by Ennio Ammendola, M.A.
Anywhere you work, anywhere you go to school, and at any party you are present, there is almost always someone that asks, in the middle of a conversation, “Are you listening to me?”
There are two kinds of “Are you listening to me?” interruptions. The first refers to the content and the second indicates psychological pain.
Let’s analyze these two scenarios:
SCENARIO #1
ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? (Focused on Content)You are with friends at a party and
one is telling you that he is planning to drive to Boston this weekend to go to visit his parents. Then he pays attention to you and cannot stop noticing that you are not listening to him, so he asks, “Are you listening to me?” This question means “Did you pay attention to my words?” and even more specifically, “Can you tell me what I just said?”
You may say, “Sorry, I was distracted. Can you tell me again?” or, if you are feeling honest, “You already told me this 100 times.”
SCENARIO #2
ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? (Focused on Attending to Psychological Pain)
You are with a friend and she is telling you that since the accident happened, she does not feel the same anymore. Then she starts crying, waiting for you to say something nice, validating, supportive, or empathic. But you do not say anything. Then she looks at you and ask with a firm tone of voice, “Are you listening to me?!” This question means “Did you pay attention to my pain?” and even more specifically “Can you acknowledge my pain?”
A good friend may respond, “I’m sorry. It was not my intention to minimize your pain. Can you tell me again?”
In REBT we are trained to listen to the clients’ content and attend to their psychological pain as well. I think that a lot of clinicians do not have this right and they think we “should” only pay attention to the content because we only work on “changing the words.” I get offended when I hear this and I hope I am not the only one.
Training in REBT means that as therapists, we learn not only to pay attention to the content, but also if not mostly to attend to the clients’ psychological pain. We never stop at just the “content” piece as we have been unfairly depicted.
May “Are you listening to me?” be with you,
Ennio
