How did that make you feel?

Once upon a time, long ago, I found myself in a counseling session with a psychotherapist trying to save a failing marriage. My engineering brain had concluded that, even though my spouse was “making me crazy” with her erratic behaviors and tantrums of rage that I needed to get my own emotional life in order. So, I braved the encounters and tried to do the soul searching in earnest.

While I discovered a great deal about myself, I became rather irritated paying someone to repeatedly ask the same question: How did that make you feel? Yes, I know why he did, but I almost never heard a question that moved beyond the surface and reflected on what I had been saying with any level of empathy.

What prompted this blog was an article in Nautilus on whether computers can learn to express emotions: Artificial Emotions – Nautilus. As I read it, those experiences from five decades ago resurfaced. That therapist made me feel he was an automaton.

When I asked AI to explain why that question is so often used, I got this:

The question “How did that make you feel?” is a common one, especially in therapeutic contexts, and is often used to encourage self-reflection and emotional awareness. It prompts individuals to connect their internal emotional experiences to external events or situations, helping them identify and understand their feelings. Therapists may also use it to help clients explore their emotions, express them, and potentially learn new ways of coping with them. 

So, there we have proof … a computer can indeed seem to express emotions. But, just like humans, these can be surface interactions rather than deep connections. The marriage I mentioned ended with her grounds for dissolution that I was boring and unintellectual. Yes, you read that correctly and you can ask my wife Susan whether I am making it up … but no, I am not. That was her grounds for divorce. But I digress.

Susan participated in a psychological experiment when she attended college where she was paid to listen to incoming freshmen and at first try to help them but halfway through the experiment to not offer any advice … only ask the same question: how did that make you feel?

The results of her research project were startling perhaps. The students initially hated her and thought she was stupid, but then felt she was wonderful when all they did was listen and ask that question.

As I ponder what I am learning from AA’s Twelve Step meetings, I see a parallel. Simply offer people a safe venue to express how they feel and what they are coping with and share with them how you have had the same challenges … validating them.

The Serenity Prayer is part of these meetings: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Ironically, IMHO there is definitely room for a robot to replace counselors, especially when only superficial relationships are needed.

Given most of us live our lives on that surface … counselors be afraid … be very afraid!  AI will replace you.  So … go deeper.  Listen more intently and reflect that listening by asking better questions.