Metacognition: Thinking About
Thinking
Lecture 5: LANGUAGE AND THE MIND
Adam Blatner, M.D.
This is the fifth in a
6-lecture class
for the Fall, 2013 program of the Senior University Georgetown
September 25, 2013
Prologue
"I know you believe you understand what you think I said,
but I am not sure that what you heard was what I meant." Read
that line again. Language, communication, is fraught with many
problems, and people have been writing about this for a century
or more. The illusion is, as Dr. Seuss' character, Horton the
Elephant, as he committed to protecting the little grains of
life in Who-ville, that a person can say, "I meant what I said
and said what I meant."---and that this should be therefore
clearly understood by others. But it often isn't, and this
disconnect in language is courteously avoided and often goes
unnoticed.
Another quote: Information is a difference that makes a
difference. Gregory Bateson was an anthropologist and
communications scholar in the 1960s and noted that in cultures
that have no need to discern, say, different shades of red, such
differences go unnoticed. Part of the reason there has been a
great increase in the English vocabulary is that as people
explore new territory they find that the old words don't do the
job, don't explain new things discovered there. Often we
discover the same old thing but recognize it in new ways and
thus want to call it out, name it, to differentiate the new way
the old thing is, rather than the old way.
Language is problematical for a number of reasons. First, one
has the illusion that one can be understood. If the other person
doesn't speak your language, maybe they don't hear, so say it
again in a louder voice---and slowly enunciate: "I said, where
can one find a loo?" That ought to take care of it, now. Darn
these foreigners, why can they be civilized?" It's only a
small skip to the other British trope in My Fair Lady, "Why
can't a woman be more like a man?"
There are admittedly caricatures, for laughs, but the truth is
not that far away. We don't systematically teach kids in the 8th
grade that they will be mis-understood, and that expectations
that they be correctly understood are grossly unrealistic. For
one thing, they are often not only not clear, they are often
communicating double messages, like I need help but I want you
to leave me alone because I can do it myself---except maybe this
one time---but then back off.
So language and mixed messages are a part of mind. We think in
language, at least the part that can think explicit thoughts. We
also think in images and feel intuitions, but they tend to be
blurred, easily pushed out of consciousness, and need a verbal
part to act as a lawyer to bring them to the surface and fix
them in words. Often the words aren't the right words, or aren't
enough. This is where a good lawyer, a more articulate one, a
better vocabulary, helps. Most folks operate with a vocabulary
that doesn't much extend into the interpersonal or language
space.
A User-Friendly Language for Psychology
So how do you feel? Come on, out with it! But the truth is
that folks don't know how they feel, often, and don't know how
to find words to express it. That they don't trust the audience
is a given, but even if they trust whoever they would disclose
to, they're afraid to be misunderstood. Worse, they're afraid to
be understood but only in a way that would render them guilty.
They have inner prosecuting attorneys yelling accusations in
their mind's ear---you've heard of the mind's eye---the
imagination? -- we have mind's ears, we hear what we fear
hearing. If we learn how, by the way, we can even learn to hear
what we want to hear, and put that into words, but less than 1%
of people know that trick. I try to teach it to people.
Psychologists got into this when they were trying to work out
the patterns and unfortunately used terms that were laden with a
sense of shameful pathology. If you're introverted, that carries
a judgment---this a psychiatrist friend told me his daughter had
told him when he noted the granddaughter was introverted. He
meant it as a matter of fact observation, even a bit of a
complement. The little girl was empowered enough to say to her
grandfather, "Don't play with me. I'm playing." She meant that
her little inner play was being enacted just fine and although
comments from the outside may have been meant to be helpful,
they were not. So the kid was a bit introverted---but that could
perhaps also have been seen as Granpa's "pathologizing" by the
daughter.
There are a lot of words that can seem annoying, judgmental,
toxic, or just reminding of other people who used them in other
ways. We cannot begin to anticipate this, but we can acknowledge
this dynamic and work out in close relationships---and other
kinds---"I don't like that word. It means something else to me
than it does to you. Please don't use it." It's a bit of a
clean-up process in a family to realize that like computer
clearn-ups, it needs to be done on occasion. You should do this
for yourself, too: Are there words that others have used that
are even faintly annoying and you would rather they use other
words? Consider that you might even help them find a word you
wouldn't mind hearing."
But what most people do is short-circuit. Without thinking it
through, if I'm annoyed, you must be trying to annoy me. That
you could push my button so accurately without meaning to? Come
on! You had to mean it! But really, the other person did
not mean to bother you in the least way. Taking responsibility
for noticing your triggers is a skill. Related to this is
telling the other person quickly. No one wants to hear that "You
had your fly open all day yesterday." Why didn't you say
something? I didn't want to upset you. But what happens is that
someone says, "You've been saying that for years and I've had it
with you! (Screaming) I want a divorce! What? What!!??
It's even a fair bet the breach in the relationship may never be
explained. Saying what? Honey-buns?
The truth is that many people don't communicate because they
feel that any expression of how they feel will be overridden and
they'll be shamed for even objecting. "Oh, can't you take a
joke?" "I was just kidding." "You know I like you." If it's a
racial slur, and you object you know what they'll say: But some
of my best friends..."
The illusion here is that communications should be clear, they
are clear, and misunderstandings are unnecessary. One tends to
take either and I'm not okay you're okay position and be
deferential, apologetic, and inclined to give in or tolerate
abuse, or one tendes to be I'm okay you're not okay and blame,
often feeling entitled to return what is felt as offensive with
abuse. It helps to shift to a matter-of-fact voice and ask
what the communication problem was.
Psychoanalysis had tons of words for psychological stuff, but
many if not most were pathologizing, implying by their choice of
words that the one to whom they applied were unacceptably messed
up. We have needed a set of terms that most folks can use to get
clarification without having to feel ashamed or resentful about
the words. I use the terms "role," and associated terms to treat
situations like scenes in a play. Words are less toxic that way.
Everyone has seen plays, knows about rehearsals, and knows that
in rehearsal people can say the wrong things, and that there's
better and worse ways to phrase things. This is part of the art,
and it's understood.
Indeed, in plays, one even notices more readily the nonverbal
quality. It's harder to hear you when you are on that pedestal
yelling at me down here. Responding to nonverbal communication
is a big part of language---I touched on it last time and speak
more about it now.
But first the point again: We need to talk---and that means we
need to talk about the way we talk, the procedure for
interrupting, for re-engaging, our facial expression, our accent
or pacing. We need to recognize clearly, both of us equally,
that mis-communication can and does happen.
,
---is .of
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