Acting Opposite in Relationships: Negotiation Skills
United States Department of Homeland Security
Key Points
- We all have certain urges which, when acted upon, make things worse.
- This is called the stupid cycle.
- The best way to exit the stupid cycle is to act opposite to the urge.
- Relationship experts have identified the four behaviors which best predict the dissolution of relationships.
- In marriage, the clearest predictive behaviors of divorce are criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.
- Contempt is the largest predictor of divorce.
- Criticism and defensiveness are a two-person stupid cycle.
- If patterns of criticism and defensiveness escalate, they will result in an even more intense and destructive cycle of contempt and stonewalling.
- It is imperative to recognize these urges and act opposite.
- The opposite of criticism is to use a gentle startup.
- The opposite of defensiveness is to take responsibility.
- The opposite of contempt is to use “I feel” and “I need” statements.
- The opposite of stonewalling is to self-soothe.
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Transcript
Greetings, and welcome to the fifth video in this series on interpersonal effectiveness. So far we have learned a series of acronyms to facilitate interpersonal effectiveness across a wide range of situations. In this video, we will resurrect a previously-learned emotion regulation skill, and refurbish it specifically with relationships in mind. So let’s get started.
So if you re--, recall, during the emotion regulation module we learned about the acting opposite skill. So Just as a quick refresher, if you remember, we all have certain urges which, when we act on them, make things worse rather than better. Remember we called that the stupid cycle. So the best way to get out of a stupid cycle, if you remember, is to act opposite to that urge. So, Of course, acting opposite does not feel authentic since we’re doing the exact opposite of what we feel like doing, and that’s precisely why this skill is called acting opposite, right? We’re going to fake it till you make it. It’s just an act.
Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.,Reutter, K. (2019). The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook for PTSD: Practical exercises for overcoming trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. New Harbinger Publications.
So let’s take this basic concept and apply this to relationships. Relationship experts have identified the four behaviors which most predict dissolution of relationships. So, in marriage, that would be divorce. And these four behaviors are criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.
Gottman, J. S., & Gottman, J. (2015). 10 principles for doing effective couples therapy. National Geographic Books.,Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.,Reutter, K. (2019). The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook for PTSD: Practical exercises for overcoming trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. New Harbinger Publications.