For many clients, the holiday season is a time to get together with friends and family.
But when relationships are strained by ideological differences, these reunions can quickly turn into stressful situations.
So in the video below, Stephen Porges, PhD shares one way to help clients connect with people who hold strong opposing views.
Have a look.
I will tell you the story I had.We were moving from North Carolina to Indiana, and a moving truck came to our house in North Carolina. My wife, Sue, was already in Indiana. The driver walks into the house and says, “You look like an academic.” In general, to me, that used to be a positive statement, “You look like an academic.” And he says, “No, I don’t like academics. They have these very biased views in the world.” Initially, I started to get into a dialogue, and then I realized there was no dialogue to be had, that he had a whole set of views. This was during the primary, the 2016 primary. He said that his person was Ted Cruz and he started talking about that he wasn’t even… I thought we had a common ground if I talked about minimum wage. No, not even that. He didn’t want his kids going to college because they’d be exposed to liberal views. I just started to listen to him go on and on and on. He then left and he went to Indiana and he saw my wife. He said, “Great conversation with your husband,” is what he said.
Now, what it was was an important point. That was one of the first times in my life that I realized that discussing or arguing was a waste of time, but it didn’t mean the person was an evil person. And what I did was I was an effective witness. I listened to that person. I didn’t try to change the person’s mind. I respected his viewpoints, and I think that’s part of what’s going on. I think people want to be heard and they don’t want to be humiliated by being told they’re wrong, but they want to be heard. I think if we go back to the concept of a trauma survivor, what does a trauma survivor really want? A trauma survivor wants to be witnessed, wants to have a voice. And so much of the reaction to trauma has been to take the voice away from the survivor.
In a sense, we want to know the events, the judicial consequences of what may have happened to the person. We’re not focusing on how that person is feeling. We need to become good witnesses. I’m really saying that we may not agree, in most cases or in many cases, we don’t agree on these things. But we certainly have to have a degree of understanding that we can witness the other person’s statements. It may be difficult to even witness their perspective, but they want to express their feelings. They want that space to say, “This is how I feel.” It’s a powerful thing if we can do it. In a sense, if we’re not interpreting the words and we’re not getting mad.
I frequently talk about people who are super coregulators and they walk into a room and it doesn’t matter what someone is saying or what dialogue’s going on and, suddenly, everyone feels just comfortable and safe in their presence. When people say, “Are you a super coregulator?” I say, “Absolutely not, but I’m a good enough coregulator Most of the time.” The point is that I am vulnerable like most people or many people, but there are some super coregulators out there and we learn a lot from them. That is that ability to allow the other person to say their part, not to step on their words, not to tell them they’re wrong, not to evaluate them, but to, in a sense, witness them.
I appreciated the connection Stephen made between this approach and how you might work with trauma.
So now I’d like to hear your thoughts. How might you use this in your work with clients? What are some other ways you’re helping clients navigate strained relationships? Leave a comment below to let us know.
(We can’t wait to hear how you’ll use these ideas with your clients. But keep in mind that this is a learning community for practitioners. Please do NOT seek advice for personal problems, ask for referrals, or post links to advertisements.)
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
When Political Differences Hurt Relationships – an Exercise for Your Clients
I loved this Steven Porgas story. I have been using this deep listening ever since I first read his experience. I am now teaching it to all my clients. Thank you for spreading the good word. I want to be a light beam of such relational wholeness and connection as well.
Thank you,
Donna Blethen MFT, Pacifica, Ca
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
Such a great gift to humanity 🙏🏼💝
Dr.Porges, your kindness and compassion is much appreciated in my societal needs. We so needed you in our work. It has helped me survive this recently observed cruelty I have sadly had been exposed since very early childhood. It helped me put the pieces of my puzzle and so many of the clients I have worked with. Connecting with the Polyvagal Theory has helped me grow in my work with clients coupled with family systems.
It is my hope that your generosity of spirit continues for future generations in our field. I see changes within the medical arena. Have been so lucky to have relationships with the doctors regularly throughout my career. Missing this camaraderie in semi retirement but their influence still helps me remember the hope we all shared for unity and collaboration.
Thanks for being you and your perseverance in this trauma war in the world. Lives are waiting to heal and blossom into an enlightened world full of hope and wonder. Thanks for being there in these recent years.
People do need to be listened to and we are used to this need and the honor or the human spirit that is involves.
I, by no means am dismissing oppression or the mistreatment of anyone in any race creed or color but everyone needs to be acknowledged and treated with respect. I love the word witness It conveys worth. We have created so many “Protected groups” to the point were there is a danger of dehumanizing human beings. The affliction of certain groups needs to be addressed but when involved with a situation such as this one hearing is essential. I thank You Dr. Porges for this wisdom and I will certainly be mindful of this exercise when listening to someone who seems rigid .
It may seem unhoned, but there really is no alternative to knowing how to listen AND THEN ALSO RESPOND RESPECTFULLY to people who would oppress you. They have their own fears that could be addressed in a nuanced response. That is the approach offered by learning the Emotional Logic method of healthy adjustment to change, in this instance a change that would manipulate you into suppression. It revolves around naming personal values that have been identified as features of life that people worry about losing. A respectful response can be energized by understanding loss emotions in a more constructive way than cognitive psychology currently does. They are not negative. They are the informational evidence of people’s values. Acknowledging that opens up new possibilities for respectful conversations.
I truly appreciate the skill Stephen describes: to deeply listen. What a healing practice. This story helps remind me to actively practice the skill.
Thank him and you for sharing this.
Sincerely,
Donna
I love the idea of super co regulators! Thank you for the guidance and for the engaging personal story. The guidance is welcome but the story allows me to feel I know you just a bit better.
I love the story telling and how it lead to such a beautiful point of being the witness, people do want to be heard.
With clients moving forward this will help me to make extra pauses before speaking
Thanks you as always 🙏🏻
Thank you Stephen Porges for the reminder to witness others, whether they agree with us or not, whether it’s actually a conversation or a monologue. That takes true courage. Not so certain I am up to just taking it…but it sure worked for you!
The solution to being in peace with people that have opposing beliefs is to be in peace yourself.
When you identify with a set of beliefs and encounter someone with opposing thoughts what happens is you feel like you are being threatened.
You have identified yourself as the thoughts and the attack of them feels like its attacking you( and that is ego).
You have to understand that peoples opinions are not who they are,it is just their conditioning . Human beings are more than the sum of what they think( or their conditioned mind).
You have to not feel like you have to verbally attack others in order to defend your thoughts/beliefs. The truth does not ever require this, debate and discussion has long been missing in many fields. Many people today cannot even hold two opposing ideas in their mind.
You have to really feel the love you feel for family and friends, practice breath awareness, as this can help ground you.
If you are intolerant and not open to or ready to listen to opposing beliefs without reacting with negativity ( fear/anger ) then just say to your family/friends that have a different opinion ” My love I am afraid I will get lost in ( taken over by ) neg emotion if we talk about (fill in gap -media meme) so can we not discuss it until I am more grounded in presence.” Then go and meditate.
a wonderful comment.
I’m always the one in the room at holidays that’s “plugged in” to the heart of every conversation while hosting my family. If someone seems to be getting too gregarious or animated and is causing others to feel uncomfortable, I usually am the first to pick up on it and will chime in with, “how about those Cowboys?” or some such thing to redirect the conversation. Does that make me a super co-regulator?
As a mother of six I have many superpowers. 🤗 Interestingly, many of them share this same gift for creating and maintaining a safe environment for whoever they’re with…something I admire greatly in them, but have not recognized so much in myself until now. Thanks for this perspective. Very helpful and useful as a trauma survivor and evidence-based trauma coach. I just love all that you do!
I agree! That grabbed my attention too.
Thank you for the beautiful reflection
This is so basic to the therapeutic stance that it shouldn’t have to be said, but it does! It applies to a large extent in social interaction.
Patricia
This is thought provoking and useful
Ditto
There is a big difference between political opinions and human rights and cursory approaches to casual conversation avoid this difficult aspect. Big difference between spending on bridges and treatment of people who are not in the ruling party.
The difficulty is not to confuse your tolerance of other’s views with condoning their views I remember reading about a bartender that didn’t allow neo nazi talk and beliefs to be espoused because he’d learned that if you allow that kind of talk it breeds a belief that you accept it and all on enough it opens the door to bigoted behavior . I know that with clients who have espoused racist or misogynistic talk in therapy I work very hard to remain neutral but try hard to make clear that my neutrality doesn’t imply agreement
Thank you so much for your story as witness!
Not just with clients, but with others on staff. I’m thinking that this is something that our whole staff needs to look at, even if they are not “trauma focused”.
I really needed to watch this. Here in Australia we have developed the same polarisation that we see in America – about vaccination, climate action, the pandemic etc., etc. My blood boils when I think people ignore science but it doesn’t help. I am going to try to be a witness and co-regulator. Thank you Stephen.
Being a good enough co regulator and encouraging my clients to have a voice has been so beneficial to engaging with my clients. To be heard and just to ‘be with’ them allows them to feel safe and express themselves knowing they are not being judged.
I come from a family tradition of sharing, discussing and debating strong points of view. I miss that tradition and what I often encounter is people shutting down or changing the subject into “nice talk”. But these days with the siloing of media sources, there’s also red versus blue polarization without appreciation of common ground or nuances or recognition of both sides’ contradictions or empathy for underlying grievances.
I applaud Stephen Porges for listening to the mover. However, even if the mover evidenced prejudice towards “academics”, Porges didn’t appear to reflect that many non-degreed people feel condescended to, unheard and there’s ample evidence that they are. I also would ideally like it if after listening, Porges would both join with the movers (of the world) where possible and respectfully disagree.
In my sessions, I often urge my clients not to dehumanize others with different points of view (don’t be intolerant towards the intolerant!) and I share that I can understand the anger of those who have been dismissed, condescended to and stereotyped—whether those are oppressed minorities or workers who’ve seen their industries permanently shuttered and living standards gutted. And I sometimes share that I don’t like the red vs blue binary categories because I don’t entirely fit into either….I prefer to think critically and strive to empathize with all (except for those who are profiting from this destructive division).
Love this! Holding space for someone with strong viewpoints that oppose our own can be so powerful. Listening with the intent of making the other person feel heard fosters connection and regulates the nervous system. I think if more people did this, there would be less conflict on Social Media platforms which (for better or for worse) most people view on a daily basis.
It does take more energy, but there is great value in being able to actually hear what others are saying without the need to push our own viewpoint/agenda. “You are selfish and ignorant if you don’t get vaccinated” can translate in to ‘I am scared because I/a loved one has a health condition and may die if I/they contract Covid’. Or “You are taking away my right to freedom and I’m going to protest and fight” can translate to ‘someone took away my freedom/right to choose/violated me in the past and I am going to fight this with the intensity that I wish that I did then’.
By respectfully listening to the mover’s opposing viewpoint, Dr. Porges may have begun to shift the mover’s view of academics in the positive direction.
The intro was focused on holiday dinners, so I’m responding from that viewpoint. Not every meet-up with family should involve talking about what we disagree about. There has to be a place for rituals of celebration of family, gratitude for the chance to sit together, appreciating people, that are not interrupted by the stress of disagreement. We all need and deserve those blessing times in our lives. And gathered family groups, often with too many witnesses and perhaps a little too much wine, are rarely the right venue for conversations of deep listening and acknowledgement of conflict. Acknowledging differing views quickly, agreeing to meet later to talk, or not meet later at all, allows the celebration ritual to continue and honors the joy that is so much a part of our longing as humans. There is plenty of time to engage in disagreements, and better ways to do it, than at a celebration and gratitude ritual. Celebration rituals and conflict rituals don’t mix and result in both rituals not getting the full attention they deserve.
Well said, Bruce Anderson. I see this as an extension of what Richard Rorty (and others) were getting at in acknowledging our incommensurable needs for private irony and public solidarity. In “rituals of celebration of family, gratitude for the chance to sit together, appreciating people,” whether relatives or friends or neighbours or colleagues—whatever group of diverse people—we all need a space in which to experience solidarity, tolerance (though that word’s been tainted), being, mattering, and inviolability.
It is an interesting approach, the therapeutic approach applied to an out of therapy situation. There are so many parameters in the potential holiday dinner situation! Is it my home, I am the host? Am I a guest? The difference in age, and certainly each one personal history and experience.
Personally, I wouldn’t share a meal with someone who justifies and celebrates racial hate or that supports those who do.
To a potential client I would recommend careful consideration before accepting an invitation to a gathering which includes extremists of any sort. Lately there is a joke running around suggesting to use the Covid19 menace to justify not to attend a boring party. All and all not such a bad idea…
Another way, if present and offended, there is always the option to say “ let’s leave this subject out of the conversation because it is very controversial, let’s avoid discord or discomfort at this wonderful table our host made such an effort in putting together”, or something of that sort.
Good luck!
Very interesting video. I had never heard the term “Super Co-Regulator” before, and came to realize THAT is why I’ve “collected” so many people around me who have such different (and often diametrically opposed) views to mine. I guess I can take it as a “good thing” now that I understand it, but I REALLY need to find a way to gather MANY more people around me who share my views. I’ve had to cut off all contact with two former “friends” when I could no longer stand by and witness their lies, their pathologically insane beliefs in conspiracy theories, and illegal actions. At least I now know “why” they were able to creep into my circle of friends. Forewarned is forearmed for next time, and I can take action to block “the next one” from getting too close! It’s been a painful personal lesson, but I realize I’m better off having “no friends” than bad friends who drag me down!
I’d like to thank Dr. Porges for very clear, succinct and helpful advice. I would like to offer an additional observation. In decades preceding this one, it seems to me that political views were held differently. That is, not as intensely and self-righteously. So therefore it was possible to have a lively discussion with someone whose views are very different from our own in a civil, give and take manner. I have made the mistake of holding on to an expectation from bygone days that such a give-and-take is still possible. For me it is a case of just giving up that expectation. Most people these days are not able to enter into a friendly debate because the political views are so intensely held. So “just listening” respectfully as Dr. Porges has described is the best approach. Another facet of the current political atmosphere is the judging of others’ motives. That is toxic to any dialogue, as I try to point out to my clients who wonder why their relationships are not better than they are.
Hello John,
Thank you for your insight and offering your observations. Would you please expend on what you mean by “judging other’s motives [as] toxic to any dialogue?
With gratitude,
Alma
I agree Dr. Porges, it’s incredibly healthy and intellectually good for us as human beings to listen to others opinions without trying to change them and also to be heard and say something that another might hear without ourselves needing to change their views as well. But, what do you do or say to the person at the table who insists on being right and insists that all must agree with their view points? It’s one thing to smile and know that my opinion doesn’t mater at the moment and that listening is possibly beneficial to them and myself, but to be intellectually or emotionally bullied into agreeing with someone at the table or in the room just to eat a Thanksgiving dinner or have an enjoyable time with other human beings is rather daunting. Navigating through or around that kind of person is a whole other dilemma that at times can be frustrating abd difficult to manage within ones self. Please do a video on people who insist on others agreeing with them. Happy holidays 💜💜💜
I really love his point of view, for me there is our own freedom, everybody can have a ponit of view but, it is in oir ownbresponsability to respond in a certain vay, there is where liberty is and it is the last of the things someone can take aemway from us. (Viktor Frankl talks about it beatifully)
Good and laudable attitude. For me, the problem comes up more, when I should be in a space with people who are deniers of any risk or any virus at all that can cause damage or death, than with speaking which may be difficult as well, of course, when both sides feel but the other side is stone-walling. I then tend to look for neutral common ground, to calm things down and make one more approachable. With clients I need to establish physical safety first as well – and then I can accept another view and be interested in talking. So far, I did not meet clients with issues due to COVID, other than feeling lonely, shut out and shut off from work, helpless, stressed out, anxious…
Stephen Covey-best selling author in leadership-used to say to those holding opposing views: ” we agree that we disagree”. To me, it means that I disagree with your ideas and yet I respect you as a human being. I am not sure we humans have learned how escape the loop of againstness to one another that leads to violence and war. And when caught in violence and war, I am not sure we have learned to heal the collective traumas caused.
Practicing effective witnessing with anyone who doesn’t share your perspective increases the comfort zone of your emotional bandwidth. Probably theirs too? A superco-regulator is the butter ‘n cream at the table, not the turkey!
Story telling is my favorite way to learn and teach, thanks for this cool holiday video.
This is a problem called total mind identification( unconsciousness).
The Rogerian method of being present really listening openly with love, of not mistaking the media in-ceptioned thoughts and beliefs for who people really are.
The political system works on divide and conquer. Why do you think we have so called opposing political parties with different opposing ideology (when “no matter who you vote for the govt always gets in”).
The media with its one narrative has been amplifying unconsciousness and spreading divisive memes like racism, political ideology( dem vs rep), ” covid19″ and ” man made global warming”.
Connecting with your own being is a good way of not loosing family and friends in this time of many sucked into the unreality of the media meta-verse.
Totally hear you. Same boat here with family members. While I appreciate the advice; at some point, I’m not so sure that ‘hearing’ a Holocaust denier is the right step either. I don’t have a solution either! Listening up to a point, yes; but condoning lies for the sake of peace? The worst crimes in history are fostered by people who just want to get along. Use caution.