내담자가 상담자의 감정을 왜곡해서 지각할 때
Alongside the research on bias and projection, related findings suggest that avoidant and anxious individuals alike have a tendency to read hostile intent into their partners’ behavior, even when cues suggesting such intent are absent (Schacter, Shaver, & Mikulincer, 2005). In general, it appears that patients with problematic attachment histories have difficulty accurately decoding nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, and are consequently vulnerable to misinterpreting the emotions and intentions of others (Schore, 2003).
회피 애착이나 불안 애착을 지닌 내담자의 경우 파트너의 의도를 공격적인 것으로 오지각하기 쉽다고 합니다. 비언어적 단서를 잘못 해석하기 때문인데요. 상담자와의 상호작용에서도 이런 일이 발생할 수 있기 때문에, 이런 경우에 상담자 스스로가 자신의 감정을 언어적으로 명확하게 노출할 필요가 있습니다. 아래 문단에서 저자가 어떤 식으로 말하는지 구체적으로 명시합니다.
With such patients, in particular, it may be important for therapists to be more, rather than less, transparent. When we keep ourselves a riddle to patients like these we may inadvertently consolidate a surplus of negative transference. When such a patient seems to be misattributing feelings to me, I have often made a point of deliberately disclosing my emotional experience. When that disclosure has been met with skepticism, then I have asked the patient to look at my face while listening to me. What does he see there? What does he hear me saying? Do the two channels match up, or not? Of course, I explicitly keep open the possibility that the patient may be noting some aspect of my experience of which I’m unaware. Within such a respectful context, I’m aiming to strengthen the patient’s ability to deliberately attend to nonverbal cues so as to be able to read them with greater accuracy. For patients, the first step here—often a disconcerting one—is to allow themselves to begin to at least question their automatic interpretation of such cues.
우뇌가 비언어적인 정서 처리에 연관되기 때문에 우뇌와 관련있는 얼굴 좌측이 우측보다 더 선명하게 감정을 드러낼 수 있다고 합니다. 연구 결과(Mandal & Ambady, 2004)도 있네요. 상담자가 아니더라도 비언어적 정서에 관심이 있으신 분들은 상대방의 얼굴 왼편을 유심히 보시는 것이 도움이 될 것입니다.
The nonverbal transmission and reception of emotion that we’ve been discussing is, according to the evidence of neuroscience research, a specialty of the right brain. In this connection, Schore (2005) makes the suggestion that clinicians might do well to focus on the left side of their patient’s face, because it is the left side that is dominated by the nonverbal social– emotional right brain. Indeed, studies have shown that the left side of the face is more emotionally expressive than the right (Mandal & Ambady, 2004).
원문 출처: Attachment in Psychotherapy, 264쪽.
