Practical Book Review Why Dont We Listen Better free essay sample

Practical Book Review One: James Petersen Presented to Dr. Marcus Tanner Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary Lynchburg, VA In Partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the course PACO 500 Introduction to Pastoral Counseling By Margaret Tlusty February, 2012 HEY! My Summary Petersen, James C. 2007. Why don’t we listen better? Communicating and connecting in relationships. Tigard, OR: Petersen Publications. James Petersen (2007) uses five parts to describe the talking and listening to help us process a better way of communicating and understanding each other. They are provided to help us connect in our relationships with others. According to Petersen, most of us think we listen well, but we don’t. Not really hearing what others have to say, can be costly to relationships and how people feel toward one another. In Part One, Petersen creates a â€Å"Flat Brain Theory of Emotions† that explains how our mind works and what goes on with it to make us act the way we do and in the manner we communicate to others. â€Å"In my experience, understanding how this mixture of thinking and feeling affects us and our relationships goes a long way towards reducing our clashes and disconnections. It gives clues about how to communicate our concerns and how to listen so others can calm down, think, and act more clearly† (11). In Part Two, Petersen uses his creative cards for helping the communication process. The point of the cards is to help us become better listeners and taking turns listening and talking. It is important to listen first thoroughly before talking to others. â€Å"If you listen while the other person talks, you not only get a clearer picture of what the other is saying, but you gain time in the back of your mind to figure out what you think-before it’s your turn to talk†(58). This way you can respond with a genuine answer because you really listened to what the person had to say. Part Three gives basic techniques of listening for us to use and find out which ones work best for our own style. It gives different examples of using them in our talking and listening experiences. There are two levels of communicating that are explained: first level is the exchange of information and the second is a deeper level of trusting and expressing our true feelings and spirit. In Parts four and five, Petersen puts it all together with examples on how to use the process of talking and listening effectively. He gives examples of how to use his theory of â€Å"Flat Brained Syndrome† to overcome issues and people with the syndrome. In the end, he shows you how to become a better person that good things happen due to having great communication skills. He uses examples of different circumstances that can affect our listening skills in different ways and how to approach these scenarios. Petersen says â€Å"that if your insides match your outsides, then what you say is what you mean. If you can be this way with people in your listening relationship, it’s like creating, a substantial fund in your bank that others can draw on to invest in their own lives† (211). YOU! My Reflection After reading this book, I have gathered a lot of insight on communicating with other people as well as with my own family. After being so overwhelmed in this class with directions and handouts I don’t really understand; it was refreshing to read something that is a bit simpler. I have never had a problem not listening to people, even when they did. I have a friend that calls me every day and I listen to all the things that are going wrong in her life and I try to give my advice, however I can never get a word in edge wise long enough for her to listen to what I have to say. It’s a very frustrating situation, however I never have told her how I felt and I let her do it. I am not sure why God still has her in my life, however there has to be a reason. In my struggles to change my life, I seem to just be surrounded by people from my past. One example of communication problems would be the ones I have with my Mother. She lives with my family and I, and she has diabetes and manic depression/bipolar syndrome. When she is in her depressive state, she tends to be an aggressive communicator. She will tell me everything that I do wrong and what a bad daughter I am. My communication back to her would be a screaming match and my children are seeing and hearing all of this. My husband doesn’t defend me; he tells me to ignore her. The only thing I could do would be to walk away and go to my room in order to avoid more conflict. After reading Petersen’s book, I now try to listen as to why she became so angry and defensive in the first place. Nine times out of ten, it would be that she just doesn’t feel good about her health and that sets off emotions to everything else. Then I usually respond with â€Å"I am sorry you are not feeling well and what can I do to help you? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It is still a work in progress and so I just keep praying to God hoping that every day is a good day. Petersen’s view on spacing helped me with my mother as well. Petersen states â€Å"spacing allows space for talkers’ thoughts to emerge and be valued. When you suspend your views to make space for ot her people’s concerns, it’s like temporarily locking yours in a safe. This frees you to engage in their thinking processes with them† (151). It helps me to figure out where her mind set is at. LOOK! My Investigation This book seems to be very effective in counseling groups and with couples. The card that Petersen designed is very creative and it is a helpful tool in counseling couples. I would have enjoyed more personal examples of his counseling sessions and what the outcome was. I would have enjoyed it more if it were Bible based and how scripture could be intertwined with the communication skills given. I wasn’t quite sure why we had to read this for an Introduction to Pastoral Counseling class, and with all the other resources we have it was quite challenging to envelop all this information. As I was reading about the Flat Brain Theory of Emotions, Petersen says â€Å"while many people are frightened of emotions or consider various one either good or bad, I believe they are involuntary and perhaps even God given-simply there for us to use†(12). I am not quite sure I agree with his statement and the view of emotions. I don’t believe they are involuntary, I feel they are a part of us and they make up our humanity. They may be God given however in whatever situation we are in our emotions reflect who we are. This book has helped me to maintain certain emotions when it comes to my Mother, because how I react to her state of being reflects on my whole family. His listening skills are helping me to use a different approach when dealing with certain people. The Hawkins Pastoral Assessment Model deals with the problem and fixing it from the inside out working on layers of the client. Petersen seems to do the same with his communication and listening skills. If we listen better, we have better communication skills with others. Instead of trying to â€Å"talk over† someone, listen to what they have to say, and then answer them or offer advice. I feel that offering scripture lessons or verses adds extra help to the situation. DO! My Application In my understanding of this book, I am trying to develop these listening skills with my Mother in order to help our relationship with her as well as with my family. How I communicate with her reflects on her mood as well as my families. He says to listen without your mind drifting on to your own thoughts. â€Å"This gets especially challenging when we disagree with the talkers. If we go inside ourselves to think about how we are going to put our disagreements into words, we, in effect, leave the talkers alone to tend for themselves†(104). This is a very challenging task to overcome. I feel with the help of God and the tools from this book, I will become a better communicator with my family as well as with my friends and church members. I have a hard time speaking up and I am very non-confrontational (7 Gift/DISC Profiler 2011). I could be a leader; however people would view me as a friendly one. I am going to try to be more assertive in my actions and words.