“Talk can cure, and talk can foster constructive change… But it must be the right kind of talk.”…
The same is true for parents. How they talk to their children will determine whether they will be helpful or destructive. The effective parent, like the effective counsellor, must learn how to communicate his acceptance and acquire the same communication skills. Parents in our classes sceptically ask, “Is it possible for a nonprofessional like myself to learn the skills of a professional counsellor?” Thirty years ago we would have said, “No.” However, in our classes we have demonstrated that it is possible for most parents to learn how to become effective helping agents for their children. We know now that it is not knowledge of psychology or an intellectual understanding about people that makes a good counsellor. It is primarily a matter of learning how to talk to people in a “constructive” way.
Psychologists call this “therapeutic communication,” meaning that certain kinds of messages have a
“therapeutic” or healthy effect on people. They make them feel better, encourage them to talk, help
them express their feelings, foster a feeling of worth or self-esteem, reduce threat or fear, facilitate
growth and constructive change. Other kinds of talk are “nontherapeutic” or destructive. These
messages tend to make people feel judged or guilty; they restrict expression of honest feelings,
threaten the person, foster feelings of unworthiness or low self-esteem, block growth and
constructive change by making the person defend more strongly the way he is. While a very small
number of parents possess this therapeutic skill intuitively and hence are “naturals”, most parents
have to go through a process of first unlearning their destructive ways of communicating and then
learning more constructive ways. This means that parents first have to expose their typical habits of
communication to see for themselves how their talk is destructive or nontherapeutic. Then they
need to be taught some new ways of responding to children.*
*Excerpt from Dr Thomas Gordon’s P.E.T. book
