42 Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame

Nov 16, 2020

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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.
1. This is episode 42, released on November 16, 2020
2. Thank you for being here with me.
3. and it is the sixth episode in our series on shame.
4. and it is titled: Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame
Introduction to IFS.
1. Developed by Richard Schwartz
1. Discussion of Parts
  1. Discrete, autonomous mental systems, each with own idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, abilities, desires views of the world.
    1. Modes of operating
    2. Subpersonalities
    3. Orchestra model
    4. Focus is on integration.
2. 1. Get forced into extreme roles -- attachment injuries and relational traumas
3. 1. Three roles
    1. Exiles --
      1. most sensitive -- become injured or outraged. Threatens the system, external relationships
      2. Exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships
      3. Want care and love, rescue, redemption
      4. shame. Need for redemption
  2. 1. Managers
      1. Protective, strategic, controlling environment, keep things safe
    2. 1. Obsessions. Compulsions, reclusiveness, passivity, numbing. Panic attacks, somatic complaints, depressive episodes, hypervigiliance.
  3. 1. Firefighters
      1. Stifle, anesthetize, distract from feelings of exiles
    2. 1. No concern for consequences
    3. 1. Binge eating, drug/alcohol use, dissociation, sexual risk taking, cutting
4. 1. Parts can take over the person
    1. Like in Pixar Movie Inside Out -- anger taking over the control panel of the main character Riley
  2. 1. We call it blending.
IFS on the Self -- (recorded)
1. Self defined as the seat of consciousness
1. Self can be occluded or overwhelmed by parts
1. When self accepts and loves parts, those parts transform back into who they were meant to be
1. Self-led mind is self-righting.
1. self -- Active inner leader -- more than mindfulness
1. Parts find the relationship with the self very reassuring
  1. But to reap the benefits they have to unblend from and notice the self
2. 1. This is frightening can challenging to parts
3. 1. Agency in the parts -- parts are making decisions about unblending in IFS model
1. Intrinsic qualities of the self
  1. Curiosity
2. 1. Compassion
3. 1. Calm
4. 1. Confidence
5. 1. Courage
6. 1. Clarity
7. 1. Creativity
8. 1. Connectedness
9. 1. Kindness
1. The self can be easily occluded, obscured, hidden by protective parts who take over in response to fear, anger or shame
  1. General state for most people is to be quite blended
2. 1. 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.
1. Listening to -- Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind -- Many people struggle with this
  1. Often called active listening
2. 1. Listen carefully to what the person says
3. 1. Grasping the content
4. 1. Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.
5. 1. Focus externally on the other person, not internally. Not distracted by own self-focus
7. Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer. Characteristic of very good therapists.
  1. Listening in search of something-- filling in the gaps in the person's big picture
  2. What is beyond and behind the words?
  3. Holding it lightly. Speculative endeavor.
  4. Listening to what the person does not say
  5. 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.
  6. What are we listening for?
    1. The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience
    2. Emotions
    3. Intentions
    4. Thoughts
    5. Desire
    6. Attitudes toward the world
      1. Glass half empty or half full
    7. Impulses
    8. Vision of the world
    9. Working models of the world, assumptions.
    10. Values
    11. Purpose in life
    12. I listen for identity and for shame.
  7. Listening for both the words and the entire context
    1. 70-93% of communication is nonverbal -- Albert Mehrabia, Professor Emeritus at UCLA
      1. Voice -- tone, inflection, volume 38% of communication
    2. 1. Body language -- glance patterns, facial expressions (including micrexpressions -- smiling matters a lot), posture, fidgeting, head movements, hand gestures,
    4. Summarized in his 1971/1980 book Silent Messages
    5. Based on one word communications
    6. Challenged by Philip Yaffe debate about it.
  8. Faculty of imagination -- What Aristotle called Phantasia activities in thoughts, dreams and memories.
    1. 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).
  9. Focus here on understanding, entering into the other person's perspective
    1. Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1)
  10. 1. Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective
  11. 1. Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking dee...