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Seechanges Therapy
Blog Post
Communication Breakdown
- by Bernice Hardwick
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- 26 May, 2019
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It's almost a foregone conclusion that you will have experienced somebody not listening to you, or hearing you properly (and vice versa), the frustrating way in which information can become distorted. And there are so many reasons for this.
Firstly, it may be that the "listener" was never actually listening - they may have been distracted (mobile phones?!), they may have chosen not to listen because they were bored, they may have shut down because they didn't want to hear what was being said (teenagers?!), and so on. Or perhaps the speaker wasn't expressing themselves clearly, mumbling or using vague vocabulary, not talking loudly enough. It could be that they were misheard or not heard at all.
Add to that the many and various misunderstandings which can occur because we assume we know what's being said without clarification, or our own unconscious biases and value judgements getting in the way, and it's almost a miracle that we ever manage to communicate clearly at all.
We can all benefit from better listening and communicating, we all lose when it doesn't happen properly, so you might like to consider developing some of those skills if you recognise that they would be useful.