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Attending Like an Elephant: The Emotional Art of Presence · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

0:14
Call this section that we're going to go over in the next couple
0:17
of weeks counseling skills,
0:21
because not only do they work in the group
0:24
process facilitation These are the same skills
0:29
that you will use when you're in a 1-on-1
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session with someone. So, to begin,
0:37
let's talk about attending.
0:42
Now, this topic was introduced in the beginning of
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the class and the series, but it is
0:50
really an important aspect.
0:54
And I would be remiss by pairing
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this attending with the image in the PowerPoint,
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because if you'll notice in the image, it's an elephant,
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especially an elephant, and they're looking.
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Okay, the reason why I chose this image
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is if there is another mammal species
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that have the same emotionality
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of humans, and I would argue probably more than
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humans, it would be an elephant.
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They are very— they're a species that are very attuned
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to one another,
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uh, with no formal religion, no formal anything.
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When a member of an elephant group passes
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away that elephant that is most
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close to the one that passed
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away will sit with it and mourn for
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a long period of time before it will move
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And one of the things that we should say
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about the elephant species too is that
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from a very early age,
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the young elephants have to spend an
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incredible time attending
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to the older members of the group and looking
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at their behaviors, following their trails,
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doing all of these things to make sure
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that they then can become
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the leaders of that group when they become older.
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And the example fits because elephants
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have a very emotional brain,
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because attending is more about
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emotions than it is about
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being cognitively present.
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All right, so we're going to kind of get into this to
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give the term attending a little
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bit more definition than what we started with.
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Being attentive means that the counselor is
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giving the client their full focus and
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paying attention to the— what the client is saying doing,
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and the tone of voice used,
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and the body language. And we
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can all say, uh, in a little while we'll get to listening skills,
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right? And we can also— a lot of people going into this field say,
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I'm an awesome listener.
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And, and I wouldn't disagree with that.
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Uh, I, I say, I would say that, uh,
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You'll need to make some adjust— adjustments to that idea.
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But, uh, when I did clinical supervision
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and the counselor in practice
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came back to me and they almost said verbatim
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what the client told them, that shows that
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that counselor paid very close
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attention to what the client is saying. But then I would ask
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the counselor in training, did you
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notice the way your, uh, client was
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sitting? And did you notice how their
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voice changed when they were talking about
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their mother versus their father versus their
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current friend? And did you notice that body language,
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that when they were talking about something very uncomfortable,
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they started to fidget or they started to be—
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come in close to themselves?
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And a lot of times they would say no.
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And then I would play back the video without
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what the client was saying. I would take out the audio
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track, as you would say, and I would have them create
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the story of that client just
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looking at their body language.
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And every time— well, I shouldn't say every
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time— most of the time,
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the counselor in training would come back
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with a completely different story,
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combining what they heard and then watching
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the client's body language without sound.
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And then they actually got the complete story.
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So what
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I want to start with in this idea of attending is
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that doing true counseling
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and group facilitation is exhausting.
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Because in that 60 minutes that you have with
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that client, usually it's toned down to the 50 minutes
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and then 10 minutes of transition, da, da, da, da. But that
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50 to 60 minutes, You have to
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be cognitively, visually,
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and auditorily present.
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And that's what attending is.
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And so let's talk about the key components
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of attending. And we have gone through these
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in the beginning through that acronym
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ENCOURAGES, but now we need to really
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think about these in more literal
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terms of what should we be looking at.
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And it's eye contact, body language,
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gestures, facial expressions, and tone
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of voice. If you
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remember too, and this is an important
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time to bring this up again,
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is having cultural competency.
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But I prefer the other term of this,
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and that's cultural humility.
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And what that means, especially when we start with the first key
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component of eye contact, And I would include
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also gestures in this,
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is that you need to make sure you know
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the cultural context in which your client
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is coming to you when it comes to eye contact.
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Okay, I am going to make the argument
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that irregardless of culture,
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The eyes are the window to the mind.
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And I would be remiss to make that
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if you're in a culture where direct eye contact
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is disrespectful, or when you're in
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a culture where constant eye
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contact is even uncomfortable to you.
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But it's necessary for that person based on their
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culture. Okay, so eye contact
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means that we are connecting with each other,
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that if you were my client and I am your therapist,
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even microseconds of eye contact ignites
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a huge amount of things in the brain.
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The one of the things that it,
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um, ignites is something
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called mirror neuron.
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Mirror neuron is when you are so connected
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with the person sitting in front of you that
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the neurons in their brain start to fire in
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your brain. And you become connected.
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I always like, uh, the sociological example of
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this. Um, if you and your friends are
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at a restaurant or out and about and,
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and, uh, you're like, geez, you know, we don't have
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much to talk about, what should we do? And you
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both start to decide, you know what, let's, let's see
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if we can make a bet on if we
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see other people in the restaurant and we think they're on their first
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date, if they're going to have a
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second or third date. All right,
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and so I'm going to bring up some sociological,
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um, uh, ideas behind this
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and then bring it down to the neurological part
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of this, okay, is you can always
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tell someone is on a first date because
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their behaviors are not always in sync
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with each other. One may prefer to be eating with
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a fork while the other one is eating
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with a spoon. One might have their soda
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or drink on the right hand, the other one might have it on their left
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hand. Um, their, their postures tend to
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be different. Okay,
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and you can tell that there's not going to be a second date if that
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posturing stays the same,
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but you know that there's going to be a second date
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when this happens.
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Is about partway into
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the, um, date,
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they start to do what's called mimicking with each other.
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And what that means is that their cups are set in the same position,
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their legs are set in the same position,
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their Um, body language becomes
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the same. Uh, how they eat—
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they take food at the same time,
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they drink at the same time,
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they laugh at the same time.
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And, uh, if this happens, you can
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be pretty confident there's going to be
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a second date. Okay, now you're
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not going to date your clients, all right? And I'm not trying to say that,
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but what I'm trying to say in this is on a neurological level
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is what's happening is their brains are became—
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becoming synced with each other. The neurons
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in one head are firing in the other head,
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and now you have this close relationship
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with another human being. Okay?
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And eye contact, whether it's a millisecond for a
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culture where eye contact is not appropriate,
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or sustained eye contact where it's culturally appropriate,
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starts that neural processing.
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Okay? Which is important for the counselor
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Because that gives you an empathetic drive for that individual,
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because you're starting to feel what their body is feeling.
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And what a great amount of information that can be.
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The second component behind eye contact, whether it's milliseconds
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to sustained eye contact with someone,
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is body language. All right, what does
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the body tell us about our client? And what
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does our body language tell our
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client about us? All right,
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so in body language, we're attending to
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some pretty basic ideas.
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Okay, and again, this is culturally based.
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So when a person is in an open stance
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with you, that usually
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signals that they are comfortable with you.
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When they start crossing their legs, when they start crossing
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their arms, when they start looking down
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and they start to crunch into themselves into a fetal
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position This denotes something
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very important. They're not comfortable.
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They're about to disclose something that is very uncomfortable
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for them. And so that's where your,
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uh, red light should go off and go,
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my signal right now should be I
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need to reinforce that this is a safe
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space. Even if their vocal
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language isn't telling you
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that, but their body language is,
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this would be an important part of just saying,
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hey, I feel like you're going to start to tell
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me something incredibly uncomfortable, and I
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just want to remind you that this is a safe
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space. Okay, on the, uh,
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your side— so that's the client
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side— on your side, we need to be very
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aware of our body language because we're humans too.
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All right, so going to the kind of cultural
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aspects and everything else Um, and I
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think I've told this story in earlier lectures.
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One of the things that I have learned
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is that when I need to really
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pay attention to someone, I realize
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that my arms flaring around— if
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we were in a classroom, you'd see my arms doing all of
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these imaginary things. The one
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thing that I've been conditioned over time is
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when I need to pay attention, I need to fold my arms so
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they're not signaling, uh,
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that I want to like catch a fly in the sky.
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Okay, and early on
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in my training, my mentor said, Curtis,
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Stop folding your arms.
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Because that's signaling— what's that signaling when someone's crossing their
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arms in a very— and I'm going to use this term—
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intimate conversation with someone? What if
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you think about that? That's guarding behavior.
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Right? And so my training technique is
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for like the next 6 sessions, I had to sit on my hands.
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Until I trained my natural tendency to
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cross my arms, uh, in order not to do that.
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And so if you picked
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the attending as your skill that you
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want to develop for upcoming assignment,
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what I would want you to pay attention to is your attending.
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You're attending. Do you, when you attend, have you
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become conditioned to fold your arms or to
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daydream or to do anything? And what
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I would want you to do is say, I'm going to practice
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not doing this body language
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when someone is telling me something important
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to them. Okay, gestures is
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another one. And gestures, just like body language— I just mentioned
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I was conditioned to fold my arms because it annoyed
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people that I had my hands everywhere, being all expressive
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with my hands. And then I had to untrain
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that. Um, and so some gestures
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are learned behaviors, and I don't want us to diminish
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that— those ideas. But when it comes to gestures,
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we need to be very careful about
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our assumptions about a gesture.
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Okay, and what I mean by that
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is, uh, some people's tendency
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may be to point and
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say, you know what, you're making me talk about this. And I
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want you to imagine someone pointing at you. That's a
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gesture, okay? We should not
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in this instant do this assumption
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that that person is saying something,
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um, ex— uh, that is blaming the therapist.
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Okay, that gesture may simply
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be their way of expressing frustration.
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So on the client end, we should look
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at those gestures and go, okay, there's something going
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on here that the client is disconnecting with.
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And on the therapist end, We should make sure we don't
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go, they're accusing me of stuff, and start becoming,
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um, uh, defensive in that situation.
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We should always be interpreting gestures through
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the eyes of the client. What do we think that
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gesture meant? Not what we think it meant,
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but what that may have meant for the client.
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All right, facial expressions.
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So, um, this is one of the more interesting
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things when it comes to neurology. Did you
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know that the muscles in your face
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take up more what's called motor response
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regions in your brain than your
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legs or your arms and
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your hand, that there's more area
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in your brain that is dedicated to all of
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your facial expressions— your smiles, your frowns,
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your surprise, and everything else— than
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any other part of the body.
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This reinforces research that
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shows that facial expression is really a
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window to a person's mind, if we put it in
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modern terms, to a person's brain intention.
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And facial expressions are culturally deterrent,
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going back to the eye contact example,
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because it's our culture that teaches us what
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certain facial expressions should mean.
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Okay, and so one, again, this is where we need to practice either
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cultural competency because we're a member of that culture,
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or cultural humility Because we're trying to work
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with a different culture and understand
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it not through our lens but their lens.
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But facial expressions are a very consistent,
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uh, neurological expression
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of a person's internal intentions.
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And I'll bring up an example.
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Um, when I used to work with victims of
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domestic violence— I shouldn't say victims, they were survivors— the
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survivors of domestic violence,
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a lot of times they would be so angry
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at what happened to them and the things
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that they went through, but their face
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was expressing complete loss,
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complete devoid of— here was
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this relationship that was going,
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that should have been the happiest times
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of my life,
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and their facial expression
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was completely separate from
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recalling all of the horrible things
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they went through in that relationship.
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Now, this isn't what you would call in clinical terms
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disassociation, where the person
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is expressing one thing and experiencing
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another. This is a person
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that, despite the horrible things they've gone through,
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is also mourning and grieving a loss of
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something that they wanted to
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make happen, to make wonderful, to make exist.
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And what do we do with that as counselors?
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One is that we recognize it. We say,
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you know what, in this context, you're telling me all
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of the things and the reasons why you had
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to get out of that relationship, but at the same
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time, you're experiencing a
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loss, and we need to address the
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loss right now. Because that's what
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you are expressing to me.
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That sounds much different than,
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oh, it really sounds like that guy
25:05
was an a-hole, or that person was an
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a-hole, and you are absolutely right for leaving
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that jerk.
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Versus this statement, and I want you
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to think which one would develop more growth.
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You are telling me about all of the horrible things
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you went through, but you're also
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expressing a deep sorrow and loss in
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your life. What does that
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mean for you? And I want you to think about that
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in what would have created a much
25:48
larger story in probability
25:52
of healing. Getting on the bandwagon—
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yes, you're right, you should have left him,
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or you had reasons to leave him but
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you're experiencing loss. And the same thing goes with
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Uh, because this course largely is taken for
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people with an addiction. When a person leaves
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an addiction, they are experiencing loss.
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They're experiencing trying to
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disconnect from something that was a part of them.
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And that doesn't always come out in their story.
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But it comes out in their face. It comes
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out in the emotions that we need to read in
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the eyes and face and gestures
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of someone else. And we need to be able to recognize
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that if we're going to create change.
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The next one is tone of voice.
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And Um, tone of voice.
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One, the first thing that we should have— should do in
27:07
a counseling relationship is establish a baseline.
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So baseline is establishing, for example,
27:17
when you're going through the technical aspects of the counseling
27:21
relationship, so, you know, explaining the privacy
27:25
protocol, the treatment
27:29
that you're proposing at this time,
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and they're agreeing to it in a baseline component.
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Are— is their baseline emotionally charged,
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or are they saying, yes, okay, I agree to this, I need to be here,
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or are they just completely quiet?
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Those questions I want you to think about when
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you are explaining confidentiality rules,
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All of those things, all of those mandatory things
28:01
in the back of your mind. You need to
28:05
be listening to the way they respond to those basic
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mandatory questions that we have to ask.
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What is the tone of their voice in order to
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establish a baseline? Okay,
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and this is why There are people who
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have what's called low emotional affect
28:28
in their voice, meaning that in any
28:33
everyday conversation, even one that should be emotionally
28:37
charged, they will sit there in a calm,
28:41
collective voice and explain,
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oh yeah, that, that happened to me.
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It sucked. And you know, that's why I'm here,
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to learn to do something different.
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And then there's other people who, uh,
29:00
maybe have very high emotion in their voice.
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Yes, I know I need to be here, and yes,
29:08
I agree to the rules, and,
29:12
and I need this. I know I need this.
29:16
And then there's gonna be people in the mid-range who say,
29:19
yeah, you know, I know I need to make change in my life. That's why
29:24
I'm here. And we need to— I need to really figure things
29:28
out. Okay. From the very first,
29:31
even when you're explaining why are you here, this is why we're here. You need
29:36
to create a baseline of
29:40
tone of voice. And why that
29:44
matters is then that can create a match
29:48
between eye contact, body language, and gestures.
29:53
Because if you have a high affective person,
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you may not know— you may not say— think
30:03
that every gesture and everything is a moment of crisis.
30:07
You may go, they're highly effective in their,
30:11
uh, tone of voice. And so this is where they're
30:15
at. And so this is their normal.
30:19
And with the low effective tone of voice,
30:25
you may not discount, oh, this person just
30:30
isn't involved. They just have a They
30:33
have no facial expression, they have nothing. They just sit
30:37
there through group and look at everyone. They contribute
30:41
when they need to. And in that, we may
30:44
assume that they are not involved,
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but they may be just as
30:52
involved as a high affect tone
30:57
person. They may be totally engaged.
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But also what this also establishes for you as the
31:07
counselor is this ability to
31:11
then see changes in tone of voices.
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So what happens when the highly affective tone person
31:19
then all of a sudden becomes very melancholy and low
31:23
affect? That's something that you would need to
31:26
pay attention to. And what if the low
31:30
affect tone person all of a sudden says,
31:34
dang it, no, or I really get
31:38
that? That's something that you would need to pay
31:42
attention to because that would be a moment of exploration
31:47
that you would need to do with that person and say, hey,
31:51
I just noticed that you got this or you rejected this.
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Let's explore that more.
31:59
All right.