Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“When You Just Gotta Tell Someone.”

I have to call attention to a dangerous weapon of mass destruction that is imploding human relationships. This real threat is people who talk too much. There is a giant imbalance in the universe. The talkers are outnumbering the listeners. Relationships, especially close relationships, are in danger because, without real communication, people perish. And there is no communication without an equal balance of listening as well as talking. People need to be listened-to as a essential element of what makes a relationship a relationship. But the talkers must think they will fade from the face of the earth if they are quiet for more than two minutes. As if their existence were voice-activated: stop talking and you vanish! Even columnists should stop talking once in a while and put in some blank spaces in their articles so people could talk back. These days, it is hard to find someone that will listen to you.

I once had a guy come to my office that I knew right away needed someone to listen to him. At first, I thought he was talking to me about a gastro-intestinal problem. "It takes time to sit and talk, to let those things come out that have been packed in there for years. There are not many places where you can let it come out." I conferee I couldn't help forming a bathroom image in my mind before I realized the value of the metaphor he was plying.

I should be giving this guy more credit because he was touching on my pet peeve. He was pinpointing the importance of being really listened to. He figured if he couldn't get it in the normal course of his life, he would have to pay for it. That is the tragedy that has brought professionally trained listeners onto the scene. At least he knew, in his instinctive way, that there is great value in venting your emotions in a comfortable setting. There is something unique and special about having someone's full attention for more than five minutes. Even Dr. Phil has done away with in-depth listening and rushes to make his analysis at the "Opra Clinic of Fast and Easy Answers". He appears to have an uncanny grasp of people's problems, but, in my way of thinking, has sold out to a television format. Too bad listening isn't as photogenic as talking.

I knew managed care had dominated the world of health care, but have these quick-fix bureaucrats extended their influence too far? Is the professional relationship that was designed for listening an endangered species? If the quick fix of the managed health care industry dominates the professions, listening will no longer be valued anywhere. You won't even be able to pay for it, at least with your health insurance. Are the same insurance watchdogs, who have already made a trip to the medical doctor a trying experience, now chiseling away at the sanctuary of the talking cure? These and other piercing questions the Dr.Phils of the world don't want to hear.

If your insurance contract hasn't changed, and you and your regular doctor have actually seen each other before, you may experience a brief glimmering of a feeling you hardly recognize when you go in for an office "visit". It is that feeling from knowing someone is really listening to you. But chances are there is no "visiting", and it has become for many of you just another stage of health care dehumanization. Health managers, perched somewhere in the bureaucratic hierarchy, are telling physicians to increase their patients-per-hour if they want to stay in business. When you need it, it is nice to have a place for expert opinions. But the doctor's office used to be a place where you got listened to as well. Now there's no time for the doc to hear you out. It is no secret that most medical cures owe as much to the RELATIONSHIP with the doctor as with the medications and techno-procedures. There is an institutional amnesia problem about the value of human contact in the treatment room. There seems to be no place in the so-called health industry to sit down and talk over your life. Even most psychiatrists are geared up for matching your problem to the right pill, and you won't be using up many Kleenex in the consulting room.

So listening seems to be a lost art. It's too bad you have to pay someone to listen to you. Although you wouldn't know it here on these pages, where I like to talk, I do know how to listen. In addition to my office being the place where the auditory buck stops, I teach a lot of couples how to listen to one another, and try to model good listening in the therapy session. You want to make this two way? Email me.

Talking heads are everywhere, radio, TV, and even creeping into your home and invading your closest relationships, like a computer worm eating away at your insides. Everybody wants to talk. Nobody wants to listen. Some listeners are only pretending to listen so they can quickly jump in and talk about themselves, their ideas. Or they half-hear you, and launch into solutions to fix your personal situation that didn't need fixingSo there are a lot of unfinished communications floating around out there, because people aren't getting listened to. Things are building up. Relationships are starving for communication.

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