Page 54 - Effective Communication Skills Mastery Bible 4 Books in 1 Boxset by Tuhovsky, Ian

in our thinking. It is one of the basic assumptions of cognitive-

behavioral therapy. The behavior of another person which we

didn’t like is then a stimulus, that activates (indicates, reminds

us of) a real cause (a thought that starts to haunt us again).

When your partner does not call you for a long time, you
can feel anger and accuse them that they don’t care about you.

However, if you look deeply at the real cause of your anger,

you could realize that you simply need more love signals from

your partner. Subconsciously, you decided to treat the stimulus

(no phone call) as the cause. This is how we transfer the
responsibility for our bad emotions to the external world

instead of taking a better look at ourselves, our emotions,

thoughts, feelings and needs.

When we express anger, we usually interpret a stimulus as a

cause and we blame the other person for our anger. Feeling

that a certain behavior should change or end, we accuse them,
saying that they did something wrong and the next time they

have to do it differently.

As a result, our interlocutor is raising the shield and going

into defensive mode. It’s a normal, usual reaction. Where there
is an attack, there is also a defense. The stronger the attack is,

the stronger the defensive reaction.

As soon as your interlocutor starts defending themselves,

they are not able to understand what the problem actually

comes down to. Their priority will now be to push the

accusations away and to resolve the conflict as soon as
possible (usually not in the healthiest way possible, but the

quickest, to release the tension they feel). They also won’t be

able to change their behavior, even if you communicate to