Posted by Dinah on December 17, 2004, at 16:06:24
Ok, I might be nitpicking here, and language is really important to me.
My therapist used "I hear what you're saying" on me today. I think what he meant (from context) is "I have no idea what you mean." All in all I'd rather have had him say "I have no idea what you mean" because if someone doesn't understand and doesn't ask for clarification, it sort of feels like they don't think it's important, or don't care what you were trying to say. Ok, what I'd like him to say in those circumstances is "I didn't really understand what you were trying to say, but I do really want to understand. Can we talk about it for a while longer until I get it?"
"I hear what you're saying" seems like something you'd say when you understood perfectly what someone was saying, but didn't approve at all. Maybe if someone was saying something racist, or if someone told him therapy was hogwash because of this or that or the other, or if I told him that I thought something inappropriate was the only solution to my problem. It seems like a sentence with an unspoken "but..." at the end.
Is it a phrase your therapists use? What do they seem to mean when they use it?
(Naturally I asked if he understood what I had said. When he said he hadn't we talked about it until he did.)
poster:Dinah
thread:430936
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041210/msgs/430936.html