Relational Frame Theory by Steven C. Hayes & Dermot Barnes-Holmes & Bryan Roche

Author:Steven C. Hayes & Dermot Barnes-Holmes & Bryan Roche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001
Published: 2015-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

7.5.1. The Three Verbal Others

Perspective-taking leads to both the development of the self and to an elaboration of the verbal other. Perspective-taking can establish three types of verbal other: (i) other as verbal relations about the stable content of the other; (ii) other as verbal relations about the ongoing process of knowing in the other; and (iii) other as verbal relations about the context of verbal relations in the other. Stated another way, verbal relations can lead to a conceptualized other, a knowing other, and a transcendent or conscious other.

The conceptualized other is the normal verbal construction of the listener. The example given above about how one talks about relational frames is an issue of the conceptualized other. “Cognitive psychologists are like x, y, and z” is a verbal construction of the stable content of others’ views, history, actions, preferences, and so on. In most verbal interactions, the conceptualized other serves as a Crel for the speaker’s behavior, at least to a degree.

The knowing other is more fluid because it is based on a moment-to-moment construction of reactions of the other. This happens commonly in conversation, especially with friends or others who are willing to share their reactions openly, or with those whom one knows well enough to “read” their expressions and gestures. Successful psychotherapy is often dependent on this level of verbal construction of the other. This level is relevant even to monodies, however, and effective public speakers that are said to be able to “read” their audiences are controlled in part by their moment to moment construction of the audiences’ reactions. Sometimes input into this level is deliberately evoked by the speaker (e.g., “did I just offend you?” or “you just thought of your Dad’s death, didn’t you?”). A sense of the other as process is necessary for the ongoing modulation of the speaker’s behavior.

A sense of the transcendent other is relatively uncommon, occurring most often in religious, intimate, or therapeutic relations. This occurs when the speaker is psychologically connected to the listener as a purely conscious person. In this aspect, the speaker and listener are one, since “HERE and NOW” is imputed to be a singular event (i.e., one cannot be HERE and NOW, simultaneously, at different times and places). Perhaps for this reason, the level of self-as-context is associated with a sense of the transcendent other — the two go hand in hand. The difference between speaker behaviors regulated by the verbal construction of a conceptualized versus a knowing listener, is fluidity and modulation. The difference between these forms of communication and that controlled by the verbal construction of a transcendent other, is openness and defusion from the literal importance of content. That point will be clearer after we address these issues in Chapters 12 and 13.

Desynchrony between different kinds of verbal communication in a given speaker may be traced in part to the role of the verbal construction of the other. For example, a person can be very effective in instrumental verbal requests made in

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