.
00:41:08
Speaker
And my response was, I don't I don't want to be on call on the weekend, you know, in case you can't find someone else. Right. So you can email me at my email and I'd be more than happy to discuss whether there's any other topics that you'd like me to speak about with you. Yeah. But I definitely was thinking
00:41:33
Speaker
not something I'm interested in. Yeah. And I'm not going to be like seduced or glamorized because it's the media. Right. Yeah. And I think that's a tough thing. People have to be really sure that they're not missing some great opportunity because I think that a lot of the people who are, let's say, looking to exploit have tactics like, oh, I've got a great opportunity for you or we'd love
00:42:01
Speaker
to have you do this and it can be very seductive. The fear of missing out is powerful and people can definitely play on that. And also the implication sometimes is if you don't do this, you're stupid.
00:42:18
Speaker
you know, it's such a good deal. And who wants to be stupid, right? And who wants to be stupid. So if you do what I want you to do, then you're a good smart person, right? And it gives you a self esteem boost. But then later on, it is sometimes is regrettable.
00:42:34
Speaker
particularly if you don't do your due diligence. This is a big topic in Daniel Kahneman's work on thinking fast and slow. And it's true that people in marketing and advertising, they understand that there's two approaches
00:42:49
Speaker
Generally, one of them is the people who are familiar with a subject will actually look at the information and weigh the information carefully in order to make a decision. So an ad will be more information dense for one readership.
00:43:05
Speaker
Whereas people who aren't familiar will relate to the person in the ad, will resonate with the words that are written and basically make a snap decision about what to do, which if it works out, that's great. You know, you get something that works well for you, but it is exploitative. Yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
It's exploiting a psychological tendency to make a quick decision when certain emotional levers are pulled. And so one thing we talked about is having a set of rules. Another you mentioned is buying time and saying I need to think about it. Another is recognizing emotional states in the moment so that we can know who we are and then have more access to choices and decisions. Yeah. They often go hand in hand.
00:43:55
Speaker
I think that with this kind of thing, looking at a lot of the different tactics or strategies that people employ and then seeing what feels most comfortable, right? There's always a way to dial it back a little bit to be a little less available, a little less exploitable or agreeable. And sometimes it can even just be about, you know, how do we stop worrying about other people's feelings so much? Well,
00:44:25
Speaker
One way to do that is to think about our own feelings. There's a lot in there. Right. Being agreeable is generally productive for people. But when people are too agreeable, then that's a problem. Right. And when do we need to be agreeable to others versus be agreeable to what we ourselves want? If what we want to do is sleep in till 10 AM, then maybe once in a while, that's OK to do.
00:44:55
Speaker
That's more nuanced when agreeability is viewed as relative to me or someone else versus just a trait. Yeah. I think that's a good point. It relates to self-compassion and taking care of oneself versus feeling selfish all the time. It occurs to me the other thing, another thing that's kind of obvious is knowing what your limits are and knowing what you want ahead of time. That way you don't have to feel put on the spot, either feel like you're going to disappoint someone or
00:45:25
Speaker
go along with what they're saying and just refer to your own rules. Like, oh, you know, I set a rule for myself that I don't do anything after 3 p.m. on the weekend. That's me time. Right. And I think for people who, wherever they're sort of autonomy lies. So I guess when you're in a workplace, you don't always have control over your hours of that choice. Yeah. Right. But but for when we do, I think exercising it,
00:45:54
Speaker
You know, is, is good. Or sometimes even, you know, when I started practicing, I did have control, but people would be like, can I meet at 8am? And for a while it was hard for me to say, Oh, actually I don't start till 11 because the morning is, I know, I know I'm not a surgeon. Okay.
00:46:16
Speaker
I don't need to be in the OR, so. It's easy to overgeneralize or, oh, a lot of people, I feel funny saying that. But having the freedom to choose is a goal that people can have. So if you choose to work in a corporate environment that you know has this type of dynamic, it's very different to try to set a limit about your work hours than if you work in an environment that credibly tries to balance
00:46:45
Speaker
employee health with the company's productivity needs? For sure. And I think that there are benefits and drawbacks to all of these things. You know, there are definitely times that I wish I could clock in at an office and, you know, have the benefits that go along with that. But we all make choices. Right. So I think it's just how do we make the choices that are consistent with, you know, with what our needs are in the moment in some
00:47:14
Speaker
In a broader sense, I think it's important to value oneself. A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog piece with Mark and Danny my your relationship co authors called the disposable person.
00:47:27
Speaker
And I think our culture often treats people as you know widgets who can be replaced very easily and companies often have a lot of churn, but it backfires because then people don't feel valued and you know rather than getting used up and tossed away. They're looking to switch to the next best thing.
00:47:47
Speaker
before that happens. And so how do we really value ourselves in the culture that we're in, whatever that culture is, is a much bigger question.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:47:57
Speaker
But there's this core issue of when there's an interpersonal problem, how do I approach it? Yeah, but I like your point about the disposable person and how we treat each other. And I do think that maybe that's for another day, though I'd love to keep talking.
00:48:18
Speaker
I'm not able to. As always, it's a delight speaking with you. I'd love to talk longer, but I know we both have other obligations. I'm not interested in continuing to talk. It's a role reversal. Nice.
00:48:37
Speaker
But thanks for listening. And as always, send us your comments, requests, and we don't dislike positive reviews. Yes, we value very much your time. So thanks for listening.
00:48:55
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Dornop comments. We're committed to bringing you new episodes with great guests. Please take a moment to share your thoughts. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find us on Instagram at Dornop comments. Remember this podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of psychiatry or any other type of medicine. This is not a substitute for professional and individual treatment services and no doctor patient relationship is formed. If you feel that you may be in crisis, please don't delay in securing mental health treatment. Thank you for listening.