By Diana Holbourn
Upset, Discussions and a Bit of Fun During Becky's First Year at University
Book two of the online Becky Bexley series. Chapter 4.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
One morning in Spring when Becky and the other students went into the psychology department, they found out there was a new tutor there, who'd come to work there for several months to replace another tutor who'd left for a while because she was having a baby. The new tutor was a friend of one of the other tutors.
The students waited in a lecture theatre for her to come and give them a lecture. They'd heard she was going to do a mini-series about psychological problems that are particularly common in older people.
When she came in, she said, "Hello. I'm the new tutor. I'd like you to call me Miss Ann Thrope."
One student looked puzzled and said hesitantly, "But, err, we were told your name's Monica Bloomsfield; ... and isn't that a wedding ring you're wearing?"
Then Becky looked a bit puzzled and said, "Oh I think I get it! Miss Ann Thrope - it's a play on the word misanthrope. So does that mean you hate us all?"
The tutor said, "Well, perhaps it's not really fair of me to do that. I'm just a bit fed up of people really."
Becky said, "Then why did you come to work with us? Why aren't you doing a job where you don't meet people? You know, like exploring and taking photos of cave paintings in remote caves under the sea for some historical society or something?"
Another student said, "Yes, and we've been told you used to do counselling, after doing a psychology degree here about a decade ago. Why did you do counselling if you don't like people?"
The tutor said, "Well, I didn't mind people when I started. And it's not the people I was counselling I didn't like."
One student said with a grin, "But hang on, doesn't being a misanthrope mean you hate All people? Or did you think of the people you counselled as not real people?"
The others tittered. But the tutor said seriously, "No, it's really only recently that I've started feeling as if I don't like people. And actually, it's myself as much as anyone else who I'm fed up of."
The students soon realised it was no joke, as she continued, as if she'd come especially to try to sabotage their enthusiasm for their course: "I want to warn you lot that some of you might think it'll be good to get into counselling and therapy after you leave here, but it's probably more complicated than you've ever imagined. People can say such unpredictable things, and start talking about problems you've just never heard of, and you might just not know what to say!
"I mean, I did a counselling course when I was training for the job I did, and they taught us that just listening while people talked their way to working out their own solutions was good, so in theory it shouldn't have mattered what their problems were. But so many of them would want advice, or just talk and feel better at the end but then come back feeling just as miserable the next time and the next time, I realised my training hadn't prepared me to help them at all.
"I'm not saying people should always give advice. I remember a mistake I made once because someone I know got to 60 years old and wondered if she should retire. She'd been unhappy sometimes in her job and I'd quite often heard her complaining about some of the people there, but she said she'd just got the opportunity to do something at work she'd love to do. She didn't know whether to stay on though because she liked the thought of giving up and having more free time, and there was a man in her office who bullied her who she'd have liked never to see again.
"I remembered her once saying there were things she'd like to do before she fell to bits with old age. I thought it would be a shame if she fell to bits before she could do them, so I advised her to give up her job so she'd have more time to do what she wanted.
"I don't know how much it had to do with what I said, but she did give up her job. But then she said she was bored and missed the adrenaline buzz of getting up early to rush off to work, and she missed some of the people there. And she still didn't get around to doing the things she'd said she hoped to be able to do before she fell to bits with old age.
"So I realised that instead of giving her an opinion on what to do, I should have advised her to write down all the advantages and disadvantages of staying at work and the pros and cons of leaving, and then decide for herself.
"It can be so easy to give people advice, but since you probably won't have the full picture even if you think you've got it, trying to influence someone to do something major when it's not really certain whether they should be doing that or something else probably isn't a good idea, because you can't really predict what'll happen most of the time, I don't think.
One student interrupted and said, "Yeah. I've discovered that. There's an Internet forum I like to go to, and people sometimes post about their problems. There are some people who seem to love to rush in to give advice, for some reason, but they seem to always have a simplistic black-and-white way of looking at things; they don't see complexities in situations. Mind you, I've given advice myself, only for it to turn out that it probably wasn't appropriate; sometimes, just one single bit of extra information can completely change your understanding of a situation, because it makes it seem completely different from the way you thought it was.
"I'll give you an example of both things: Not long ago, someone posted a message asking if people could give him advice on how he could stop his uncle talking about his political views so much when he was around him, because it was really getting on his nerves, especially because some of the things he said were downright weird, such as that he could tell the opposition parties had been involved in scandals because the conspiracy theory websites he went to said they had, even though it had never been on the news or anything. It also got on his nerves because his uncle seemed to want to deluge him with political propaganda, talking about it all the time.
"Several people immediately posted messages telling him he should just cut out the uncle from his life, saying they didn't even understand why he'd feel he just had to be with him, since he was a grown-up who could make up his own mind about who he spent his time with! I thought things might not be as simple as they thought. So I posted a message saying he could maybe ask questions that would gently challenge the uncle to think more deeply about his points of view so he might start querying them, so his beliefs might not be so strong in time.
"Then this man posted a message saying he couldn't possibly cut out his uncle from his life, because he used to be fun to be with and he wished he could go back to those days, and because he thought he might have the first stages of dementia because his thinking was becoming a bit muddled and he kept forgetting words and other things, and he was about his closest relative still alive, so if his uncle got worse, it would fall to him to look after him.
"So that little bit of information immediately made all the advice invalid - both theirs and mine; he wasn't going to be able to just stop seeing the uncle, and the uncle might not be capable of thinking deeply about anything any more!
"It reminds me of a conversation I heard down town recently, where someone was sounding annoyed, saying she'd been trying to contact her boyfriend all day but he just wasn't picking up the phone. There was a little group of people with her, and they all said things like, 'Some people can be so inconsiderate! Why do you even want to go out with him if he doesn't care enough to even pick up the phone to talk to you; you deserve better!' But I thought, 'Hang on, how do you even know he was in?!'
"After a while, the girlfriend said, 'Well, maybe I shouldn't really be annoyed with him for not answering the phone; after all, he's been in bed with a bad bout of flu these last few days, and he gets insomnia at nights so while he's been in bed during the day he might have been sleeping, and he was really upset recently when he found out his best friend had been in a car accident, so he might have wanted to be alone for a while and might not have been in the mood to talk to anyone, and he wouldn't have known it was me phoning up.'"
Miss Ann Thrope said, "Well, that certainly puts a different light on it! I'm glad you agree with me about how people should have a good think about things before giving advice, and often encourage people to make up their own minds instead of telling them what to do, because they'll know more about their situation than you will."
One of the students said, "I've noticed people like to give advice on Internet forums. Sometimes it's good, and people thank the people giving advice, so their whole lives could even be changed for the better by it! So I think forums can be really good places to go to. I enjoy going to my favourite ones. But one odd thing I've noticed is that there are a few people who give other people advice, and tell them what other people in their lives are thinking or what their motives are for doing certain things, as if they're mind readers. You know, not even reading the minds of people they only know from random conversations on Internet forums, but of people those people have only just mentioned, so they've only just learned about the existence of them!
"I think it's called projection, isn't it? You know, when someone's convinced someone else is feeling a certain way, maybe partly because they're sure that's how they would feel in the same circumstances; or they're convinced someone's doing something for a particular reason, because they knew someone else years ago who did the same thing for that reason, or they did the same thing for that reason themselves once, so they seem to think everyone must do it for that reason.
"So I'm thinking they might, say, tell a friend they're sorry she's really upset about her pet budgie dying, after she says her budgie died, but she didn't say anything about being upset and doesn't seem upset at all. Or they might advise someone, 'Don't go near that girl! The only reason she's getting in touch with you so soon after her boyfriend dumped her is because she wants to use you!' because someone did that to them once, when really, that's only one possible reason why the girl's getting in touch with them, and the real reason might be totally different."
Another student grinned and said, "Yeah, like, she's been wondering where her false teeth got to for months, and she's suddenly remembered dropping them down in between the cushions of his sofa when they kissed, so she wants to come round and secretly look for them when he's not looking!"
They laughed.
Then another student said, "Or maybe she really misses the dinners he used to make her so she's just longing for another one of those, so she's hoping that if she asks to see him, he'll make her one."
One student said, "Yeah, maybe he's the only one whose dinners she can eat without her false teeth in."
They giggled, and one said, "Yeah, maybe she's been having to live off honey and tomato sauce or something ever since, because she can only eat things you don't have to chew."
One student grinned and said, "Honey and tomato sauce? What a gross combination! Imagine if she said to him, 'I'm just longing to see you again, because I'd just love to touch your beautiful long hair and to have another one of your delicious soggy honey and tomato sauce sandwiches, in the special way you make it, with one of your long hairs always in it, which is always subtly laced with your brand of hair spray, and an exquisite hint of crunchiness because of the tasty flakes of dandruff it's always covered in! No one else makes sandwiches quite like that!'"
The students made disgusted faces and giggled, and one grinned and said, "That would probably be because no one in the world would Want to make such disgusting things!"
One student said, "Imagine a shop that just sold things like that, and they advertised them by saying things like, 'Try our delicately crunchy delightful dandruff and hair-laced honey and chutney sandwiches, or our beautiful and stylishly decorated dog hair and sweat-flavoured ice-creams!'"
They made disgusted faces again and laughed.
But then Miss Ann Thrope said, "This might be fun, but let's get back to discussing the topic we were discussing before!" It was as if she'd forgotten that her lecture was supposed to be on a completely different topic altogether, so even if they did get back to what they were discussing before they started having a laugh, they would be talking about something just as irrelevant to it as they were when they were joking.
The students were all having to speak with raised voices to make sure they were heard all around the lecture theatre. Becky wanted to say something and make sure she was heard too, so she stood up, and bawled at the top of her voice, "I've noticed that some people like to tell you about their problems, but then if you try to help them solve them, they don't like it. I've come to the conclusion that it could be a good strategy, when someone starts telling you about a problem they have, to ask them whether they'd like you to try to help them find a solution, or whether they just want some sympathy and a listening ear.
"Mind you, I can imagine it getting a bit aggravating if they say they only want some sympathy, if you're sure they could solve the problem that's upsetting them if only they did something about it, and you've got some ideas about what they could do, but they've said they aren't looking for advice. ... Mind you, it could be even more aggravating if you tried to give them advice anyway and they were annoyed with you for it.
"I suppose you could still try giving them advice, but subtly, so it doesn't feel as if they're being told what you think they should do, like if you sometimes ask them questions like, 'Have you tried ...?' whatever it is, and that might give them ideas.
"I've been thinking that asking questions might be better anyway, because it'll save you from risking giving advice that backfires, say if they told you they were fed up of the way their parents treated them as if they weren't old enough or clever enough to make sensible decisions for themselves, and you advised them to have a heart-to-heart with them to explain how they felt, and you encouraged them to believe things might really improve if they did, so they went away all optimistic and tried it, and then came back to you the next day saying their parents had objected to them suggesting there was something wrong with the way they treated them and it had turned into a big argument, and they had ended up feeling worse than they had before."
Miss Ann Thrope said, "I can imagine doing something that backfires like that myself! It's at least nice to think I'm not the only one who can imagine making mistakes like that!"
Becky smiled to herself as she imagined the tutor teaching a course solely about all the mistakes psychologists and counsellors had made through history, to teach them what Not to do. She wondered how much of such a course would be taken up with descriptions of the tutor's own mistakes, and how it would be if the tutor asked them to make notes on them and then write essays on them that they would discuss in their classes.
Miss Ann Thrope said, "I think giving advice is often good though. The thing is though, we were taught on this counselling course we went on, that I was talking to you about earlier, that we shouldn't even give people any advice on what they could do to help them make their decisions - or at least, that's what I interpreted them to mean; and I've come to believe that that just isn't fair. When you know about techniques that could help people overcome their problems, it's only fair to tell people about them, instead of just asking questions till they tell you more and more about their problems, hoping that in that process, they might somehow come to resolve them by themselves.
"I know that sometimes, just thinking things through systematically to talk about them can get things clearer in a person's mind, and that helps them think of ways of solving the problems all by themselves; or sometimes it just helps them to get things off their chest. But I don't think those things are enough all the time.
"I've become convinced that what can happen instead of some people feeling better by just talking is that they can just talk more and more about their problems, till at the end of the counselling session, they're only thinking about how bad they are, instead of planning what to do about them, or doing their best to think of ways of trying to make the future better than the past. Going away thinking about doing that would mean they felt as if they were making progress with their lives so that would make them feel better. Going away still thinking about their problems might just make them more depressed though. So you could be doing the opposite of helping them when you're counselling them.
"I hope I didn't do that, but I might have done. The trouble was, I could never remember the things I learned here about what can help people get over their problems long enough for me to be able to tell the people who could have done with hearing about them about them by the time they came to see me, even when I spent some time reading my notes before they came in."
Becky said, "Maybe you should have learned how to help people with bad memories; you might have learned how to improve yours in the process."
"Don't bet on it!" said Miss Ann Thrope. "I'd probably have forgotten what all the information about how to improve your memory Was by the time I needed it!
"But I bet it's not just me who had those problems; I wouldn't be surprised if no matter how much you think you know by the end of this course, you lot end up with them too!"
Becky said, "I wonder if that's the real reason some counselling courses teach people not to recommend anything to clients but just to listen to their problems; maybe it's because the person who invented the counselling technique knew how easy it was to forget all the things you learned that you thought might help, so they thought it would be easier for people not to even try to remember them."
One of the other students chuckled and said, "Yeah, imagine it! People have come up with whole psychological theories, and they're in textbooks about how to use them, when really, the only reason they might have been invented was because the person who came up with them decided they were the best things to do because they'd forgotten all the things they'd learned about how to help people, and they felt sure everyone else would too!"
The students giggled.
Then one said, "There are some things I keep forgetting. Twice in a row this week, I've put my dinner things in the sink in my room in hot water to soak, thinking I'd come back and wash them up when the water cooled down; but then I've completely forgotten about them and gone out, and found them late at night when I've come back, when the water's gone cold and all I want to do is to jump into bed! Then I've been annoyed with myself for not remembering to do them earlier."
A friend of hers said, "Maybe you need a washing-up alarm. Whenever you put things in the washing up, maybe you could set an alarm to go off half an hour later or something."
The student with the forgetfulness problem grinned and said, "That could be a good idea, but I'd probably forget what it was for!"
Her friend said, "Maybe you could get something with a really loud alarm, so when it went off, it would make you jump, so you'd be at your most alert, so then you might remember."
A student near them giggled and said, "Yeah! Imagine you forgot you'd even set the loud alarm and went to a lecture, and it went off just when the tutor walked in the room or something. Maybe everyone would think it was a fire alarm or something and evacuate, except you, who'd know what it really was. And then imagine if you forgot that had even happened and did it again, and then you forgot it had happened again so you did it again, and each time, everyone left the lecture theatre when your alarm went off! They'd start saying, 'There must be something wrong with our tutor! Every time she walks in the door, some kind of alarm goes off!'"
The students laughed.
Then one asked with a mischievous grin, "So, Miss Ann Thrope, you said you've forgotten everything you learned on your course here, or something like that. Do you forget lots of other things too? Is the reason you're not lecturing us on what we were told you were going to lecture us about because you've forgotten what the lecture's supposed to be about? I mean, I know you've got notes, but have you forgotten to look at them? And is the reason you hate everyone because you've forgotten all the nice things about people?"
The students laughed again.
Some of the other lecturers might have given the student who said that a good telling off for it. But maybe Miss Ann Thrope didn't feel at ease enough to do that because she was a bit nervous because she was new, or maybe she felt a bit like one of them because she'd been on their course before, because she just said, "No! My memory isn't that bad! Allright. Let me tell you the rest of the story."
Still giving no signs of giving her lecture, she said, "One thing I'll say first though is that I feel as if I ought to be loyal to my profession and say that I'm sure psychological theories Aren't just invented to give psychotherapists an easier time of it because they'll mean they don't have to remember so much!
"I might have done better at counselling people if I'd been in an office, knowing exactly who was going to come in and what their problems were. But I couldn't prepare for people's visits well, because I was working in a drop-in centre where people would come in when they felt like it, and you never knew who was going to come in or what problems they might have. Some people are probably good enough psychotherapists for that not to matter, but I came to think I must be a rubbish counsellor, although some of the people who came to me for help did thank me and tell me I'd helped them a lot.
"But there were a few who started talking but then paused and said, 'Actually I don't think this is helping', and got up and walked out, and that can be really discouraging.
"Sometimes I tried to prepare for what people might want to talk about by reading the notes I made on the course I did here about certain problems, to try and refresh my memory about what can help. But then people with other problems would usually come in, and I'd try to counsel them, and I'd get so engrossed in their problems I'd forget what I'd just learned, so then if someone did come in later with a problem I'd been refreshing my memory about, I'd have forgotten everything I'd read, so I couldn't help them with any of it."
One student pondered, "I wonder which is worst, forgetting all the things you could have said to help a person, or giving them lousy advice. Perhaps it depends on each individual's circumstances. But at least you didn't tell them what to do even though you didn't really know what you were talking about. ... At least I presume you didn't? That might be worse a lot of the time, although I suppose it depends how seriously they take what you say, and on what you actually do say.
"I'm pretty sure this can't apply to you; but I wonder sometimes whether some people who enjoy giving advice to other people do it because it gives them a pleasurable feeling of superiority and dominance over the person they're giving advice to, as if they enjoy thinking they know better than them. I never used to think that, but someone said he wondered if that's one reason why people seem to enjoy giving advice so much on an Internet forum I post on, and since then, I've wondered if it's true. Some people really do seem to like telling people what to do. This forum I like to go to is actually quite a bleak place sometimes; quite a few people post messages asking for advice because they're upset about relationship break-ups they've just had, and some people seem to like to go from thread to thread just saying things like, 'It's obviously not going to work; there's no hope for it! Just get over it and move on!' I don't know how they always think they can be so certain of that!
"I mean, I agree with things they say sometimes, because I'm thinking the same thing myself, but not all the time. You wonder what they get out of doing it so often, or whether they really think it's helping.
"I don't know if it's true at all, but the thought crossed my mind the other day that maybe they feel unhappy, and they get some kind of pleasure out of thinking other people are going to be as unhappy as they are or something! Or maybe someone had a go at them on another part of the forum and they think it'll cheer them up and make them feel powerful again if they take their annoyance out on someone else by telling them authoritatively that their life's going down the toilet and they're just going to have to put up with it or something!
"It's strange actually; there are some people on that forum who don't seem to say much of any variety; most of the messages I've read of theirs are pretty short, and some of them just talk about how intelligent they are; but I've never known them to write even one single intelligent word! Maybe they hope that if they tell everyone they're intelligent enough times, people will start believing it! Or maybe they do it because they get an ego boost out of saying it or something, this thing about feeling superior again!"
Another student said, "I wonder! It's interesting, isn't it: I wonder if professionals have motivations they shouldn't have sometimes. You think of counsellors and psychotherapists as being all squishy and caring, don't you; but what if some of them just like to feel in a position of superiority to other people because it makes them feel proud of themselves when they tell people what to do, ... or they're just nosy and like to find out about other people's problems?"
Another student joked, "Yeah, imagine saying to a counsellor, 'I don't think you're a very good counsellor; I think you only do this because you want to feel superior to people and you ought to give up this job', and they say, 'You ought to be thankful I'm a counsellor; if I wasn't, I'd feel compelled to relieve my urges to do things that made me feel dominant over others by dressing to look like a gangster and carrying a whip, going out on the streets and whipping anyone who behaved out of line! They jump a queue, Thwack! They pronounce words incorrectly, Thwack! They look at me wrong, Smack! They bump into me, Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!"
The other students giggled.
Miss Ann Thrope said, "Well, I certainly didn't feel superior to anyone when I was counselling them! It would have been difficult to do that when I made as many mistakes as I did!"
Some of the students thought they had to admire her honesty, although they wondered if she could possibly be fit to lecture them if she made as many mistakes as she was implying she did.
She continued, "It's not easy, you know, responding to people suddenly talking about problems you didn't expect them to talk about, when you know they're hoping you're going to be able to give them advice on what to do, or to give them hope that things will get better.
"But anyway, you're wondering why I said I hate humanity?"
Quite a few of them had forgotten they'd wondered that. But she told them anyway. She said, "it wasn't the people I was counselling who made me start feeling as if I hate everyone. It was after I stopped that I started feeling like that. It's partly just that the more I talk to people, the more I've realised how careful you need to be with what you say, if you don't want to risk being misunderstood or offending people!
"And when you're having a conversation with someone, it's so easy to say something on the spur of the moment that you end up regretting because you feel sure it's been misunderstood, so you wish you hadn't bothered having the conversation, and you get irritated with yourself and the other person because you didn't foresee that what you said might be misunderstood the way it probably was when you said it, and you feel ignorant for having said it without thinking. ... Or at least that's what happens to Me. Even my friends and family get on my nerves, so I don't know what hope I've got of tolerating anyone else much!"
Some of the students began to wonder if the new tutor's lectures were all going to be taken up with her telling them about her problems, and then asking Them to lecture Her on what to do about them! One or two began to smile at the thought that if that was how things were going to go, perhaps They could give Her an exam at the end of the year, to see how much of what they'd lectured her on she remembered.
Oblivious to their thoughts, she carried on, "I mean, one thing that happened was that I was talking to one of my old classmates I hadn't met for ages not long ago, who I'd thought it would be nice to meet up with again when we got in touch and planned it. But I wish I hadn't done it now. She said she might one day go into counselling. I wanted to warn her that it was a lot harder than she might think, so I told her about a couple of the problems people had come to me with, using them as examples.
"One was that a person came to see me once saying that everything around her seemed unreal, as if she was watching it on television rather than it really happening around her, and she just couldn't get rid of the feeling. She'd had it for ages, and she hoped I'd tell her how to stop feeling that way. I didn't know how on earth to help her at the time. I couldn't remember ever having learned about such a thing on my course here, though maybe they do teach people about that kind of thing now.
"I've since found out that it sometimes comes on alongside some anxiety problems, depression or sleep deprivation, and when a person recovers from those, it goes away too. Or sometimes sleeping too much can cause it. Or some medications can cause it, and a doctor can change a person's medication to one that has the same benefits but doesn't cause the same problems. Alcohol and some illegal drugs can cause it too.
"I've found out that sometimes it's easy to treat because the way anxiety's causing it is because it's making people breathe too quickly and that can cause light-headedness, along with tingling sensations and that feeling of unreality, and slowing the breathing right down can make them fade away.
"Also, accepting the symptoms as likely not serious can help them fade away, because worrying about them a lot can cause the anxiety they can be a side effect of, so thinking about them as probably not a symptom of something serious can calm that anxiety so they can start to fade too.
"Another thing that can make them fade away, at least for a while, is distracting yourself by doing things that bring it home to you that you're in the here-and-now and make you feel more alive, like having fun. Also it can help to think about the way having fun is making you feel, and the reasons you enjoy what's giving you pleasure, and to do your best to notice what's going on around you with all your senses - paying attention to the colours of things, smells and sounds, and trying to give anyone talking or doing other things your fullest attention. Also it helps to be determined to carry on regardless of the symptoms, since they won't be dangerous, just unnerving.
"I wish I'd known all those things then.
"But anyway, I mentioned that problem to the person who said she was thinking of getting into counselling, and she said, 'Don't some people have weird things wrong with them!' as if she thought I was telling her about it just to have fun talking about the strange problems I'd come across and I was saying the person themselves was weird. Well, maybe she didn't mean it like that. Maybe it was just me worrying about what she might have thought. But I'd been hoping she'd feel sympathy for the woman, but instead she just seemed to think I was telling her just for fun or something. But I wasn't telling her because I was trying to make fun of anyone, and I didn't think the person was weird for having the problem; I was telling her because I wanted her to know counselling might be harder than she thought.
"And I told her about a woman who started talking to me and didn't stop for seven entire hours. She was sympathetic to Me, as if she thought the woman was inconsiderate; but I wasn't telling her because I thought the woman had done anything bad; if that was what she needed to do to feel better, that was fair enough. I went away feeling bad because I thought my old schoolmate had completely misunderstood what I'd been trying to say, and I thought it might have been partly my fault for not explaining it well enough, although I did try. So afterwards I thought it probably hadn't been a good idea to tell her after all and regretted mentioning it.
"And I was telling her our training hadn't been very good so I often hadn't even heard of the problems people brought up. I said that when I was counselling them I had to 'make it up as I went along'. Afterwards I realised she might have thought I meant I made up advice on the spur of the moment, not having a chance to think through whether it was good or not. But I didn't mean that; I'd meant I had to think through what I'd learned on the spur of the moment and see if I could dredge something relevant out of the depths of my brain. It was hard to be precise about exactly what I meant in the middle of a conversation where I had to respond to what was being said without having time to think about it, and then it would move on so I didn't have a chance to clarify what I'd meant. I started wishing I hadn't met my old schoolmate. I decided it had been a bad idea.
"I started being annoyed with myself for not foreseeing that things I said would likely be misunderstood and phrasing things better, and I started being annoyed with other people for probably being so quick to misunderstand things I said."
"And I can't even get special occasions right, and I don't know anyone else who can either! It feels like ages since I had any decent fun! And I can't remember when the last time was that I had a good birthday or Christmas celebration! On the Christmas Day that's just past, we went to my parents' house with my other sisters. They made a nice dinner. But afterwards we sat around not doing much, which seems to be what happens every year, and my older sister and her husband had to choose that very time to lecture my youngest sister, who's got her A-levels coming up soon, on how she really ought to be concentrating on her homework more. Well she should; she's never been good at getting down to doing it. But anyway, they went on and on and on and on and on at her in this irritating nagging tone, asking her why she didn't put more effort in, and I thought, 'Of all the days in the year you could have chosen to do this, why do you have to choose today, when it's supposed to be a celebration?'
"Mind you, it turned out that my youngest sister was actually quite enjoying the conversation, since it was giving her a chance to practise her excuses, and she told me she was enjoying anticipating the time when they finished trying to persuade her to change her ways and she would say, 'Well you've made all that effort, but I haven't changed my mind at all. It can't feel too good knowing all that effort of talking was for nothing. Still, you learn by your mistakes. You can console yourselves with the thought that you'll know better next time.'"
Quite a few of the students felt uncomfortable, thinking that what the tutor was saying about her family wasn't really any of their business and she should keep it to herself. They thought she sounded unprofessional, telling them about them like she was, especially since she'd only just met them.
But despite saying she'd been annoyed with herself for having said things she regretted, the tutor didn't seem to have any qualms about risking doing some more of that, as she talked on, saying:
"Actually, I've always thought that trying to encourage her to change by helping her think through the advantages to herself of putting more effort into studying might work better than nagging her and warning her about the bad consequences of not studying enough. I mean the kind of thing they do in motivational counselling, where they can entice people to change by encouraging them to think through for themselves all the advantages of changing their behaviour and the disadvantages of staying the same, and then encourage them to have a good think about whether those things outweigh the advantages of not changing, and the costs of changing for the better, like the amount of effort it would take."
One student asked, "What if they decide there are more advantages in staying the same than in changing?"
"I don't know," said the tutor.
Some of the students giggled, and one mumbled sarcastically through their laughter, "A great tutor You're going to be!"
Then one asked, "Is motivational counselling similar to motivational speaking?"
As if he didn't trust Miss Ann Thrope to give an educated response, another student replied instead of her, though what he had to say wasn't educated either. He said, "I don't know. Isn't motivational speaking where someone tries to buoy you up with enthusiasm to do things, with methods like insisting you repeat sayings they tell you to say as enthusiastically as you can in their meeting, in the hope that you'll remember them so you can repeat them to yourself all your life, you know, sayings like, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again,' while you're thinking to yourself, 'Yeah, and if I don't succeed after that, I'll give up. Or just maybe I'll try something else instead'.
"Or maybe they'll give you instructions to repeat a saying like, 'I'm going to have a good day today, smile at everyone and enjoy my work', fifty times before you get there in the morning, telling you that if you say it enough, you'll believe it. And you're thinking that in the unlikely event that you ever do repeat it to yourself, you'll probably put an ending on the saying so it goes more like, 'I'm going to enjoy work and smile at everyone and have a good day, ... unless I don't', or, '... in my dreams', or, '... unless I'm in a bad mood by the time I get to work, in which case I'll lounge around for a while drinking coffee, hoping to get away with not doing any more work than I have to.'
"Isn't that what motivational speaking's like, Miss?"
The tutor said, "Actually no. I don't know what you're thinking of, but a lot of motivational speaking's much better than that. Well at least I think it is. A lot of motivational speakers give people good advice and encouragement, and tell interesting stories."
Another student said, "Oh yes, I came across a website with some jokes on it that teach lessons in a funny way, that it said some motivational speakers could tell at the beginning of their speeches to get people interested in them. One made me smile, even though I've heard it before:
"A mum heard her son call out one morning, 'Mum, I don't want to go to school; I feel sick.'
"The mum went up to his room and said, 'I expect it's just nerves, the way it usually is; but you know you always feel better once you get going.'
"Her son said, 'But I hate school. I don't ever want to go again. I've got no friends. My work's too hard, especially now we have to do so many tests, and I keep getting things wrong, making mistakes and getting told off.'
"The mum said, 'Sorry, but you've got to go. Try to remember the positives - things aren't that bad: You've got at least a few friends, mistakes are one way we learn and develop, and you can try not to take being told off and criticised so personally. After all, some of the people who tell you off will probably have forgotten all about what happened not long afterwards.
"'And besides, you've got to go to school - you're the head teacher.'"
The students smiled and sniggered.
The tutor continued, "There are some interesting thoughts there. Anyway, I was telling you about how I thought my sister might have done more homework if she'd been more motivated. I emailed my mum a quote from a good psychology book I first read here once, about how kids can be discouraged from doing homework if a mother, with the best of intentions, criticises them for taking their time to get down to it, for instance if she comes in and finds they've only done a bit, and instead of expressing pleasure at the fact that they've at least done some, she says something in a disappointed annoyed voice like, 'You haven't done much, have you!', or, 'Your teacher's not going to think much of that!' The mother might think she's encouraging her child to do more, but really it might feel to The child almost as if they're being punished for the bit they Have done, or at least not appreciated at all for it; so they might decide it isn't worth the bother next time and take even longer to get down to doing it.
"But if they're complimented for at least making a start, they can like the feeling of approval so they can be motivated to do more, hoping to get more of it, and also because they might think it's nice to please their mum.
"When I emailed that to my mum I didn't say it was specially relevant to Her, but she got annoyed and emailed me back saying she was quite capable of getting my sister to do her homework herself, thank you. Well I'm not sure about that, considering how unmotivated my sister still is to get down to it! Thinking about it, I suppose my mum could have taken my email too personally and thought it was a way of criticising her, so she just thought about how annoyed she was about it instead of thinking about what it said. Maybe I should have realised she'd be offended; after all, she does criticise in the way the book says, which, after all, was one reason why I sent her the quotation. She probably thought it sounded familiar. Maybe I should have just suggested something positive she could do instead."
One student said, "The advice you said that book gives reminds me of a funny programme that was on television not long ago. There was a dog trainer who said she could teach wives to train dogs, and in the process teach them how to train their husbands to do more of what they wanted, in a very similar way to the way they were training the dogs. They would give the dogs little rewards like little bits of food or pats and caresses every time they did what they wanted them to do in response to a command they gave, so the dogs would know that was what they wanted, and like doing it. They didn't shout at them when they didn't do the right thing or anything, because then the dog might have got upset and not wanted to do anything.
"The wives tried out the techniques they were using on the dogs on their husbands, - well, they didn't give them commands in the way they ordered the dogs to do things, but they tried not to nag or criticise them for minor things, in the same way they didn't hassle the dogs when they got things wrong, and they gave their husbands little rewards like compliments, smiles, hugs and other little things like that a lot more when they did things they were pleased about. The programme was about whether the technique would work. It did. The husbands did change their behaviour over a few weeks, wanting to spend more time with their wives and being friendlier towards them."
One student sniggered and joked, "So you're not saying the wives gave their husbands dog biscuits or anything like that? Imagine a husband coming back from work one evening and the wife giving him a bowl of dog food and saying, 'You've been a very good boy today! Here's your reward!'"
The students and Miss Ann Thrope laughed. Then the one who'd brought up the subject of the programme about training husbands like dogs grinned and said, "No of course they didn't do anything like that! Mind you, I read that a lot of people didn't see the funny side of the programme, and complained to the BBC, saying it was insulting to give the impression that husbands can be trained like dogs. But it seems the people who complained somehow didn't manage to look beneath the surface to the reality that actually it was more about training the women than the men, since they had to remember to do things differently in the hope of influencing their husbands to do more of what they wanted, and the husbands would only do more of what they wanted because they would think it was in their best interests to, because what their wives were doing would be making them happier. Really it was just a quirky way of helping people improve their marriages.
"It was about being kinder really, doing things that wouldn't cost the wives much to do, like shouting less and complimenting more. Perhaps the husbands should have been trained to do the same for their wives too, but imagine how outraged people would have been if as well as teaching wives they could train their husbands in the same way dogs are trained, it had given the message that Wives should be trained the way dogs are trained!"
The students and tutor chuckled.
The one who'd been talking carried on, "Not long ago I was reading a psychology book here that gave the same advice as the programme, only without the dogs.
"It said compliments for what a person's got around to doing can work a lot better than criticism of what they haven't done if you want to motivate them to do more of what you think they're doing right, which is basically what the programme was trying to teach. The book said that if you criticise, shout, sulk or anything like that, hoping it'll get your husband or wife to change, you might very well be disappointed, because it might just make them think you're unpleasant to be around so they start avoiding you. Or every time they think about doing the things you've been nagging them to do, those things will be associated in their minds with the unpleasant experience of you criticising and disapproving of them, so they might think about it every time, so getting down to doing the thing you want them to do will come to feel even more unpleasant than it did before. So they might put off doing it more.
"There are times when people need to criticise, but the author says people tend to notice what people do wrong much more than what they do right, as if they just take what they do right for granted, and that's a shame. She told a story that illustrates that, about one woman who lived in a house with a massive garden, and one day she came back from work to find her husband had mown the entire lawn, which must have taken ages. The only thing was, he'd missed a little bit under some trees. Instead of thanking him and showing appreciation of him for doing all that work, she just said, 'You missed a bit'. So the author said it's nice if people can give more compliments.
"The book said that what works to change people better than criticising them is looking out for when they do do what you want them to do and then complimenting them or thanking them for it, or showing appreciation in some other way. There was a story in the book about a woman who was annoyed because her husband didn't do much to help her with their one year-old daughter. After she'd complained to him about it quite a bit, he grudgingly agreed to do more. He started getting up in the night sometimes to attend to her when she cried, and giving her a bottle a few times a day, and changing her nappy sometimes. But instead of complimenting him for doing more, his wife started criticising him for not doing things the way she thought he should. After a few weeks, he got fed up and told her that since she knew all about how to do everything and he didn't know anything, he'd just let her do it all, and he gave up trying to help.
"His wife felt unhappy. She went for counselling and told the counsellor what had happened. The counsellor asked her whether her husband had been putting the baby in danger by the way he was doing things and she said no. So the counsellor advised her to apologise to him for having criticised him so much, and then if he helped with the baby again, to resist the urge to criticise him for just doing things a bit differently from the way she'd like them done, and find as many reasons as she could to compliment him. She admitted she hadn't given him any compliments at all about what he'd done, because she'd been giving so much of her attention to making sure he was doing things the way she thought he should. She realised how important it was to encourage him when he did something to help, even if she didn't think he was doing things perfectly.
"In the weeks after that, she did her best to remember not to criticise him for doing things for the baby a little bit differently from the way she would when she felt tempted to, and every time he did something to help without being asked, she would show appreciation by complimenting him, smiling, or doing something she knew he would like in return.
"She was really pleased with what happened. The more she encouraged him, the better he became at helping; and the better he became at caring for the baby, the more he wanted to spend time with her, till he was even looking forward to coming home every evening to be with her. That really made his wife happy, and their relationship got better.
"And there was another story about a woman who was fed up because her husband didn't seem to take any interest in her life, hardly ever asking her about what she'd done during the day or anything like that. One day she complained to him about it, but he just got annoyed. He probably thought more deeply about what she'd said later though, because the next morning in the car, she was going to have another go at him about how unhappy she was with the way he didn't seem interested in her. She was just about to, when he asked her what she planned to do with her day. She was tempted to ignore the question and just complain about him like she'd been going to. But she'd recently heard about how it's better to show appreciation when other people do do something you want and it's more likely to encourage them to do more of it than criticism of what they're doing wrong, so she decided not to, took a deep breath, and told him about her day. Then she told him she really appreciated him asking.
"They didn't say much during the rest of the journey, but when they got there, they gave each other a little kiss and told each other to have a nice day, something they hadn't done for months.
"In the next few weeks, the woman's husband did try to show more interest in her, and she let him know she appreciated it. It did seem to be encouraging him to carry on.
"That programme about teaching wives to train dogs and to use the same techniques they use when they're training them on their husbands was just a funny way of showing them how to do the same kinds of things as that."
"That sounds nice," said one student. "You couldn't do that with everyone though, could you, at least not all the time. I mean, imagine if your child was giving your pet cat a fur cut, thinking it might look better with bald patches or something; you couldn't sit back and just think, 'Oh well, I'll just wait till he cuddles the cat without pulling its fur out, and then I'll congratulate him for being nice to it and leaving its fur in place, to encourage him to do that more often.'"
"No, I suppose there's a time and a place," said the student who'd just been talking, smiling.
Then she carried on, regardless of the fact that it was the Tutor who was actually Supposed to be giving the lecture, though the tutor didn't seem to mind at all, "I read an article in the paper by someone else who got the inspiration from going to dog training classes to try to train her husband in the same way. Maybe the article Was written in a bit of a degrading way, thinking about it, as one of the commenters complained, but it said some worthwhile things. One of them was that people can get angry because they take a lot of what other people do too personally, assuming they mean to be annoying or something when they don't really, in the same way people might get angry with pets when they do things they didn't really know were wrong, like chewing their things, because they assume their pets must have known that kind of behaviour would be annoying but they still did it, even though the pets were really just chewing their things because they thought it would be fun or for something to do or whatever.
"The writer of the article said she herself would get angry and argue with her husband when he would leave sweaty socks and shorts and other clothes on the bathroom floor and things like that, because she thought, when he knew full well she didn't like it, for him to do it again must mean he didn't care about how she felt. But she realised he probably just did it because it was a habit and the most convenient thing to do, having a bad memory and a worse sense of smell. Well that's what she says.
"She said a lot of people take offence with other people where none is intended because they take things too personally, and it can be difficult not to, but trying to remember there are other possible explanations for their behaviour can help."
Another student said, "I know what you mean. I've had to remind myself of that sometimes. And I kept trying to get the point across to this strange man on an Internet forum once, but I don't think he ever listened. I think he thought I had supernatural powers and could read his mind ... at least, that's one possible explanation for what he said about me."
The student grinned at the thought, and then continued, "We were having a conversation that turned into an argument or something, and from then on, he kept calling me a troll, absolutely convinced I argued with him because I knew it was going to get him worked up. I said to him, 'How could I possibly know what reaction you're going to have to what I say?! It's not as if I know you so I know from experience what kinds of things upset you. After all, some people get upset by things that other people just brush off. So how can I know which of those you'll do, or if you'll do something else?
"He was a strange man though! He kept saying he was sure the world would be a better place if money was outlawed, and that he thought capitalism should be abolished and everyone should be socialists instead, living in harmony. And yet he said he used to work as an auctioneer for a company, but then set up his own business and wanted to use some of the tricks they'd taught him to make lots of money so he could outdo them or something, kind of contradicting himself, saying he believed one thing and doing the opposite. So I made jokes about him, like:
"'This man's so capitalist, he stole his grandmother's false teeth when she was asleep, claimed they were Madonna's and sold them at auction for half a million dollars.
"'This man's so greedy for money, he took all his neighbours' gates off their hinges, and then asked if they wanted to buy them back at a "bargain" rate of only ten dollars each.
"'This man's so capitalistic, he started a business and employed 20 workers, and then ordered Them to pay Him wages for the first year so it got off to a good start.
"'This man's so greedy for gain, he claimed he owned the whole of Australia and offered to sell it at auction, with a starting price of 7 million dollars.
"'This man's so greedy for money, he collects the dust from his house, claims it's diamond shavings, and sells it in little boxes for a million dollars each.
"'This man's so capitalistic, he bought a bottle of tomato sauce, put the sauce into an unlabelled bottle, claimed it was the blood of Moses that spilled when he stumbled on a stone in the Red Sea after the waters parted, and sold it for 60 million dollars.
"'This man's so capitalistic, he told his mum he was so sick of the sound of her voice he'd be charging her a dollar for every word she said from then on.
"'This man's so greedy, when he gives a guest in his home a cup of tea, he charges them a dollar for every 100 leaves in the teabag, or a "bargain discount flat rate" of 6 dollars per cup of tea if they'd prefer.
"'This man's so greedy for money, he threw a party, and then said his carpet was so precious he was charging his guests a dollar for every step they took on it.
"'This man's so greedy for gain, he hijacked a train, drove it into a scrap metal yard and told them he was selling it for 2 thousand dollars.'
"I think he quite liked the jokes; but he still thought I was being a troll, feeling sure I was putting them on the board because I thought it would be fun to make him all worked up till he showed how annoyed he was. I don't know where the fun would be in that!
"I said to him, 'But there are so many other reasons I could have put those jokes there! Why do you feel so sure it's just because of one, and think it's that one no matter what? I mean, I could have just wanted to brighten up my day by writing them; putting them here, thinking it might cause a bit of controversy and banter, could have given me an adrenaline boost that put me in a better mood; I could have just wanted to stop myself being bored; I could have been hoping you'd take them in fun and we could have had a laugh about them! Or I could have just made them up under provocation because I was annoyed and wanted to get my annoyance out of my system in a humorous way, instead of just having a go at you. There could have been so many reasons I could have put them here other than the one you're sure is the only one!"
Another student said, "That reminds me of something that stuck in my mind from a psychology book about anger I looked at, about how people can get angry because they misinterpret the reasons someone else is doing or saying something. Like if they arranged to meet up with a person who doesn't turn up, if they assume the person just doesn't care enough about them to have turned up and is too selfish to have thought to let them know they wouldn't, they'll be far angrier than they will if they worry instead that something might have happened to them, or decide to reserve judgment till they've heard the person's side of the story and wait till they phone them up to hear their explanation of why they didn't turn up."
Another student said, "I had an experience once where the person was misinterpreting things like that. A friend of mine had paid for something I wanted when I'd accidentally come out without enough money, and I'd brought some money round to his house to pay him back a couple of days later, but he wasn't in. His family said he shouldn't be long and invited me in to wait.
"I was getting a bit bored waiting, and his dad said that if I liked, I could give him the money, and he'd give it to my friend when he got in. I grinned and said, 'No, it's allright, I don't know where it might end up!' I was thinking that he might forget all about it, and if he accidentally put his clothes to the wash while it was still in his pocket, it might get all wet and soggy and unusable.
"He didn't say anything right then, but a bit later, when no one else was there, he told me I'd better be careful about what I said to him, because he was really offended about being called a thief, and that if I ever said something like that to him again, I wouldn't like it if he lost his temper, because the last person who accused him of being a thief got his jaw broken."
Miss Ann Thrope said, "What a nasty man! I feel sorry for your friend, having to live with him!"
Becky stood up and yelled, "So your friend's dad didn't think there was anything wrong with being thought of as a violent bully, but for some reason, he thought it was much worse to be thought of as a thief! What kind of crazy thinking is that!"
A ripple of laughter went through the lecture theatre.
Then another student said, "It can't have been very nice for your friend to have had to live with that dad for years! Mind you, the thought of angry people misinterpreting things reminds me of a funny story I once read about an angry pensioner. She phoned the police up in the middle of the night one night complaining that one of her neighbours was playing loud music and it was stopping her getting to sleep. But when the police came to investigate, they discovered it was her own radio on full volume in her garden; she'd left it blaring during the afternoon and she'd gone indoors and forgotten about it.
"Just think: If she'd interpreted the situation differently, like thought of the noise as something to be investigated a bit till she found out the source of it instead of just a nuisance that needed to be stopped, she might have opened her window and realised it was coming from her own garden, and then remembered she'd left her radio on there, instead of fuming with anger and thinking it was such a serious offence the police needed to be called.
"Anyway, the neighbours thought it was funny that she'd accidentally complained about herself, and said what happened served her right, because she was always playing her music loud and disturbing them but didn't care, so now she'd found out what it was like."
The others in the room grinned. Then the one who'd been talking before said, "Yes. Another thing I learned about anger is that some people stay angry about things till they end up doing something bad, because they brood on what they're angry about and just get more worked up by it, instead of it occurring to them to think about all the possible ways they can think of of how they might be able to solve the problem that's making them angry, or all the possible people they can ask for help to solve it.
"And I read that when someone's about to do something because they're angry, it's good if they ask themselves, 'What am I trying to achieve here?' If they just want to vent their feelings, going and yelling at the person who made them angry will achieve that; but if they want the problem solved so they can move on and things get better, it can be better to think of something more sensible to do, since yelling at someone will antagonise them and they might react badly, so things can get worse.
"Another thing I learned is that people can get angry because of beliefs and thoughts they have that have shaped their thinking about things as well. One example is if they were brought up believing women should always do what their husbands tell them - I think they might be in some cultures - then they'll get more angry than most people would if their wife argues with them, because they'll interpret it in their minds as an act of disobedience, rather than just a difference of opinion. So the exact same situation that wouldn't bother another person that much might make them really angry, because they'll think their authority's being questioned and goodness knows what else, so they'll be thinking a lot more thoughts that make them angry than the person who just thinks it's a difference of opinion will.
"And when people's emotions are stirred up, they can think less clearly anyway, because the brain can't cope with strong emotion and calm clear thinking at the same time, so people's thoughts get simplified, so it just might not occur to the angry man that since his wife's from a different culture, she might not have been brought up believing women should do what their husbands say no matter what, or if she was, she might have a reasonable belief that that's unfair; so he won't think of alternative explanations for what's happening than the ones that are making him angry.
"Or if someone hears someone criticising them and their tone of voice even subconsciously reminds them of someone in the past who used to make them feel small with the critical things they used to say, even the memory combined with what's being said can make their anger flare up, and they can say hurtful things they later realise weren't fair.
"If they realise that's what's going on, it can help them realise they shouldn't be getting so angry in the future so they might stay calmer.
"That's one reason why some psychologists and other people say that when a person's angry, if they can, it's best if they just walk away from a situation or do something to calm down before they decide how to react, because when they're calm, they might be able to think about it more sensibly and end up doing something wiser about it.
"So they say that when a person feels a flare-up of anger, instead of being spurred on to action by it and carried away on a wave of it to do things they might regret, they should think of the feeling of anger flaring up as a signal that they need to wait a while before they respond. It'll often soon die down, so just waiting for that little while might sometimes mean they'll end up doing something more sensible than they would have done."
It was as if instead of getting one big lecture, the students were getting a few mini lectures on different subjects that day. The tutor wasn't trying to stop them talking.
The student who was talking continued, "Mind you, sometimes anger's good in moderation, because it gives people the energy and motivation to do things they might not be bothered to do otherwise, like say if they're always being shortchanged by someone in a shop, and when they first notice, they might feel angry and want to see the manager and complain, but if they wait till later in the day, their anger might have died down and they don't complain because they feel nervous about making a fuss and think it might be a little thing to make a fuss about anyway, so they just put up with it and it keeps on happening for months, not just to them, but to lots of other people, whereas it might have been stopped if they had complained when they felt like it because they were angry."
One student said, "That's interesting. And I expect that thing about having different reactions depending on how you interpret a situation can work the other way round too; I mean, if someone just assumed the shop assistant must be just bad at maths and couldn't help giving them the wrong change, they might not get angry, so they might not be motivated to complain - well unless they thought the shop owner should have employed someone better at counting; but if they suspected them of giving them the wrong money deliberately and it kept happening, they Might get angry and complain, and something might be done, so their anger will have turned out to be a good thing."
There was a pause while they all thought about that for a few seconds. Then one student smiled and said, "My dad gets angry and shouts a lot. I sometimes joke that he can go from nought to 120 decibels in three seconds, and that he can make the windows shake. I was thinking the other day that it would be funny if he was standing by the window and he started one of his shouting fits, and the vibrations from it smashed the window, so the conversation went, 'What do you mean by saying ...' Crash!"
The students sniggered.
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