The Abilene Paradox Applied to Relationships (A Sad Outcome That Illustrates Our Fear of Talking Openly)

Person 1’s preference: I want to talk to you Person 2’s preference: I want to talk to you Person 1’s behavior: Silence/Inaction Person 2’s behavior: Silence/Inaction Person 1’s hypothesis: You don’t want anything to do with me (or other worrisome fantasy) Person 2’s hypothesis: You don’t want...

Cover photo

Red Flags for Relationships: Rigid Thinking

WE have natural human tendencies that make good relationships hard to achieve. One such tendency is rigid thinking.

Becoming a Better Friend
Cover photo

Løgstrup: Holding Something of the Other Person’s Life in Our Hands

ACCORDING to the Danish philosopher Knud Løgstrup, human beings are interdependent. On a day-to-day basis, other people are an ingrained part of our experience, and we are an ingrained part of their experience. We depend on other people throughout our entire lives, and our lives are intertwined in a

Becoming a Better Friend
Cover photo

The Need to Feel in Control

From self-determination theory, we learn that we have a need for autonomy, for feeling in control, to feel that we have some impact on our surroundings and what happens to us. To look at it from another angle: We have a need for power. We do not like to feel that we have no influence on other people

Becoming a Better Friend
Cover photo

The Need to Feel Heard

We have a need to feel heard, to be listened to, to feel understood, to have our subjective reality acknowledged, to be validated. Unfortunately, most of us are quite poor listeners, which means that this need often gets thwarted.

Becoming a Better Friend
Cover photo

The Need to Be Seen

We have a need to be seen, to be witnessed by someone, to be acknowledged, to be recognized. We do not like to feel ignored or invisible. Most social ...

Becoming a Better Friend