“In someone else’s shoes”: why is it difficult for us to understand the other?

“Last year I tried skiing for the first time,” recalls Tatyana, 40. – I went down a small hill a couple of times. And then my husband sat me in a lift chair and lifted me up a tall mountain. Like, now get out of here. I looked down, my head was spinning. She pleaded: “Come on, but I won’t go. Fearfully!” He began to get angry. I again: “Imagine yourself in my place – it’s my first time on skis!” But he could not understand what I was afraid of: “Only by stepping over fear, you can learn to ride well.”

He insisted, threatened to leave me alone on the mountain. As a result, I burst into tears, unfastened my skis and began to descend in boots … ”.

When we suffer, we look for sympathy: it can bring at least some relief! “In the everyday sense, “stand in my place” is “try to take into account my circumstances”, “try to look at the situation through my eyes,” explains family psychotherapist Katerina Demina. “By saying this, we are trying to state that we have feelings and we want them to be taken into account.”

Feel different

But not all interlocutors are ready to think about what is happening to us! They have their own life experience, their own circumstances, priorities, values, upbringing.

“The readiness for empathy depends on the past experiences of the other, and on his expectations, and on how he treats us and how he interprets our behavior,” says neuropsychologist Roberto Toro, who conducted research at the Pasteur Institute and proved that the ability to Feeling empathy is influenced even by genes. They, according to the scientist, determine our empathy or “insensitivity” by at least 11%. But what kind of genes we are talking about remains a mystery for the researcher and his colleagues.

“Whether they will sympathize with us also depends on the circumstances,” notes Katerina Demina. – Let’s imagine a meeting of two classmates: one has neither a family nor children, and there are two apartments that he rents out. And the other has seven shops, his wife does not work, he spins as best he can, and even pays the mortgage. And now the first one is going on vacation to the Maldives and calls the second one with him. What will he say? “My friend, where should I go, take my place.” And even if he does not specifically say this phrase, but simply refuses to go, he will have exactly this in mind.

Just do not be silent

Often this happens: we do not say “stand in my place”, but simply remain silent, angry, offended, refusing.

As children, we did not always understand what was happening to us. We needed the benevolent attention and understanding of an adult in order to sort out our experiences. Let’s imagine that the mother calls the child for a walk: “It’s so good outside! All your friends are playing in the yard!” And he keeps saying, “I don’t want to.” Only if the mother stops insisting and instead tries to find out why he refuses, it may turn out that someone offended him yesterday on the playground, or he does not want to break away from an interesting game, or his stomach hurts.

As we get older, we gain more life experience. But even he does not guarantee that we ourselves will understand and be able to explain to another what we want or do not want. It is easy to imagine the situation: the father of the family sends his wife and children to the sea for the whole summer, in full confidence that he is doing the right thing. But the wife from the anticipation of such a “rest” feels unhappy. After all, there will be the same three children, but there will be no comfort, familiar environment, familiar doctor, nanny and grandmother, ready to help. He is upset because he does not understand why she is unhappy with his care, and she complains to her friend: “He doesn’t love me at all” …

How to avoid such misunderstandings? “I would suggest telling your loved ones in advance what your resources, opportunities and goals are, and then negotiate with them,” says Tatyana Fadeeva, a gestalt therapist. – After all, “to take the place of another” does not mean “to become different.” This means trying to hear the other, while denoting the boundaries of your “I”: “I want this, I dream about it – let’s talk about how our goals coincide.”

The World Wide Web

In order to really take the place of another person, it is necessary to have the ability to identify oneself with him, Sigmund Freud pointed out in his work “Psychology of the masses and analysis of the human “I”.

Instead, we project our own thoughts and emotions onto another person and attribute our mental states and intentions to them. Sometimes this projection takes the form of paranoia: “I know perfectly well what you think of me, it is useless to hide your thoughts!” Whereas in reality we are just speculating. And we often make mistakes.

Language is a much more powerful tool for understanding: it allows us to ask questions, find out how true our assumptions about others were, and also to share our most intimate thoughts with them. But words are not strong enough to convey all the shades of emotions and deep personal experience. “I always tell the real truth. Not all, because to tell the whole truth is a hopeless affair, there are not enough words for this, ”said the famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

Everything is not so clear

How can we leave our own inner self and access the world of another? Abstracting from ourselves and imagining what is happening to him, while realizing that it is not we who are experiencing a personal tragedy, but he.

It is unlikely that in a difficult moment we will be useful to friends and girlfriends if we fall into the same despair as they do.

When another asks us to imagine all that he himself experiences, as a rule, he means the following: “Try to understand, be there and support me.” But he does not require at the same time to sacrifice his well-being and peace of mind.

The words “imagine yourself in my place” can also convey a request for forgiveness when there is a feeling of guilt: “I had to give the cat away because he tore up all the chairs and screamed at night.” There are those who say loudly and aloud: “I understand you perfectly! I had the same.” In this case, they take the opportunity to pour out their soul and tell others their story that has nothing to do with us, or to impose advice that we do not always need.

Can’t be changed

We would like to share the physical pain of loved ones, but they can dryly remind that we are healthy and we are unaware of the suffering that torments their body. Our tears sometimes irritate them, because only the patients themselves have real reasons for tears. Can we really put ourselves in the shoes of a drug addict with withdrawal symptoms or a homeless person with no means of support?

In order for future fathers to know what their pregnant wives feel, an American company has developed a pregnancy simulator: it gives the opportunity to experience symptoms such as a constant desire to empty the bladder, back pain, shortness of breath, fetal thumps in the womb. This is hardly enough to fully experience pregnancy. Rather, the point is to be willing to expose yourself to discomfort in order to better understand your loved one.

The other will remain the same. By definition, we cannot put ourselves in its place: after all, it is the only one of its kind. The best thing we can do is show respect for all its features and take care of it.