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A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#301

Post by davak »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

As somebody that has this specific discussion regularly, I find that framing it as a group has helped in circumstances similar to yours. Framing it this way to your family and the health care team may help.

“This decision is so difficult, let us share this burden with you. If we have to make a decision to remove life support, you shouldn’t have to make that decision alone. If we decide the massive costs of long term life support which may drain the estate, we should make that decision together.

Dad would trust that we as a family would come together and make these tough decisions together.”

People go through various stages of mourning so sometime just time helps.

Remember that the family’s job is to be your Dad’s voice. What would he want?

Events like this bring out the worst in everybody. These are just a few strategies that have worked for me in the past. Good luck.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#302

Post by JangoSteve »

tome wrote: post #94
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This is what NVC does. Notice how this person is attempting to sound authentic, genuine, helpful, and hopeful. But also notice that they are very subtly positioning themselves as someone who has learned some Very Big Life Lessons, whereas who they are talking to has not. And then they close off. With small sentences. For. Dramatic. Effect. See how wise they are?

I'm not sure I follow. From my minimal understanding NVC is about expressing how things make one feel rather than telling someone else the direction in which their life will go. kodz4's comment didn't mention the word "I" and was all about "you". Thus I don't see what it has to do with NVC at all. Can you explain?

I think I understand what they were saying above, and I don't think it's the interpretation that dragonwriter makes in a sibling comment.

They weren't saying that kodz4 was using NVC. They were saying that the problem they have with NVC is that it has the potential to come off the same way that kodz4's comment has the potential to come off.

They were saying that kodz4's comment felt disingenuous to them because it asserts their opinion that NVC is good by stating it as fact, and that they would eventually realize this "fact" only once they have "a few big unrecoverable screwups in life" (thereby implying that since they don't like NVC, the only explanation is that they have never experienced such things in life).

The implication is that the reason for their disagreement on the value of NVC is because those who value it have learned more from life than those who don't value NVC.

And yet, the comment is worded empathetically, starting with, "It takes time." And it ends with the advice, "And then pick up the book," which could be interpreted as veiled condescension since it again assumes the person hasn't read the book, because if one knew the information contained in the book, there's no way they could disagree.

It re-frames the discussion of two alternate opinions, as an assumption of fact versus "haven't yet learned the fact." This is disingenuous, since it assumes one side must have more information than the other, instead of acknowledging the possibility that each side just has different information.

And I think they were simply saying that this disingenuous re-framing of discussions to further one's own goals or opinions in hopes the other side doesn't recognize the disingenuous re-framing of the discussion, is something that NVC and kotz4's comment had in common.

In the same way that the person using NVC may not be doing it disingenuously though, so to might kodz4 realize they're treating their own opinion as a fact. But that may also be the problem with such forms of communication, that they have the potential to be interpreted as disingenuous even when they're not.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#304

Post by mjcohen »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

You may need to talk to a lawyer.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#305

Post by oska »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

Why was it you having the conversation and not your wife?

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#306

Post by tome »

Wizek wrote: post #303

If anyone wants to have some real-time chat about NVC, or ask questions of people who have years of experience using the technique, you can come here: https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##nvc It's the ##nvc channel on Freenode.

Thanks! I joined and I'm glad I did :)

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#307

Post by ne_jo »

Imho just beat him: imho again if it's my father, and laws are specific so dumb, there are no questions denying me to talk to my father, would it be a brother in law or natural brother. It is not a matter of choice that he has to take by himself (other than think he "has the possibility to feel responsible", but that's also not a question and not an option, imo). I would make him understood that it is not a choice, nor me that I'm asking him if he will allow me, he has to understand (imho) within goods or bads: if it's for my father, he will come after, on a different level of importance. Really to me allowing him to take responsability as to "help" himself, or make him to feel this experience, is something that might even be silly, like what: "have a solace try?", whitin the life of another person? Because hospital's laws are dumb? Imho no way, and no no fight if needed (you also older).

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#308

Post by nfin »

helloworld wrote: post #296
nfin wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not figure how to buy it :( :( Only one website seems to have it, but shipping only to Australia :( Any ideas how to get it??

I was curious, too, and after some Googling, I found it here: http://www.groktheworld.com/communication-fundamentals-2nd-e... Looks like they ship just about anywhere.

thanks, you‘re awesome!

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#309

Post by jacobolus »

hitekker wrote: post #270
jacobolus wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not non-violent communication. If the subtext is “figure out what unstated thing I want you to do and then do it or I will fire you”, then that is quite violent. Making both the demand and the threat explicit would probably be better.

I think you're overloading the word "violent". What you really mean is "coercive" which, interestingly enough, is the blindspot of the ideology extolled by the OP's article.

I am not an expert in NVC, but my understanding is that avoiding unintentionally coercive language is one of the chief goals. I certainly wouldn’t claim that its title is rhetorically neutral.

Picking apart the fine distinctions between violence and coercion is something I’m happy to leave to the philosophers.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#310

Post by scruple »

tashian wrote: post #284
darkpuma wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So true. [...] But, [I disagree] Help me out here, is this the power of NVC?

Hmmm... I may have been better off with "and" instead of "but" here, because I was agreeing with the parent comment and adding my own encouragement. scruple took no clear stance in the original comment on whether empathy is learnable or not. I believe it is.

I didn't intend to imply that it can't be learned, I also think that it can be. My argument is with folks who think that things like NVC are a process they can apply by following a series of steps.
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