and I'm not very happy about you for so
many reasons I can't even remember all
of them and I can't enumerate them right
now because that would take forever and
maybe we would have a huge fight but by
the same token I'm not going to come
over there and make you happy with your
stupid bird and I'm going to indicate
that subtly so you can't call me a son
of a because I'm just sighing and
that's what I'll say if you do ask me
but I'm going to load all that up and
I'm going to deliver it to you and
what's going to happen to you is because
you're smart is your heart rate's going
to go way up like you're being attacked
and the reason for that is you are
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I was reading a gottman study the other
day on marital stability gottman has
done some really good analysis of
couples Behavior he has set up a lab
that's basically a bed and breakfast and
he brings couples in there for a weekend
and wires them up physiologically and
monitors their reactivity he can predict
whether a couple is going to divorce
with 94 accuracy it's like impressive so
what has he found he's identified two
phenomena that are very much worth
knowing the first is that the couples
who are going to get divorced
they come into the bed and breakfast
and they speak with each other quite
calmly but it's more walking on eggs
calm and while they're speaking with
each other calmly their physiology is
aroused and so they're sort of aroused
like someone who's facing a predator so
you might think of an unhappy couple as
predator and prey to each other and so
the words are there mostly to stop
predatory activity not to actually
communicate anything it's just to keep
the surface calm so then you might think
well what's under the surface so Freud
would say it's what's under the surface
is unconscious and but you can say well
what's under the surface is one of these
hierarchies that's all banged up and
twisted and not in reasonable shape and
so people don't want to open the door to
that so but they do this is a Freudian
slip so let's say this goes to the
second part of cotman's observations so
the woman goes over to the window and
she says oh look there's a cardinal
outside Cardinals that bright red bird
they're kind of cool looking it's kind
of a trivial thing in some sense but by
the same token it's like it's a little
positive thing and 20 of them in a day
is good thing okay so then the husband
in this example has a two by two Matrix
of choices one is who the hell cares
about your stupid bird okay so that's
one the second one is
then you go over and look at the bird
and the third one is you don't make the
contempt noise but you act it out and
the fourth one is you go over there like
a civilized human being and that you're
interacting with someone that you care
for and you take a look at the damn bird
and you're happy about it and that's as
truthful and real as you can manage okay
so the
option that's a Freudian slip because
what it says there's a whole monster
underneath that and the monster is all
the disorganization in this entire
structure it's like the might be we have
been tormenting each other about various
things for the last 10 10 years and none
of them are resolved and I'm not very
happy about you for so many reasons I
can't even remember all of them and I
can't enumerate them right now because
that would take forever and maybe we
would have a huge fight but by the same
token I'm not going to come over there
and make you happy with your stupid bird
and I'm going to indicate that subtly so
you can't call me the son of a
because I'm just sorry and that's what
I'll say if you do ask me but I'm going
to load all that up and I'm going to
deliver it to you and what's going to
happen to you is because you're smart is
your heart rate's going to go way up
like you're being attacked and the
reason for that is you are
so what the good couples do the couples
that stay together is they respond to
each other's bids he calls them bids and
so if one person wants to share some
little trivial daily positive thing with
the other the other isn't carrying
around a bloody cart load of resentment
and is able to respond to that in a
positive way and that way the general
interactions between the couples stay
positive the couples who are
physiologically reactive to each other
they're communicating but there's all
sorts of horror underneath the surface
and we're trying to figure out what is
it that's underneath the surface i t
treat people who have post-traumatic
disorder or symptoms of post-traumatic
disorder and so let's say
they got post-traumatic stress disorder
because a relationship collapsed on them
suddenly which is quite common they get
betrayed or someone leaves them suddenly
and then they don't know what to do
especially if they're conscientious
because then they just tear themselves
into pieces trying to figure out what
they did wrong to bring about that event
and the reason they're doing that is
because they want to retool their
perceptions and their actions so that
the probability that they'll have the
same experience again is minimized and
their mind won't leave them alone until
they do it and no wonder because if you
fall into a big pit and you get really
hurt
the first thing you should figure out is
how to not fall into big pits anymore
and your mind is set up exactly for that
and so what you do with someone who's
having problems like that so maybe
they're waking up at the middle of the
night obsessing about what went wrong is
you walk them through it you do a
situational analysis first because one
of the oversimplifications that people
make and this is especially true for
conscientious people is if something bad
happened to me I must have done
something to deserve it
now that's actually a pretty functional
idea because it suggests that there are
things about your behavior that you
could change that would make the future
better but the problem is is that say if
it's the collapse of a relationship and
you've been with that person for eight
years or or longer well you did so many
things with them that the idea that you
did something wrong pretty much extends
to every single thing you ever did with
them and that's how are you going to fix
that and so that's part of the trauma
actually the trauma is
80 million snakes all at the same time
it's like well forget it
you don't have time to go through all
that material and so partly what you do
is with people and this is what you
should do with yourself too is you do a
situational analysis like don't be
assuming necessarily that the thing that
happened to you only happened to you
because of what you did or didn't do
there's all sorts of factors at play so
one of the things that sometimes I do
with clients is if they were in a
relationship and I can get some
reasonable personality information about
both of them I can point out where they
were temperamentally
incompatible like if you're a highly
conscientious person and your partner is
very very low in conscientiousness it's
like well good luck to you two how the
hell are you ever going to work that out
because you want everything to be
exactly where it's supposed to be and
you're working all the time and your
partner could care less whether things
were where they supposed to be and
they're not going to work and you can
butt heads about that forever the
probability that you're going to shift
it except to some minor degree is very
very low and so sometimes you end up
with someone
with whom you get along very well on one
temperamental Dimension and you're an
absolute catastrophe on the other four
and the probability that you're going to
be able to mediate a huge temperamental
difference is extremely low you wouldn't
expect yourself to mediate a huge
intellectual difference you're going to
make the other person smarter or maybe
you smarter depending on who you're with
it's like no probably not bit maybe so
you do a situational analysis
and so what you're trying to do is to
extract out information from your past
and your present that will enable you to
conduct yourself properly into the
future and you sound like an extroverted
person and extroverted people like to be
in the center of a large group of people
and they like parties and they like to
tell jokes and they're energized by
social interactions and so they can have
a fairly large group of friends where
their attention is spread across many
people one of the consequences of that
can be this feeling that you have that
the friendships are shallow
because there's not much to them the
first question might be well do you have
an intimate relationship
because
a fair bit of depth of human interaction
comes as a consequence of long-term
committed relationship with your wife or
your husband or your parents or your
siblings or your children and so I would
say that the true depth in relationship
is generally to be found within family
that doesn't mean that friends aren't
important
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