42 Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame
60 min •
16 november 2020
Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, where by God’s grace, you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide. This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 42, released on November 16, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the sixth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame
Introduction to IFS.
Developed by Richard Schwartz
Discussion of Parts
Discrete, autonomous mental systems, each with own idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, abilities, desires views of the world.
Modes of operating
Subpersonalities
Orchestra model
Focus is on integration.
Get forced into extreme roles -- attachment injuries and relational traumas
Three roles
Exiles --
most sensitive -- become injured or outraged. Threatens the system, external relationships
Exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships
Want care and love, rescue, redemption
shame. Need for redemption
Managers
Protective, strategic, controlling environment, keep things safe
Stifle, anesthetize, distract from feelings of exiles
No concern for consequences
Binge eating, drug/alcohol use, dissociation, sexual risk taking, cutting
Parts can take over the person
Like in Pixar Movie Inside Out -- anger taking over the control panel of the main character Riley
We call it blending.
IFS on the Self -- (recorded)
Self defined as the seat of consciousness
Self can be occluded or overwhelmed by parts
When self accepts and loves parts, those parts transform back into who they were meant to be
Self-led mind is self-righting.
self -- Active inner leader -- more than mindfulness
Parts find the relationship with the self very reassuring
But to reap the benefits they have to unblend from and notice the self
This is frightening can challenging to parts
Agency in the parts -- parts are making decisions about unblending in IFS model
Intrinsic qualities of the self
Curiosity
Compassion
Calm
Confidence
Courage
Clarity
Creativity
Connectedness
Kindness
The self can be easily occluded, obscured, hidden by protective parts who take over in response to fear, anger or shame
General state for most people is to be quite blended
Leads to self-absorption
3 levels of Listening -- Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, Phil Sandahl & John Whitemore 1998 Co-active Coaching: New skills for coaching people toward success in work and life. I am expanding their concepts.
Listening to -- Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind -- Many people struggle with this
Often called active listening
Listen carefully to what the person says
Grasping the content
Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.
Focus externally on the other person, not internally. Not distracted by own self-focus
Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer. Characteristic of very good therapists.
Listening in search of something-- filling in the gaps in the person's big picture
What is beyond and behind the words?
Holding it lightly. Speculative endeavor.
Listening to what the person does not say
Listening with the third ear The "third ear," a concept introduced by psychoanalyst Theodor Reik 1983 Book , refers to a special kind of listening -- listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to perceive what has not been said outright. It means understanding the emotional underpinnings conveyed when someone is speaking to you.
What are we listening for?
The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience
Emotions
Intentions
Thoughts
Desire
Attitudes toward the world
Glass half empty or half full
Impulses
Vision of the world
Working models of the world, assumptions.
Values
Purpose in life
I listen for identity and for shame.
Listening for both the words and the entire context
70-93% of communication is nonverbal -- Albert Mehrabia, Professor Emeritus at UCLA
Voice -- tone, inflection, volume 38% of communication
Body language -- glance patterns, facial expressions (including micrexpressions -- smiling matters a lot), posture, fidgeting, head movements, hand gestures,
Summarized in his 1971/1980 book Silent Messages
Based on one word communications
Challenged by Philip Yaffe debate about it.
Faculty of imagination -- What Aristotle called Phantasia activities in thoughts, dreams and memories.
imagination is a faculty in humans and most other animals which produces, stores, and recalls the images used in a variety of cognitive activities, including those which motivate and guide action (De Anima iii 3, 429a4–7, De Memoria 1, 450a22–25).
Focus here on understanding, entering into the other person's perspective
Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1)
Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective
Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking dee...