Way back in graduate school I read an article entitled "The
Catch in Praise". The concepts put forth in that article
were novel and fascinating to me. The author stated that there
can be and often is a catch in praise. The catch is that the
person who is doing the praising is trying through praise
to manipulate and control the other person. In other words,
praise can be misused in the same way that criticism often
is. Both can be attempts to get the other person to change
their behavior. An appropriate example of this manipulation
is when the dog trainer says, "Good dog!" or "Bad
dog!" These are attempts to get the dog to repeat or
to eliminate behaviors. Both are attempts to control the dog.
This is appropriate in the case of dog training, but all of
us have seen examples of parents doing both of these things
to children. In the case of children I very strongly feel
that it is not appropriate. We do not want to give children
the messages that I think this kind of parenting gives them.
The opposite of manipulation is respect.
When a parent attempts to manipulate a child, the parent
gives several negative messages: You can't control yourself,
so I have to control you. You are not worthy of respect. You
are stupid and won't be able to see right through my lame
attempts to control you. These are not the messages that children
need to be receiving. Children need to be receiving messages
of love, respect and affirmation. If you're like me, you have
cringed at manipulative criticism. And if you are truly like
me you have also cringed at manipulative praise. Or maybe
you have had a reaction but you dismissed it because you thought
that you shouldn't be reacting when what was being said was
positive. But your skin crawled anyway.
Some of us grew up with a constant sense of being manipulated
either by criticism or by praise or by both. This was for
some of us in fact part of our trauma. We may in fact have
longed for and even strived for praise. And yet when we got
it we didn't feel as good as we had thought we would. The
trouble with praise and criticism is that neither of them
comes from a place of respect for the other person. They come
from a sense that one can or should be able to control the
other person. The truth is that each of us can and does control
ourselves. When advising parents I encourage them to recognize
the child's innate desire to achieve, to do well, to gain
a sense of mastery. Children just naturally want a sense of
accomplishment. I am sure all of us have seen how frustrated
even a small child can get when he or she is unable to do
something that he or she wants to do. They want to succeed
and through their successes to gain a sense of mastery of
their world. What feels better than manipulative praise is
congratulations, recognition, respect and understanding. When
you give a person that, s/he feels more like you perceive
who s/he really is.
I am not saying that there is no place for praise in this
life of ours. I think it depends on the motivation for the
praise. If the motivation for praise is to express a feeling
(other than that I want to control you) then it is a fine
thing and most welcome. The feeling being expressed might
be that I think you are an awesome person, I like you, I am
impressed by what you did, or the like. What is important
here is that the speaker is clear that you are in charge of
you. When it comes to your behavior, you are in control and
any other person is only an observer. But everyone likes to
hear positive observations. I have never met a person who
didn't like to hear that someone else had some positive response
to something they did.
The first time I went to therapy, thirty-five years ago,
my therapist told me that, quote, "criticism is always
a projection." Being desirous of being able to criticize
others with impunity, I found this to be a disturbing concept.
For a long time after that his words rang in my head and spoiled
criticism for me. Every time that I wanted to criticize someone,
I found myself wondering what I was projecting. So now, I
would like to do the same favor for you. There is way too
much criticism in this world and every practitioner of criticism
that I can convert is one more to the good. However, the truth
is that when you are feeling critical it may be that there
is a projection or at least it may have a projective quality.
But there are also good forms of criticism just as there can
be good forms of praise. A very present example of this is
that whenever I write an essay like this, I know that people
are critiquing it in their minds, if not out loud. And, I
want to hear what they have to say about it because it may
be very helpful and enable me to be a better writer.
Desired Outcome:
To recognize that both praise and criticism can be destructively
if they are used manipulatively and to overcome our own destructive
use of praise and criticism and focus on only using them constructively.
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
<< Articles
|
