Situation For Interpersonal Effectiveness

The movie ‘Click’ starring Adam Sandler, tells the story of a man who was very conflicted with his family priorities and demands from his job. In the movie, he is given this ‘universal remote’ that controls his universe. He can now fast forward through family obligations to get work done with the hopes of one day promoting to provide more for his family. He thinks once he promotes he will finally have the time for his family, yet his work just then demands more of him. The movie shows that the remote fast forward him so much that his family suffers as he is always tending to his work demands. The movie progresses and shows his character process the regret of putting work first after he loses his wife, his father dies, and his children grow and he missed it all.

This movie is a great example of understanding the ‘Situation for Interpersonal Effectiveness’.

Learning this helps with unstable relationships (relationship breakup, interpersonal conflicts, chronic family disturbance, abuse and neglect, parental mental disorder) and when efforts are made to avoid loss (social isolation, interpersonal loss, romantic breakups).
These skills can help you:

Take care of your relationships
Balance priorities (your needs) with others demands (other’s needs)
Balance wants (things that you want to do) with shoulds (things you ought to do)
Build mastery and self-respect

Everyone has these skills. The degree of mastery of these skills tends to vary from one situation, to the next. For example, some people may be quite comfortable saying no to strangers, but not to friends. Others may be able to say no to friends, but not to their bosses.

Frequently people have good interpersonal skills but are not sure when and how to use them. In order to decide what skills to use and when to use them, you need to know what your goals are in a situation.

The 3 goals are:

Objectives Effectiveness Skills (using skills to get what you want)
Relationship Effectiveness Skills (using skills to maintain/improve a relationship)
Self Respect Effectiveness Skills (using skills to maintain your self-respect)

Situations for interpersonal Effectiveness teach the following:

Attending to relationships
Balancing Priorities vs. Demands
Balancing the Wants to Shoulds
Building Mastery and Self-Respect

Attending to relationships

Attending to relationships is like tending a garden. If you do not water your flowers and pull your weeds, you will not have a successful garden. With personal relationships, you have to cultivate the healthy relationships which means using relationship skills to head off problems, resolve conflicts with them before things get overwhelming (this is watering your flowers) and end hopeless relationships (pulling the weeds) before they damage you to the point that you can not function effectively in your life or with your other relationships.

The song ‘Cats in the Cradle’ is another example of not attending to a relationship.

Balancing Priorities vs. Demands

Balancing priorities vs. demands requires understanding the difference between a priority and a demand. A priority is something that is of value to you and is important to you (because of your personal growth or your career growth). A demand is something that is usually put upon you by an outside source that is demanding your attention. Something someone else wants you to do. When you attend only to those high demands, your priorities suffer and you do not reach your goals. When you only attend to your priorities, then relationships with others suffer and the demands to build and become overwhelming.

For example:

Adam Sandler’s Character’s Priorities:

1. Camping Trip with his kids

2. Spend time with his wife

3. Walking his dog

4. Getting promoted

His demands:

Boss demanding reports to be done
Boss adding to his duties during holidays
Family Pressuring him to be present
Boss giving him another client

Sandler’s character definitely gave in to his demands from his boss and resented the demands of his family. He took out his pressure on his family, and those relationships suffered and some went away.

Recognizing where you are with your priorities vs. demands makes much more sense when you create your own list and see what you are attending to. This is part of the homework for the group this week.

Balancing Wants vs. Should’s

Look at his wants:

1. He wants more time with his family when he’s not distracted by work.

2. He wants to get promoted in hopes to get more time with his family.

Now look at his shoulds:

He should walk his dog (when it needs to be walked)
He should complete his work proposal for the new client
He should spend quality time with his wife
He should spend quality time with his kids
He should make time for his parents

Obviously, I’m guessing as I am not his character, but if you can see in his mind, he should do a lot more than he actually wants to do. He is out of balance. A life that is dominated by wants often runs into trouble because responsibilities are not met and commitments are not kept. A life dominated by shoulds can lead to depression, frustration, and anger. If you see his shoulds are higher (out of balance) with his wants. (No wonder he’s not very happy). He needs to use skills (possibly a Dearman) to ask for help with his shoulds/demands, or to say no to some shoulds/demands.

Building Mastery and Self-Respect

We learn how to build mastery during the “B” of ABC Please. We learn how to maintain self-respect with FAST. We learn this week that it is important to interact in a way that makes you feel competent and effective, not helpless and overly dependent (which damages your self-respect). Most people avoid doing things they do not feel competent in. Most people do not like to fail. Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take”. We can not build mastery in things if we avoid them because we are afraid to fail. As a child, we would never continue to try walking if we quit the first time we fell. The important thing is to build mastery and keep trying even if you do fail.

In a DBT skills group, you would learn all of these skills to effectively attend to relationships. Can’t find a group locally? Learn these skills in the privacy of your own home with my Online DBT Skills Program.