Unit 2 Relating to Others
Overview
In this unit, we will explore the principles of emotional intelligence we covered in the first unit and expand to how we relate to others. We may think we know ourselves because we have a front row seat to what goes on in our own heads. However, we don’t always know how others experience us and we don’t know how others will respond to us. If you were watching yourself in a conversation with someone, what would you look like, sound like? How does the other person feel in that conversation with you? We will also explore the role past trauma plays in one’s response to conflict.
Topics
This unit is divided into the following topics:
The communication process
Self-awareness in conflict
Trauma informed conflict management
Learning Outcomes
When you have completed this unit, you should be able to:
- Describe the communication process
- Analyze the role trauma plays in communication and conflict management
Activity Checklist
Here is a checklist of learning activities you will benefit from in completing this unit. You may find it useful for planning your work.
Learning Activities
- Read 3.2 Communications Models by Melissa Ashman’s book Introduction to Professional Communications and watch a video about ways to listen better.
- Review the communication model posted and reflect on your last personal argument/disagreement. Take notes on your observations and be prepared to share your insights in the Discussion Forum in Unit 4.
- Review the adapted “Behaviour Process Model” and The Feeling Wheel by Positive Psychology Program and watch a video about the difference between thoughts and feelings. After, reflect on the questions provided.
- Read two articles that discuss strategies for identifying and developing emotional regulation skills and watch the video “DBT Skills: Emotions Regulation and acceptance”. After, reflect on the questions provided.
- Watch the videos The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response and “What is trauma?” and answer the given question.
- Read three articles about strategies for regulating emotions and consider the prompts given. Complete Unit Quiz.
Note that the learning activities in this course are ungraded, unless specified. They are designed to help you succeed in your assessments in this course, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them.
Assessment
- Professional Resource Manual (30%)
2.1 The Communication Process
We begin Unit 2 with continuing toward greater self-awareness and exploring how the nature of human communication impacts conflict. The origin of most conflict can be traced back to a communication issue. Just think of the last argument you had with your friend, family member, partner or work colleague. Somewhere along the way, something happened, and it didn’t go well, and you may have been asking yourself, “What just happened? Was it something I said, or did they just hear me wrong? The answer may be all the above. The fact is, communication would be so simple if it only involved the sender, the message and the receiver; the messenger, the message and the one for whom the message is for. A common communication model looks like this.
It looks simple and straightforward but in reality, it isn’t. Each step has factors that influence the process. In communication process models, these factors are referred to as noise. As you can see from this model below, noise can be physiological: things that affect either the sender or receiver that are physical in nature. Noise can be psychological: things that affect the sender or receiver that are, well, psychological in nature. Noise can also be related to the message itself, like the words that are used. Finally, noise can affect the channel; what is the medium through which the message is being communicated. Good communication skills require one to be aware of the noise that can interfere with what needs to be communicated. So, in answer to your question, “Was it something I said?” Maybe but it may have been the way you said it, your tone. Or maybe you picked the wrong time to say because the other person was tired or hungry or in a rush.
Activity: Read and watch
Read 3.2 Communications Models by Melissa Ashman’s book Introduction to Professional Communications
Next, watch the TED Talk “5 ways to listen better” by Julian Treasure. Pay attention to what RASA stands for.
Questions to consider
After completing the activities above, consider the following questions:
- What tools can we use to listen better and communicate with confidence?
- What do I know about myself that often contributes to the ‘noise’ in my communication with others?
2.2 Self-Awareness in Conflict
We need to look to ourselves first to see what is going on within us in order to find the most effective, most successful way forward when dealing with conflict.
- What is my underlying motivation in a particular conflict?
- What values am I operating out of?
- How do I view others in this conflict?
- What role are my emotions playing in my actions?
Three realities that often blindside us when dealing with conflict:
- The biggest obstacle to getting what we want is usually not the other person, no matter how difficult they might be, it is me and my own agenda, my own biases, and my own perceptions.
- In conflict we often default to self-protect, self-defense and self-promote to preserve our own sense of worth and well-being.
- We often take on a “win-lose” posture - the only way we can get what we want is if the other person doesn’t, rather than a win-win posture whereby we both can walk away achieving a win.
But before we can understand our ‘opponent’ we must first understand ourselves.
According to author’s Fisher and Ury (2011), we have a natural tendency towards self-preservation and assigning blame to others. because we fear there is not enough. We think we are not enough. This is a scarcity mentality. However, if we can’t get to a place of personal security and peace, we cannot get to a place of peace in other relationships and conflict will define our relationships.
In order to engage in relationships with empathy, being emotionally intelligent, we need to understand ourselves. To understand our emotions.
Emotions are an important part of what makes us human. We humans feel and feel deeply. To deny the fact we have feelings is to subvert an important part of who we are. Many of us were raised to ignore our feelings and we were also told our feelings can’t be trusted (Scazzero, 2017).
Disney-Pixar released the film Inside Out in 2015. The film is about a young girl’s experience with big changes and disappointments in her life, but the story is mainly told through the lens of the emotions that drive her actions. It is a film worth watching if you can because it highlights the role emotions can play in dictating our actions.
Have you ever been surprised by your response to something? Had the thought, “I don’t know what came over me and why I did that?” It is almost as if we assume there are forces at work in us that are somehow separate from us. Almost like there are alien influences making us behave in ways we didn’t mean to.
In the field of psychotherapy, there is a strategy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). According to the American Psychology Associations, CBT involves strategies to change thinking and behavioral patterns that hinder normal day to day functioning. Below is a visual adaptation of the process.
A situation you encounter stimulates a thought which causes you to feel something which in turn causes you to respond or act. For example, you walk into the lunchroom at work and they look up at you and burst out laughing (situation). Your thought may be, “They are laughing at me. I must be a joke to them.” This thought triggers you to feel embarrassed and leave the room and slam the door (behaviour). Your coworkers are confused because all they saw was your behaviour of leaving and slamming the door. Your slamming the door could’ve triggered this thought, “Our colleague has an anger management problem…” And you can imagine many different directions this scenario could continue. What do you think is the most important step? Imagine if you had told yourself the right story or at least taken a minute to find out what the conversation was about.
Activity: Read, Review and Reflect
Review the adapted “Behaviour Process Model” and “The Feeling Wheel” by Positive Psychology Program.
Next, watch the video “Thoughts vs. Feelings” by Kayla McGee where feelings, thoughts, and the difference between them are explained.
Reflect on the scenario in the work lunchroom that was mentioned above.
Questions to consider
- What part do you have no control over?
- What are some believable, alternate stories you could tell yourself as to why they were laughing? Identify other feelings that could’ve been triggered.
- How would that have changed your feelings? How would you have behaved differently?
- What if your colleagues were laughing because someone had just recounted a story that happened to them, and you walked in right at the funniest part of the story?
Be prepared to share your thoughts during the live session
Activity: Read, Watch, and Reflect
For this activity, you will read the following articles:
- “5 strategies for managing your emotions using emotional regulation” in the Canadian Mental Health Association website.
- “Emotion Regulation: Definition + 21 Strategies to Manage Emotions” in the Berkeley Wellbeing Institute website
After you have completed your reading, reflect on your own habits and articulate different strategies to improve your emotional regulation.
Next, watch the video “DBT Skills: Emotions Regulation and acceptance” where you will learn that naming and accepting our emotions is one way we can practice emotion regulation, an important Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skill and one of the core components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Questions to consider
After completing the activities above, consider the following questions:
- What will I do to help me learn when I need to tell myself a different story?
- What relevance does this have to conflict management?
We have no control over the situation that presents itself-the thing that sends us into a cycle of thoughts and feelings. But we can control our actions. And we can learn to be aware of our thoughts and feelings
2.3 Trauma Informed Conflict Management
Our brains are designed to respond to threats in our environment, sound the alarm through our body and get ready to fight, flee or freeze. This is known as the fight, flight or freeze response and it is instinctual. It happens without conscious thought, and it is designed to protect us. This is a healthy response.
What is trauma?
When we experience trauma, real threats to our life, that experience is stored in our brain. Down in the amygdala and limbic system. Those parts of our brain are like the storage basement of a house. We have an expression, “Out of sight, Out of mind.” Trauma memories are not part of our daily consciousness.
Trauma is an injury resulting from an experience that overwhelms one’s ability to protect oneself and stay safe. The injury can be physical, developmental, emotional, relational, and/or spiritual. Mediators Beyond Borders International
Author, Bessel Van Der Kolk (2014 wrote a book called, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma. He argues that our primitive brain, shared with other mammals, is geared toward survival. If our normal response is blocked (trapped, held down, prevented, frozen out) from action, our brain keeps secreting stress hormones. This limits our PFC activity–keeping our thinking brain off-line-while our amygdala and limbic system emotional (survival) brain remains in charge. Thus, “PTSD is the body continuing to defend against a threat that belongs in the past.” (p. 60).
Essentially, our body will respond before we are even aware. Before we have a conscious thought about a situation because the experience is stored in the basement of our brains and it is powerful to give orders to the rest of our body, without going through our consciousness.
The problem is, when we have experienced trauma of some sort, the warning system becomes maladaptive. It sends off false activations. False alarms.
It is important to remember that stress, anxiety, and fear are different. Anxiety is related to the future, but fear is related to the present. The here and now. Fear is when the ‘danger’ is imminent, immediate.
Why does this matter when we talk about conflict? Because it relates to our awareness of our own past traumas that may hijack our intentions of healthy conflict management, alerting us to our increased self-regulation. It will help us attend to our ‘other awareness’ and their response, thereby enhancing our ability to engage with empathy.
Trauma Informed Conflict Management
Self-awareness includes being aware of words or actions that will trigger a negative response. Trigger words and phrases are those that cause a listener to feel strong emotions because of previous experiences. While the phrase is used in a number of different ways, we’re using it here as many people now do, to refer to words or phrases that trigger memories and emotions from traumatic events. Trigger words
Activity: Watch and Reflect
Watch the following videos:
- “The Fight Flight Freeze Response” by Braive
- “What is trauma?” by Big Think
Watch: The Fight Flight Freeze Response
After watching these two videos, reflect on the following question:
What do you think is the difference between a normal stress, anxiety or fear response and a trauma response?
Activity: Read and Reflect “Personal Experience”
Read the article following articles:
Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining The 4 Trauma Responses by Julie Nguyen (September 2021)
Trauma-Informed Conflict Engagement in the Mediators Beyond Borders website.
What are your conflict hooks by Tammy Lenski.
After completing the readings above, take a moment to consider the following prompts:
- Identify a time when you were surprised by your reaction to something someone said or did?
- Identify if you were ‘triggered’ by something?
- Identify 3-5 strategies you can use to regulate your response.
Assessment
Professional Resource Manual
Begin to strategize and design your Professional Resource Manual that will be due at the end of the course. Please see the Assessment section in Moodle for full instructions, as well as the grading rubric.
Unit 2 Summary
In this unit, we have dug deeper into how to develop greater self-awareness by examining the surface of communication, a potential source of conflict due to noise in the Communication Process Model. We then took a step deeper into our personal responses, including emotions and reactions to any given situation through the adapted Behavioural Process Model. We can’t control the situations we might encounter but we can learn to examine the thoughts or the stories we tell ourselves and thereby control our actions. You learned how the body’s natural protective response to danger can be overstimulated as a result of trauma. This unhealthy response can impede healthy communication and conflict management.
Checking your Learning
Before you move on to the next unit, you may want to check to make sure that you are able to:
- Describe the communication process.
- Analyze the role trauma plays in communication and conflict management.
References
American Psychological Association. (July, 2017). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
Ashman, M., (June, 2018). Introduction to professional communication. Pressbooks.
Big Think, (2021, Sept. 17). What is Trauma? The author of “The Body Keeps the Score” explains with Bessel Van Der Kolk [Video]. https://youtu.be/BJfmfkDQb14
Braive, (2016, March 31). The Flight, Fight, Freeze Response.Video.
Canadian Mental Health Association (2021, April 21). 5 strategies for managing your emotions using emotional regulation. Canadian Mental Health Association. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from (https://cmha.ca/news/5-strategies-for-managing-your-emotions).
Davis, T. (n.d.).[Emotion Regulation: Definition + 21 Strategies to Manage Emotions.]Berkley Wellbeing Institute. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from (https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotion-regulation.html).
Fisher, R & Ury, W. (2011).Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. New York, NY: The Penguin Group.
Lenski, T. (1, January 1).What are your conflict hooks?Tammy Lenski. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from (https://tammylenski.com/what-are-your-conflict-triggers).
McGee, K. (2018, March 19).Thoughts vs. Feelings[Video]. https://youtu.be/VQQGYny7pq0
Mediators Beyond Borders International (n.d.).Trauma-Informed Conflict Engagement.Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/what-we-do/conflict-literacy-framework/trauma-informed/#:~:text=Traumatized%20individuals%20may%20respond%20to,your%20observation%20of%20another%27s%20response.
Nguyen , J. (2021, September 11).Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining the Four Trauma Responses. mbghealth. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from [https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/fight-flight-freeze-fawn-trauma-responses]
Scazzero, P., (2017).Emotionally Healthy Spirituality(Updated Edition). Zondervan.
Self-Help Toons. (2020, Aug. 24).DBT Skills: Emotion, Regulation and Acceptance Video.
TEDGlobal, (2011).5 Ways to Listen Better by Julian Treasure.[Video].
(https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare).
Van Der Kolk, B., (2014).The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma. Penguin Random House.
Westman, L. (2017).Understanding people, mental health and trauma.
Wikipedia contributors. (2023, April 13). Inside Out (2015 film). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 18:03, April 13, 2023, from
(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inside_Out_(2015_film)&oldid=1149631046).