Posted by used2b on April 13, 2005, at 22:03:25
In reply to Re: I-statements, posted by Dr. Bob on April 13, 2005, at 9:21:07
To summarize what follows, I posit that you are overtly demanding I-statements, but covertly in some instances you only accept I-statements about certain subjects, specifically those about feelings and not about perceptions.
I think you are attempting something more like psychotherapy than administration, in that you are attempting to persuade me to articulate feelings. On the other hand, you might be trying to improve your administrative skills, which is why I am donating my time and effort.
Whichever the case, the feelings you would have me articulate are rhetorical artifacts of my interaction with you, and are neither spontaneous nor consistent with what I know to be true about myself. Since this is not a psychoanalytic forum, it seems unlikely the process is arranged so as to assess my feelings safely, accurately and therapeutically. Until you say otherwise, this forum appears to be about support and education related to feelings and to perceptions.
In the first model to which you referred ("I was offended when I saw..."), the model stated a perception -- a perceived offense -- with no reference to any feeling the hypothetically perceived offense evoked.
So to me, that suggests personal perceptions are acceptable by your guidelines. That would be a useful guideline, since many cognitively disordered people more likely need support and education for their effort to develop accurate perceptions than they need support and education about whatever emotions they feel in response to confused perceptions. I know for me, I long ago learned to cope with my feelings, dark and mortal as they may be, but I still struggle with confusion about what is life and why I am in it.
RH wrote:
> OK, so an I-statement would be:
>
> > I often feel alienated when I perceive human affection toward meIt would be a first-person declaration, a.k.a. an I-statement, but it wouldn't be my I-statement. I don't often feel alienated in response to affection. I often feel alienated when I witness pretense. Symbolic affection to me is all pretense, but the times I feel alienated in response to pretense are not necessarily the times I perceive affection as pretense. I more often feel alienated by pretense when there is a cost associated with not playing along, such as pretense expressed by fashion, by graphic renderings promoting predatory cultural practices and by symbols of social status. Unless it is deep, meaningful and not mediated by electronic network technology, I usually feel nothing when I witness human affection. As you recall, I previously explained why. I felt somewhat alienated when not playing along with (((huggies))) became costly, but I easily overcame the feeling by impugning the cost, and you are apparently unwilling as yet to exact the toll.
My I-statement would be:
"I often perceive that I am witnessing pretense when I witness symbolic affection among humans."
... and another would be:
"I often perceive I am witnessing profoundly developed pretense consistent with that described by prominent animal behaviorists when I perceive symbolic affection among humans."
Now, if "I-feel" is your final answer to "what is an I-statement" then my rendering of the model might become, "I feel I am witnessing pretense when..." But I probably wouldn’t write that, since I strive to write coherently and I am influenced by accepted science that indicates feelings and perceptions are different processes arising from activity in distinct and divergent neural networks.
> Online, it can help to convey explicitly (while of course remaining civil) what you might non-verbally in person.
>
> BobWhich is why I explicitly, and in keeping with all I have learned about civility, wrote in response to an overture of symbolic affection: "To you it may be real, but to me it is all pretense."
Let's break it down again.
"To me" = "I often perceive"
"To me it is" = "I often perceive I am witnessing"
"pretense" = "pretense"Well, maybe I need four years of medical school and another couple years in specialized training, because apparently I'm still not smart enough to find any difference between your models and what I wrote. That is, unless you are saying we are not to disclose our perceptions and the only civil topic of discussion at your party is discussion of feelings evoked by now-secret perceptions.
poster:used2b
thread:482520
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050323/msgs/483942.html