I was just thinking about “active listening” and generated a little revelatory hypothesis.
First let me define “active listening” as I know it. This is the listening technique I am supposed to use as a Medical Assistant, when I am taking a patient history. This is listening where you are entirely focused on the person speaking, absorbing not only their words, but their nonverbal cues (like a distressed expression) and paralanguage (like sighs of pain or frustration).
My main text for this quarter suggests the following exercise to test and develop active listening skills: have a partner talk to you for one to two minutes on a subject with which you are unfamiliar; ask a minimum of questions; when they are done, wait in silence for one to two minutes, then repeat back to them a summary of what they said, making sure to include the important parts.
It sounds sort of simple, right? I knew it would be hard, but I had no idea how hard it would be for me. I have always made fun of myself for having a really bad memory (it has plagued me my whole life), but I chalked it up to ADHD and PTSD. I thought maybe my brain chemicals and neural pathways were against me, making it impossible for me to remember anything. I don’t remember a new acquaintance’s name until about the 5th time I’ve met them. Keeping up with a physics lecture so I can deeply understand what’s being talked about? Forget about it.
I was practicing charting a “chief complaint” from a patient (my obliging friend Jen) and realized that I could not process 30 seconds worth of talking from her, then remember enough of what she said to write it down in the chart (the statements have to be translated into appropriate abbreviations and medically accurate language, etc). Oops!
When I practiced the active listening exercise for the first time with Richard, he spoke for a minute about something he was working on at work, and after a one minute pause I could only recall part of his first sentence and a technical phrase (which only stuck in my head because it sounded interesting). I had to have him repeat it to me. OOPS!
It does get easier with practice. It’s a very interesting skill. When I practice, I get that “pulling teeth inside my brain” feeling, which means to me that new neural pathways are being constructed. I know I’m going to get good enough at active listening to do what I need to do, eventually.
This morning I started wondering exactly why I am so shitty at remembering information. Having a bad memory has frustrated me indescribably. It’s caused me to feel so much shame and embarrassment over the years. I wondered if maybe it is just that I never learned how to “actively listen”, and so information never stuck. And I think I never learned how to do this because no one around me ever did it. Truly, no one ever listened! When I say “no one” I am speaking specifically of my parents, even though it sounds like I mean everyone in the entire world. (I guess your parents are the entire world to you when you’re a child.)
My stepmother was so narcissistic that she never even tried to listen. I think she had a sort of pre-made mold in her head for each major player in her life, and tried to fit all incoming data from that person into this lifeless mold she had already constructed. It didn’t matter what you said to her at all– she already had made all the decisions she would ever make about you and who you were (and how dumb and inferior your were).
My father– man, to this day I can not figure him out. I just know that he does not listen. I realize now that I have been watching him fail the “active listening recall” test for years. My whole life! It’s actually so sad it’s kind of funny.
And my mom… she also lives in a world of her own construction. She is more sad than funny. She tries, but it’s like the entire world was set against her from birth. (Or maybe that is her view of the world, and her belief system is so rock-solid that the people around her perceive her life that way too.) One of the saddest examples of her inability to listen is this: she would often ask me how I was doing, or how Richard and I were doing, and I would tell her we were doing well. She wouldn’t believe me– she would insist that something must be wrong. She thought I was protecting her from the inevitable pain that must be consuming my life.
I imagine that kids do the best active listening. You know, when kids are that age where they’re absorbing everything? When they learn to swear, and you wonder where they got it, and realize it’s from you, because they hear everything you say? When they hear adults use metaphors they don’t understand, and try to construct a meaning, but just end up with some grotesquely literal translation? (My mom’s boyfriend got fired when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old, and I thought it meant he was lit on fire by someone as a punishment for being bad.) Kids are constantly listening, absorbing, synthesizing, matching incoming information against what they know, revising it to fit– they’re passionate critical thinkers, and they’re using it to survive.
For those who understand photographs better:
Gibbon skeleton, Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle, 2005 (For sale)
