CENTERING AND FOCUSING - Keeping Cool Under Pressure
"Don't get your tail in a knot."
THE C O P E CARD
This card summarizes the COPE procedure. On the left is the outline of the COPE model -- the steps in the coping process. On the right is a list of the strategies or plans from which you can select to deal with a particular situation.
If you want a wallet size copy of the card, email me and include your mailing address and I will send you one. You can carry it with you for reference and pull it out when you need it. No doubt you will need it from time to time, because to escape from difficult people you have to die young.
CENTERING SELF - C O P E
"Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant."
Centering is the first step in the coping model and coping procedure (COPE) for communicating under pressure. It is a process of maintaining psychological balance under the verbal fire of who left the door open, why wasn't the report finished on time, or who yelled at whom first. It is a process of meeting life's conflicts and pressures in a relaxed but alert manner.
There are a number of situations where maintaining psychological equilibrium is difficult, such as, being accused of something you did not do, being unjustly criticized or yelled at, having to explain something over and over or going to the computer to finish working on your manuscript and finding that somehow your work has been erased from the disk. When upset or psychologically out-of-balance in situations such as these, it is difficult, if not impossible, to handle the situation effectively. In fact, the way you react to such situations may provoke and escalate the conflict further and you may end up making matters worse.
Centering yourself can prove helpful in coping with the attacks or pressures that threaten to upset your psychological balance. The goal of centering is to either not let the other person's attack upset you or to recover as quickly as possible. Here are some concepts and techniques that may prove helpful in learning the art and skill of centering.
Lesson 8 - SHIFTING INTO ADULT GEAR - Transaction Analysis
Assume that there are three separate personality states operating within you: your Parent, your Adult and your Child. Each of these states shows up at different times depending on the situation and how you react to it. For example, let's say you are backing out of your garage to go to work and you back over the neighbor kid's bicycle that was left in your driveway and you are hopping mad --you're coming from your "wild child." You are thankful that the kid was not on or near the bike and you think you better tell your neighbor about the damages to the bike --you're coming from your Parent. You think about the best way to handle the situation --you're coming from your Adult. These three parts of you run or ruin your life. They are the ways you think, feel and act. They can cause you to act differently at different times depending on the situation, your mood and your usual way of handling things.
Eric Berne, a clinical psychologist who spent most of his life in Carmel, California, developed this notion of these three entities inside us. He referred to them them as the Ego States of the Parent, the Adult and the Child parts of ourselves. Click here to read more about Transactional Analysis.
You Win $1,000 Imagine yourself in the following situations. Indicate how your three Ego States might respond.
1. I win $1,000 in the office football pool.
My Parent My Adult My Child
2. My boss criticizes my work.
3. My new job requires me to move away from friends and family.
4. I find a suitcase on the street with $10,000 dollars in it. I turn it in to the police. The owner sends me a thank you note and a check for $20.
The Copy Machine Breaks Down Quiz Each of the following situations has responses that are coming from the Parent, Adult, or Child. Write P, A, or C to indicate in which ego state the response most likely originates.
1. The copy machine breaks down.
"Would you call the repair company, George?" "Nothing's the way it used to be. These machines are not made to last very long. I don't think people take pride in their work anymore. "Why does this always have to happen to me?"
2. The boss always fills his extra-large cup with coffee and never puts any money in the kitty.
"If you want to do the right thing, you should put money in the kitty when you get coffee." "I wonder if the boss is aware that some of us are upset about him not contributing to the coffee fund?" "I can't believe he does that every time."
3. Employees are waiting for a department meeting to begin.
"I wonder what this meeting is about." "We should receive an agenda before every meeting. "If management thinks we're going to sit here and listen again to what a great job other departments are doing, they're nuts."
4. A shapely woman walks into the store wearing a tight jump suit.
"Oh for a figure like that." or "Now that is outasight." "That outfit is a little too revealing for public appearances." "I wonder if she is aware of the meta messages she's sending."
In Summary - Eric Berne theorized that there are three constructs that are intrinsic to our our personality make up. He referred to them as the Parent, the Adult and the Child which developed as a result of our growing-up experiences.
Parent - He postulated that here are really two forms of the Parent.
The Nurturing Parent is caring and concerned- a kind of father or mother figure which seeks to keep the Child safe, provide love, and take care when it is sick or troubled.
The Controlling or Critical Parent, on the other hand, tries to make the Child do as the parent wants it to do, and encourages it to adopt the values and attitudes of the Parent.
Adult - He said the Adult in us is our grown up, rational person who talks reasonably and assertively, neither trying to control nor reacting. Think of the Adult part of yourself as the part that gathers and analyze facts, tries to solve problems using logic and reason rather than emotion, handles difficult situations calmly and directly, doesn't rush to judgment but makes decisions based on fact and logic. This is the part of ourselves that we try to engage when dealing with difficult people.
Child - He postulated that the Child part of ourselves can manifest itself in three very different ways.
The Natural Child is largely un-self-aware and is characterized by play with occasional emotional outbursts of emotion in the form of happiness, sadness, anger or affection.
The Little Professor is the curious and exploring Child who is always trying out new stuff (often much to their controlling Parent's annoyance). Together with the Natural Child they make up the Free Child.
The Adaptive Child reacts to the world around it, either changing to fit in or rebelling against it.
Applying the PAC model to coping with difficult people
So, which of the three parts of yourself (Parent, Adult, or Child) should you try to bring out when you find yourself in a pressured situation? If you said Adult, you are correct. In such situations try shifting into Adult gear and you will avoid being knocked off balance. As a result, you will slow down your automatic knee jerk reaction and then you can begin to think about appropriate objectives and solutions to deal with the problem. The Adult part of yourself is available, but you have to call it up ("part the wave") so that you can focus on what is happening, analyze the situation and move toward problem solving.
While TA theory has some good ideas and techniques to help you manage your thought processes in stressful situations, Cognitive Psychology provides some for managing your emotions. The next lesson deals with this topic.
Minute Paper - Lesson 8: Please review the main ideas presented in this lesson and respond to this question. "What was the most useful point you learned?" If you want, please include your thoughts/comments about the best part of this material, the muddiest point presented, any mistakes you noticed, or difficulties you may have with hardware or software.
Send your Minute Paper as an email to the Instructor, Marshall Chatwin
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