The stress of conflicting views.

OUR CONFLICTS AND DISPUTES inevitably involve stress or indignation. This may become visible in our facial expression, voice tone, or gestures. Behind these visible reactions lie our attitudes, beliefs, and convictions.

Being firmly convinced of the 'correctness' of our beliefs and attitudes, we tend to respond accordingly. This may be diagrammed as follows:

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Suppose that you I are communicating, and we hold strongly differing convictions. A possible conflict between us might ensure:

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What usually happens as a result?

Possibly part of the following:

   Stress reactions in each of us, including increased blood pressure,
   increased heart rate, muscular tension, altered breathing pattern,
   and other things of which we may or may not be aware.

Our over-all response to any happening or situation may be usefully diagrammed as follows:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This brings us to the importance of:

DISTINGUISHING THE HAPPENING FROM THE WORDING.

My colleagues and I see it as of the highest importance not to confuse level 4 with level 1. That is, we see it as a fundamental mistake to treat these two levels as one and the same. In the above diagram the happening comes first, and is more important than the wording which comes last. Here, we are particularly indebted to Alfred Korzybski's formulation of general-semantics.

We see the following as a useful statement to be constantly aware of:

"DON'T TAKE THE WORDING TO BE THE REALITY."

The mistake of confusing these two levels may be seen constantly in conflicts and disputes in which, of course, many other factors are also involved. But when the error of confusing the wording with the reality is uncovered, the way is often cleared for the solution of the conflict.

Unfortunately it is not always easy to detect this error, and many people do confuse these two levels in the sense of assuming that the wording IS the thing.

In general, it is fairly easy for us to detect deliberate lying. The media, for instance, often exposes untruths, but despite constant exposures of this kind it is so easy for us to assume--quite unconsciously--that levels 1 and 4 are equivalent or the same.

LAURIE COX, Author and GS Instructor Laurie Cox has received the 2003 Talbot Winchell Award for his work in general semantics. Reprinted with permission of the author from Self-Management in Difficult Situations by Laurie Cox, copyright [c] 2000, available from the Australian Society for General Semantics, www.peug.org.au/~ajames/agshome.htm.