“For example, in the middle of a conversation, if I ask the other person something about what they’ve just said, and I am met with “That’s a stupid question,” I hear them expressing a need in the form of a judgment of me. I proceed to guess what that need might be—maybe the question I asked did not fulfill their need to be understood. Or if I ask my partner to talk about the stress in our relationship and they answer, “I don’t want to talk about it,” I may sense that their need is for protection from what they imagine could happen if we were to communicate about our relationship. So this is our work: learning to recognize the need in statements that don’t overtly express any need.”