hi guys welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome to my channel my name is Stephanie Yates on e belay stephania for short and I'm a licensed associate marriage and family therapist this channel is for fellow therapists those thinking of becoming therapists and those who are simply looking to create their best lives today's video is mostly for those who are looking to create their best lives but can also be a nice refresher for anyone who is in the process of becoming a therapist or is currently a therapist today I'll be talking about the five communication stances if you're curious stay tuned [Music] so today we'll be talking about Virginia satirists human growth model I'm not going to go into depth about what her model is I'll do that in a separate video if you have any requests for that that's more for my therapist in training but what I'll be doing today for those who are trying to create their best lives is telling you what those five communication stances are and you do a deep dive here see which of these communication stances applies the most to you there's only one of them that is considered to be healthy and put you in a position of actually being able to have effective communication with the people who are important to you the other four put you in a position of not dealing with your emotions not working through them with the people you care about and it makes it difficult for you to break cycles and your relationships that need to be addressed and changed so without further ado let's jump into what those five communication stances are the first one I'm going to highlight is the blamer this person looks at problems happening in their world through the lens of things that other people have done so in a family this is the person that's always pointing they did it they did it instead of asking what did I do to contribute to this situation this puts you in a position of not really being able to take accountability and not be able to make the effective change that you have the power to make in your life so if you are a blamer when you're communicating with people you're doing it from an accusatory standpoint this puts the other person into a defense mode and makes them unable to really talk with you and work things through in a way where you guys won't have to deal with this issue as often for a blamer they tend to be really critical and it hides their own pain they think that by pointing to others they can hide their own insecurities and feelings of deficiency a lot of times what I see with my couples is that that person does not feel sufficient as a partner so they feel like if they can beat down that other partner of course this is all subconsciously and they feel like they can beat that other partner down than their equal and on their level instead of just acknowledging their own insecurities and feelings of deficiency and working on those things so in this case when you ignore what's really bothering you such as your own deficiencies then you just point at your partner you're actually missing out on an opportunity to learn from your partner how you can grow in that area or maybe your partner might actually validate that you're already doing well in the areas that you're concerned about so if you find yourself constantly blaming your partner for all of the issues in your relationship are you a blame er the next one is titled by Sudhir as the irrelevant this person their role is really to distract from chaos and tension and emotionality so you all might be having a serious conversation about things that are bothering you things that are affecting your relationships and this person starts talking about the weather or sports or trying to crack a joke that makes that person shut down it makes them not feel that they can trust you with those vulnerable moments so where you feel like you're making the situation light and keeping something from becoming a serious or dramatic moment you're actually telling that person your feelings don't matter unintentionally it again prevents you from getting to the root of issues you are ignoring your own emotions and you're not validating the emotions of those who are involved what you're doing instead is almost invalidating by trying to create a diversion and the reason people do this they are afraid of reality so it's much easier not to deal with reality and just deal with whatever fantasy or distraction they are comfortable dealing with in that moment a lot of times it stay with us since childhood you're the class clown you found value and your ability to break up the tension in really intense moments and that is a very valuable trait a lot of times we do need somebody just to make things light but if that's your go-to all the time especially in a relationship it's gonna be hard for you guys to have serious conversations if you're always avoiding those serious conversations by bringing in topics that aren't relevant to the situation at hand the next one I want to talk about and spend a little time here because people think this is a good one right the super reasonable on the surface that sounds like a good thing oh they're being reasonable but what this really is is when a person is tapping too much into their intellect and logic they are afraid of feelings so they feel much more comfortable leaning here than here and I see having emotions weaponized a lot of times by people like oh you're all on your feelings and yes thinking about things being cognizant planning very important but it's also very important to tend to how we feel our intuition and our feelings are very important things to pay attention to so when you are in an emotionally distraught situation and you're the person that's only thinking logically you're the solution finder you're the person who's trying to remain calm at all times there is absolutely a use for that but it can get in the way of working through really important topics if someone is coming to you and they say to you I don't feel like myself I feel like I am overweight I hate how I look at my clothes and the way you respond to them is we can fix that let's get you a gym membership here's a diet I saw this is nothing to worry about you're thinking I'm helping but that other person does not feel seen and heard because obviously they thought about working out usually they thought about the food that they eat there's something deeper some sort of cognitive or emotional factors that are affecting their ability to make those decisions and that's what needs to be discussed but for a person who's super reasonable they're so focused on trying to find the logic in a situation that they really remove themselves from the emotional connection that's needed sometimes to have impactful meaningful vulnerable and intimate relationships the last dysfunctional communication style or stance is the play cater this is another one that sounds really good on the surface but in actuality the person is not paying attention to themselves a play cater is really a people pleaser they're eager to please they're very apologetic and in this case when you are a play cater a lot of times you are ignoring your own emotional needs to accommodate others that sounds nice right but if you aren't paying attention to yourself and you aren't valuing yourself enough to listen tune in to your emotional responses to the things happening around you how will you ever have enough information on what you want to make a decision most of my play caters feel like they are floating in life and everything is happening to them or decisions are being made for them but often time what's really happening is that play caters actually want other people to make decisions for them because truthfully they don't know what they want so if you have a tendency to always apologize find yourself at fault and people please consider that you might have a placating communication style a lot of times we are using these communication styles to avoid feelings of rejection feelings of abandonment and we're doing the things that make us feel safe in intense and vulnerable moments being vulnerable can sound very dangerous but in actuality it's such a tool to create an relationships but when we're in a place where we are relying on these other communication styles we actually prevent our ability for truly connecting so you're doing this so that you won't be rejected but you're going to feel isolated because you're not truly connecting with people now let's talk about the communication style that everyone should be striving for and that is congruence congruence is to understand yourself you are making informed decisions that do take into account the way that you feel and you're communicating them in a way that helps other people understand how you feel how can you do that one of the top recommendations is a physical recommendation I didn't go very in-depth into the human growth model but it is a very physical model Virginia sits here was very huge on looking at people's body language to indicate what type of communication style they had but one way that we can kind of create a level experience for everyone when they're having these in-depth and vulnerable conversations is to hold hands holding hands keeps a person from being able to point it keeps a person from being able to beg it puts you in a position of having to be peer to peer and looking in one another's eyes and speaking honestly now these are the things you want to think about in these conversations and we're trying to truly understand how we feel and how we feel about how we feel okay so ask yourself what do I hear and see what are the meanings that I make of what I'm hearing and what I'm saying did you hear your partner on the phone laughing and did you take that to me that they were laughing at you that's an example of what I'm talking about here you ask yourself what did I see what did I hear and what meaning am i making from what I've seen and heard what feelings do I have during this okay so you heard your partner on the phone laughing in another room and you take that to mean that they were laughing at you maybe you feel embarrassed maybe that's how you feel about what you've seen and heard and the meaning that you're making now how do I feel about my feeling maybe you're embarrassed and maybe you're disappointed in yourself for still allowing your partner to embarrass you okay maybe that's how you're feeling you're frustrated with yourself for still being the situation with the partner that's embarrassing you now what defenses do I use how does this trigger me so maybe your defense when you feel your partner is is making fun of you is just to leave maybe you hop in the car and you leave you don't tell them where you're going and now they're asking where you are right and maybe you're doing that because when they're laughing at you maybe you're triggered to feel abandoned or rejected by them and when you leave and they're chasing you and trying to find out where you are now you feel wanted and desired because they're looking for you and they're trying to find you so asking yourself what are your defenses and how you're triggered is a very important way again to get that in-depth knowledge to understand yourself better and make different choices so that you can love and appreciate yourself for who you are and also recognize your opportunities for improvement and work on improving those things these are the questions you can ask yourself to facilitate emotional expression this is how you can avoid going to your default dysfunctional communication style instead of running away as we talked about in that example maybe tell your partner exactly how you feel tell them I heard you on the phone and I'm assuming that you were laughing at me because of XYZ that happened my feelings are really hurt about it I'm disappointed and I'm embarrassed and either your partner can say like Oh God we weren't even talking about you which is most of the time when we make those assumptions most of the time we don't even know what the person was talking about we're projecting our own insecurities onto that person but maybe they also say like I get that yeah I probably shouldn't have brought that up to this friend I needed to decompress and I needed somebody to talk to you can actually engage in a real conversation instead of yelling instead of leaving instead of doing these things that are just trigger responses so ask yourself which communication style applies see the most and then go through those questions in those moments where you really need to tap into your emotional expression so that you can have a vulnerable and intimate conversation with your partner or loved one I hope you found this helpful again my name is Stephanie Yates on you gweal a stephannie for short I appreciate you for watching this video all the way until the end that really helps me thank you [Applause] [Music]