Questions About Working with Emotions in Group

This is from the mail bag. Back in December, Carolina wrote:

If you are in the middle of mediation, how would it help to appear to take sides? To gush about one person? And I see now I made a mistake—watch what someone does not what they say. That's just a rule for life, and a good one if you live in close proximity.

I'm trying to make sense of the madness. Of listening to all people and their hurts and concerns and then not seem to really hear all of them. Plus, I wonder how useful lots of talk is when the actions are not being taken. I wonder who is really afraid of big emotions. That is a theme I hear on this blog. Others are focused on forming a community where all can be respected. As an outsider, that must be tricky to figure out when some are more persuasive than others and without a therapy background, some mental health issues may not be noticed.

There's a lot here. 

1. Appearing to Take Sides

When I'm working with someone in distress, my number one priority is connecting with the person at the experiential level—showing that person that I can feel what it's like to be them. Thus, it's important to get the affect right, not just the words. In doing so, I may come across as siding with that person, when all I'm really doing is seeing them as fully as possible.

For this approach to work well, I have to offer the same quality engagement with others in the conflicted dynamic. My experience is that others will generally give me room to be present for others, so long as I am present for them in turn.

To be clear, I am not "gushing about one person"; I am connecting with them.

2. Connecting Words with Actions

When I'm working with someone in distress, I'm simultaneously tracking what they're saying with their words, and what their saying with their energy. Sometimes, these two don't align, which always gets my attention, usually indicating that we haven't yet gotten to the bottom of what's going on for that person (say, when the speaker reports anger yet expresses themself in well-modulated tones; or the other way, when there is a lot of force and intensity in their speech, yet all of the words are about ideas rather than feelings).

Sometimes people make promises about future behavior that they don't keep ("I won't do that again," and then they do). Of course, you can't know whether the follow through will be there when a person makes a commitment to shift future behavior, but I think it's important to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not asking groups to be naive, but if the group doesn't allow for the possibility of change, it is far less likely to occur. 

3. Fear of Strong Emotions

—I wonder who is really afraid of big emotions. 

In my experience this is widespread. While it's common to find some support for working emotionally in groups, it is extremely rare to not find pockets of resistance to that. The wider culture does an abysmal job of preparing people to articulate their feelings and to listen closely when others express their feelings. For a number of people, their personal experience with the expression of strong feelings is that people are going to be targeted, dumped on, or abused. If that's all you know, is it any wonder you mistrust going there?

I focus a good deal on working emotionally because I think it's a critical skill, and it's typically hard for groups to buy into it. It's a heavy lift.

Just this week I had an example that illuminates my point. There was a contentious issue in the group and I made room for everyone to state how the topic touched them—not what they wanted to happen (that would come later), but the ways in which they were impacted by the topic, or the group dynamic in relationship to it. Not surprisingly, some people were worked up and they expressed their upset in the session—which was exactly what I had in mind. Afterwards I got roundly criticized by a few members who are uncomfortable with strong feelings being expressed in meetings, having found the criticisms to be raw, uncivil, and unproductive.

Interestingly, three of my detractors have been reported to be among the most provocative members of the group outside of meetings, where they apparently feel it's OK to unload on others they're upset with, or otherwise engage in provocative acts. In other words, they believe there should be special norms for meetings that don't apply otherwise—or at least not to them.

I'm scratching my head trying to understand how that works.

4. Respect

This is not just a song by Aretha Franklin. While almost everyone agrees that respect is a good thing, that concept is seldom unpacked to understand its nuances. Upon examination, it turns out that—surprise!—not everyone defines respect in the same way. Let me give an example of how this can go awry.

For some, respect means a willingness to hear their truth, in their own voice, which may be accompanied by strong passion. For another, respect may mean never raising your voice when communicating. It isn't difficult to see how these two perspectives don't play nice with each other, and each can feel they were promised respect that the other is not willing to give. Uh oh.

5. Knot Therapy

I do not have training in psychology and am not qualified to diagnose mental health issues. While they are a real thing and may be a factor in what's going on, I advocate engaging on the behavior level (rather than dabbling in amateur psychoanalyzing)—what actions are acceptable and which ones aren't. Never mind what the roots of those behaviors are, let's deal with what's in the room, let's unpack the reactions, and let's decide how to move forward. So the first point for me to make is that I am making no therapeutic claims about engaging with reactivity.

Better, I think, is to see what I am advocating as a way to untie the knots that are constricting circulation among members. In doing this work I try studiously to avoid the trap of allowing strong feelings to determine the menu of what gets considered. While I think it's beneficial to welcome strong statements germane to the topic, I do not allow those to dictate what we can or cannot discuss. I prefer to see the feelings as data, rather than as manifest destiny.

At the end of the day, it will be the group's work to discern how best to balance all the factors that are play, and you don't get extra credit for having spoken with high passion—though neither should you be penalized for it.

Navigating the Emotional Minefield

One of the defining indicators of the health of cooperative groups is how they respond when strong feelings emerge among members.

Most of us were raised in a mainstream culture that did not develop our capacity to know our feelings or understand what constructive responses would be when they erupt in others, and few groups select for members who have that orientation. (To be clear I'm not talking how to handle unbridled joy. I'm talking about rage, paralyzing fear, deep sadness, overwhelm, and even grief—you know, the hard ones.)

If the group does not explicitly discuss how it wants to engage with feelings, mostly they don't, and the results of that neglect and chaos are not pretty. A good portion of my work as a consultant to cooperative groups revolves around trying to help them understand why they need to develop an ability to work with feelings, and how to do it.

The interesting case is when one or more members attempt to traverse an emotional minefield (by which I mean a stretch of territory where it is suspected that strong feelings may reside below the surface) and someone explodes—perhaps by intentionally triggering someone known to be sensitive in a particular way, or perhaps inadvertently, but an explosion nonetheless. Now what? I want to examine three possible responses:

I. Cordoning off the Entire Area

If the group reacts with anxiety, and fears an escalation that may result in severe damage to relationships, they may call an immediate halt, clear everyone out of the field, and declare return visits off limits. That topic (that minefield) is now taboo. In general, this comes from most (all?) members having no experience of examining feelings as a safe exercise. Many have personal memories of such sharing having no boundaries, with the result that people come away feeling abused, exhausted, and no better informed. So why allow it?

While this response has the benefit of limiting the potential damage that can result from attacks that accompany outbursts, it also has the unintended consequence of teaching people that they can control what is discussed through expressing distress, and the louder the better. Not good.

2. Designating the Explosion Site Off Limits

This, obviously, is a more measured response, but it's still a rejection of opening up to emotional expression. In this case, it's evaluating such incidents on a case-by-case basis rather than with a blanket prohibition. Maybe the next explosion won't be so overwhelming. 

In this response the group is willing to leave the door cracked, hoping to develop some capacity to work with feelings, while at the same time protecting against potential aggression, by reserving the right to clamp down on it if it feels too dangerous. This can be received as a mixed signal. When the light is yellow instead of red, those who go into reaction may feeling authorized to express themselves (assuming they have sufficient control to choose), while those most leery of being exposed to raw feelings may feel they were being given protection that may not be there in their moment of need. This can go sideways quickly.

3. Bringing in a Medic

Reactivity happens. As all humans are emotional beings (as well as rational) let's first make sure that aggression is limited, and there's no arterial bleeding, and the let's find out what it means. In my experience, the group will ultimately be far better off if stays with the reaction long enough to be sure it understands both the reaction and the trigger, as well as what meaning that has for the person (if you project meaning onto the incident without checking it out, you are subject to all manner of mischief). This is data. If the distress surfaces in the context of the group wrestling with an issue, this data may be highly relevant to what the group is working on. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the upset person gets to control the outcome or the narrative—you are only getting their story, yet it's something to take into account. It is a matter of discernment what weight to give it, just like any data. I am only trying to make the case that knowledge comes in a variety of packages and emotional knowledge is no less inherently valuable than rational knowing. Groups are thus well advised to develop the capacity to speak in both tongues.

If you don't, the person in distress is likely to be isolated and pathologized ("we expect members to control themselves in meetings and outbursts are not welcome; we will not dignify it by giving it attention"). The massage to everyone else is: don't try this yourself; translate your feelings to thoughts if you want them to be respected, or shut up. This effectively cuts off people in distress from being seen as useful members in problem solving, and people in reaction may be tied in knots trying desperately (in silence) to figure out what they will be allowed say, meanwhile missing what others are saying. It's expensive.

• • •

Having said all that, it's understandable why groups don't necessarily start with an understanding of why they need to develop the ability to work emotionally. If everyone is a fish swimming in the waters of rationality, why contemplate what it might be like to fin through a sea of feelings? The reason, of course, is that humans bring their emotional selves into the room every time there's a meeting, and no amount of cultural disapprobation will prevent all expression of strong feelings. It's just not how humans are wired, no matter how hard you try to squelch it. Pretending otherwise is a barrier that gets in the way of the group doing the deeper, richer work of which it is capable.

So you need to have an agreement or two about how you'll handle that. And if you decide to engage (which I strongly recommend) then you'll need to agree on how, on what license you'll give facilitators to go there, on how you'll adjust agenda setting to allow for it, and on how you'll skill up your community to do it well (do not under any circumstances promise that you'll create safety for exploring strong feelings when you don't have a clue what you're doing). All of this is worth the effort, but it's a package and it's an investment.

When people move into intentional communities they are purposefully choosing to live in greater proximity to others, and agreeing to share decision-making more than is done in traditional households. This invariably leads to friction. There is a naive projection that many first-timers carry with them into community living—hoping that shared values and a commitment to cooperation will mean less friction. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. We all bring our quirky personalities and competitive conditioning with us and when we disagree about nontrivial matters, the gloves come off and strong feelings are alive and well.

The measure of a group's health is not how much conflict it has; it's how it navigates the minefield.