Clip 10: Moment 3b

Michael:

… how can you cue yourself earlier on to say, “Stop, let’s really check in how Jack’s feeling about this. Or whether I'm just tossing out suggestions at an ever increasing rate and speed that I hope that he's going to, that’ll hook him in at some stage.”

Catherine:

And I think it was my burning desire to have the conversation over and done with in as pleasantly, pleasantly as possible … But I didn't do that in the first ... Yeah, so maybe we could try that again, do you think?

Michael:

We could do, but it’s also … what stops you checking? That is the key thing – what is it about you or Jack, a conversation between you, that causes you to keep going when you know -- from all the things that we have done previously – stopping and checking is a good thing to do?

Catherine:

I know that it’s a good thing to do. But I also know that he’s just going to fob me off, so it’s almost, it’s either ... I don't know how he’s going to react if I do actually check ... to the point of him saying, you know, “I don't want anything to do with this.” Or whether it’s just a nice smooth way out of it, so …

Michael:

So by keeping going allows you to get to the end of your conversation – to say all that you had in your head to say to him, and then leave. If you check, he might derail you.

Catherine:

That’s right.

Michael:

So checking is dangerous.

Catherine:

It is dangerous. So there’s a certain amount of nervousness around checking. And the thing about checking is, you don't know the response. But with Jack, I have a fairly good idea that it’s going to be fobbing off again. And so the nervousness is, “Oh, at some point I've actually got to confront this.” And I don't know if I want to.

Michael:

So that takes you back to that Model I stuff, doesn’t it, of “Let’s keep things pleasant. Let’s not risk either of us being upset.”

Catherine:

That's right, yeah.

Michael:

So what do you want to do about that? Do you want to, rerun that part of the conversation with Jack, and do some checking?

Catherine:

Yes.

Allan:

From Jack's perspective, I think I need more voice. And I think you need to give me that opportunity, even setting it up like: “I want to suggest some things for you to reflect on and see if this does make a difference. But if things don't sound reasonable for you, it’s really important to, for you to say that – ‘That’s not reasonable. I'm not going to try it, for this reason.’”

Catherine:

So me setting it up so that you have that chance to say something like that.

Allan:

I think so. Because that deflects the fobbing off. That says, you know … That addresses that issue, doesn't it?

Catherine:

Okay, that's useful, that's good.