Hi folks,

well, Christmas is almost upon us and for many this means a time of family get togethers, and sometimes family tensions. So I thought that it might be relevant and topical to draw people's attention to Chapter 13 of the book which explains a whole series of inter-personal skills that people can learn.

For me the very idea of inter-personal skills is encouraging - we don't need to be stuck with our default mode of functioning (see 'What is not self-help', Chapter 1) but can work to become better in terms of both understanding ourselves and relating to others.

A particular favorite of mine is "I" statements which is a method for acknowledging the personal nature of our thoughts and feelings in relation to others, rather than expressing our feelings towards others in an accusatory or pseudo-objective way. It's worth taking a look at this method (I'm unable to provide a link at present as a new member, sorry, you will find the method within chapter 13 of the book).

A word of caution is perhaps in order though: "I" statements are essentially an appeal for the other person to show compassion. If the other person is unlikely to be capable of responding with compassion it may be unwise for us to make such statements (see also the section on Self-disclosure in Chapter 13).

We may also feel a bit silly if we were to make such statements all the time; but the really crucial point about this method, for me, is that it informs us of the self-deception that often lies behind "you" statements, (and much of the way that we normally talk!) and encourages us to take responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings about people and situations, and to acknowledge them as our OWN thoughts and feelings - and not the statements of objective fact that we often present them as (i.e."I sometimes find feel a bit upset by your behaviour and wish you were able to show me more consideration." as opposed to "You are inconsiderate" Are they really always so?)

So in summary I would say that it will always help us to term our own thoughts and feelings in terms of "I" statements, but that we should use our intelligence in deciding whether it will be wise to express those statements to others - how will they be likely to respond at this time?