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The Art and Science of Relating: A Case Study in Communicating with Empathy, with Alan Alda, Actor & Author, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
Choice of words does matter. It matters a lot. But I think that it’s important to remember that if all we do is get the right words in our head, and the right order of words, and think that that’s going to make all by itself good communication…I think we’re missing the boat. Because really effective communication is not just because I have something perfect to say to you. It really occurs when you understand and internalize what I have to say, and are able to make it your own, to remember it, and that kind of thing.
Here’s an interesting example of that. One of our medical students who we were training to communicate better was on rounds with a supervising MD. The doctor who was in charge was talking to a patient and he had to explain to her that she had incurable cancer and she was going to die. And he was talking to her and as he was telling her all this really hard to take information, she wasn’t asking questions. And you could tell by the look on her face, or at least the medical student could tell by the look on her face, that she wasn’t understanding it. She was just listening with kind of a blank expression. And the lead doctor said, “OK, I’ll talk to you later,” or whatever he said. And left. And the young doctor, the medical student, said, “Do you mind if I stay for a few minutes and stay with her and talk to her?” And he was given permission to do that. So now he sat down right opposite her and took her hand in his. And he started to say many of the same things that the other doctor had said, but he didn’t use the same words. So the words changed. He didn’t say metastasis. He talked in simpler terms, but he was making contact with her. He was looking in her eyes, he was opening himself up to her as he talked to her. And little by little she started to cry, and she started to ask questions. And finally she understood she was going to die. And he helped her through that understanding. He helped her get that understanding because she wasn’t protected against this barrage of impersonal communication that the other doctor had been giving her. And what he said to us, what this young doctor said to us, was that it brought him back to one of our basic exercises – the mirroring exercise, where he has to mirror the movements of another person. And when that happens well, you get in sync. And he said, “I was mirroring her. And then she began to mirror me, because she helped me be a better doctor. Because she responded with tears to what I was saying, which let me know she really understood me.” He was so moved by the experience that he began to cry himself in the experience. And I don’t think he was crying because he felt her pain at the awareness that she was going to die. I think he was moved because this connection had taken place. And he realized that the movement he had made during the workshops to be able to make this kind of contact with another person was a profound experience.