Feeling Good Together: The Secret to Making Troubled Relationships Work

by David D. Burns

Our perceptions about how other people feel and how they feel about us can be off base. In fact, they nearly always are.

We all have this problem. We think we know how other people feel and how they feel about us, but we don’t.

The bottom line is this: your thoughts about how other people feel and how they feel about you are probably far less accurate than you think and may not be accurate at all. That’s one reason why empathy is such an important skill. It makes no difference if you’re dealing with a personal conflict with a family member or friend, or a business problem such as a disagreement with your boss or customer—accurate knowledge of how the other person is thinking and feeling will be invaluable.

People who complain aren’t usually asking for advice, help, or cheerful affirmations. They’re not asking you to solve the problem they’re complaining about. Most of the time, they just want you to listen.

Many of us are afraid that if we find truth in what the com-plainer says, it will open the floodgates for more complaining. In fact, the opposite happens. If you use the Disarming Technique skillfully, the complainer will nearly always stop complaining because he or she will feel that you’re listening.

Complain-ers seem to be making demands on you, so you may feel resentful, frustrated, guilty, and panicky. Then you try to help them, cheer them up or give them some advice, hoping they’ll shut up and stop complaining. But this never works. In fact, you’re making demands on them as well. You want them to listen to your good advice and stop being so relentlessly negative.

complainers usually aren’t looking for advice or asking for help,