065: The Five Secrets (Part 1) — Overview

Is there someone in your life who just

• won't listen?
• won't open up?
• always has to be right?
• always has to get his or her way?
• doesn't seem to understand how you feel?
• doesn't seem to care?
• is relentlessly critical?
• whines and complains endlessly, but always ignores your attempts to help?

Would you like greater intimacy and respect, and more rewarding relationships with the people you care about?

If so, this podcast series on the Five Secrets of Effective Communication will be right up your alley. Although the Five Secrets have been introduced in previous podcasts, David and Fabrice will bring them to life with clear explanations and vignettes, and will give you homework assignments so you can practice them, one at a time, between podcasts. In the first two Five Secrets podcasts, David and Fabrice will be joined by Helen Yeni-Komshian, MD. Helen was David's student during her psychiatric residency training at Stanford roughly 15 years ago, and she now teaches David's at weekly psychotherapy training group at Stanford, and is on the adjunct faculty there.

David, Helen, and Fabrice begin with a brief definition of each of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. They emphasize the importance of intense desire if you really want to learn and master these techniques. They compare the Five Secrets to the notes on a musical instrument. Lots of dedication and practice will be necessary if you hope to use them skillfully and effectively in your relationships with the people you care about. The goal is to help you develop greater satisfaction in your interactions with others and to resolve conflicts and arguments with others.

Helen emphasizes that these techniques must be applied in a genuine fashion if they are to be effective. If they are used simply as techniques to manipulate another person, they will not be effective.

David mentions that the Five Secrets exist on two levels. One the one hand, they are sophisticated and powerful psychological techniques that can change your life and your relationships with others. But on the other hand, they are profound spiritual techniques that require the death of the ego. And they also require us to relearn our usual knee-jerk habits of arguing, blaming, and defending ourselves when we're at odds with another person.

These podcasts will be for mental health professionals and for the general public. We will give vignettes illustrating challenging therapeutic logjams that were resolved with the skillful use of the Five Secrets, as well as examples how you can use the Five Secretes with loved ones, friends, colleagues, customers, and even aggressive or irritating strangers.

The Five Secrets require lots of hard work and practice, in much the same way that learning to play a musical instrument will require lots of practice. In addition, when you practice you may initially find them difficult to use, and you may experience some failures. David, Helen, and Fabrice emphasize the spirit of "joyful failure" or "learning through failure," and urge you to check your ego at the door, since the rewards of the learning can be immense.