change
October 2008 
How would you respond to those who feel overwhelmed by bad news?
Posted on Jul 7th, 2008
by 
Shameslaya
Shameslaya
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for July 07, 2008:
I offer you the opportunity of monitoring your own reactions to what I have to say here and maybe feed back to me. I'm genuinely interested in your respone because, as a former mental health nurse and experienced psychotherapist, I have extensive experience in this situation. And I drop the three-dot parenthesis for extra gravitas. This is an important issue.
When another is overwhelmed by bad news, I do what is necessary to help that person stay with the intensity of their feelings.
Often this requires nothing more than remaining in the presence of somebody in distress and sometimes a hand lightly placed on their back serves as an avatistic reminder that they are not alone.
An intensely-felt emotion has a lifespan of 15-25 minutes, tops, and will not kill provided the distressee has a soundly-functionning heart.
I used to spin out platitudes and give advice to folk in distress. I have never found it to be of much value since the other is usually too imploded to take it on board. And telling others that it will all be alright is actually a way of making me feel better; by inhibiting their grief reaction I do not have to experience my own. And emotionally, we humans resonate like tuning forks emotionally. Remaining with my own stuff and resonnating with the other recapitulates good attuned mothering in the first eight months of life and constitutes a hands-free holding, healing presence.
Quite often, overwhelmed grievers or those spasmed with shock experience something seriously intense because the current bad news evokes not only the existential reaction but all the unresolved feelings tamped down from earlier and more suppressable reactions. Giving space for their expression enables both a wholesome catharsis whilst facilitating the toleration of this and future florrid emotion.
I believe that if each of us learned to stay with ourselves when others are suffering and not attempt the restructuring through pointing to the half of the glass which is full, I'd be out of a job within forty years .
But then I'd teach yoga full-time...which amounts to the same thing that I'm writing about here.
So I'm curious to know whether you baulked when I suggested not giving advice. Student nurses and trainee therapists often have done when I have suggested this when I've been mentoring them.
When another is overwhelmed by bad news, I do what is necessary to help that person stay with the intensity of their feelings.
Often this requires nothing more than remaining in the presence of somebody in distress and sometimes a hand lightly placed on their back serves as an avatistic reminder that they are not alone.
An intensely-felt emotion has a lifespan of 15-25 minutes, tops, and will not kill provided the distressee has a soundly-functionning heart.
I used to spin out platitudes and give advice to folk in distress. I have never found it to be of much value since the other is usually too imploded to take it on board. And telling others that it will all be alright is actually a way of making me feel better; by inhibiting their grief reaction I do not have to experience my own. And emotionally, we humans resonate like tuning forks emotionally. Remaining with my own stuff and resonnating with the other recapitulates good attuned mothering in the first eight months of life and constitutes a hands-free holding, healing presence.
Quite often, overwhelmed grievers or those spasmed with shock experience something seriously intense because the current bad news evokes not only the existential reaction but all the unresolved feelings tamped down from earlier and more suppressable reactions. Giving space for their expression enables both a wholesome catharsis whilst facilitating the toleration of this and future florrid emotion.
I believe that if each of us learned to stay with ourselves when others are suffering and not attempt the restructuring through pointing to the half of the glass which is full, I'd be out of a job within forty years .
But then I'd teach yoga full-time...which amounts to the same thing that I'm writing about here.
So I'm curious to know whether you baulked when I suggested not giving advice. Student nurses and trainee therapists often have done when I have suggested this when I've been mentoring them.
Access: Public
No balking here. Advice-giving I think is useless at best and a lot of the time just annoying. I've had several work situations in the past that involved being with people who knew they were going to die quite soon and it was always clear that the comforting was for the comfort-giver primarily.
Comforting and advising seem presumptuous to me, and kind of condescending.
Well put, Jeannie…thanx.
J x
Nice, Jon. I didn't say it this way, but much the same. And Jeannie I like what you added as well.
OMG I couldn't agree more.
No balking here either.
You allow them to heal themselves, to come to their own changes and choices.
We can never do the work for them, and your manner of Healing is commendable. ;-)
Beautifully put, Jon! I need to keep reminding myself of this. I guess it becomes more difficult to do the more I push my own stuff away…which may explain why it hasn't gone as planned lately. Too much advice, not enough space-making!
Thank you!
Thanx for the support Bridget, John, Ariela.
Marc….take the space, man…..and you know you got friends here..and elsewhere…door is always open.
blessings, jon x
“I believe that if each of us learned to stay with ourselves when others are suffering and not attempt the restructuring through pointing to the half of the glass which is full, I'd be out of a job within forty years.”
Yes, and yes. In our culture, when something is wrong, we try to fix it. If someone's deep in the throes of a negative emotion, it's a kneejerk reaction to try and 'fix' -them-. I would expect the discomfort of your trainee nurses and psychologists, particularly, because they are in professions that are paid to do 'fixing' via very Western acculturated means.
I particularly appreciate that you pointed out that when most people try to comfort those in distress, what they're really doing is trying to quiet the hurting one ASAP for their own private benefit.
Having been on the recieving end of -a lot- of therapy over the years (issues stemming from childhood) I have quite a lot to say about the way therapy (doesn't) work.
Bang on the money Silverpony…beautifully expressed.
And therapy usually does not work when the therapist sets up an agenda usually out of awareness (“I gotta cure ya”) and the client buys into it (“I'll give the thrilling illusion of looking cured”)…..in a quality therapy there's little or no writing on the backs of the teeshirts of both parties.
Warmly, Jon x