People often assume that they know what another person is thinking — and most often those assumptions are negative and wrong. “Mind-reading” causes people to become defensive and avoid sharing their thoughts. It pushes people away because it feels intrusive to be told what they’re thinking.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Mind-reading is usually a result of your own fears. When you allow your insecurity to take over, you’re likely to scare people away, which is not a good way to promote dialogue. Moreover, when you project your fears onto another person, those fears are more likely to become realized – a self-fulfilling prophecy! If you repeatedly proclaim your worry that another person doesn’t like spending time with you, you create the very situation you fear, because you become less enjoyable to be with. Our perceptions have a tendency to materialize.

Dialogue

While part of you may feel worried and insecure, there is probably another part of you that wants to have an honest dialogue and is hopeful and curious about what the truth might be. Mind-reading assumes that you have all the information, which is rarely the case. To have a real dialogue, you need to focus on the other person and find out where they are coming from. Only when the goal is to gain understanding and not to assign blame can you find out what’s really going on.

To get truthful, relevant information, you have to engage others so that they won’t get defensive. Otherwise they’ll attack back, withdraw, or twist the truth to avoid your negative judgments. You have to ask questions in a way to get them to talk openly. This requires being able to actively listen without being reactive.

Connection

If you lose your connection, the other person is likely to go into a protective mode, which puts a stop to openness. You need to keep a connection to convey your desire to be understanding.

1. To avoid implying blame or self-pity, it helps to use a tone of voice that implies honest curiosity.

2. The best way to get information is to ask open-ended questions that get the other person to describe his or her side of the story. Open-ended questions include where, who, how, what happened. Beware of “But why did you do that?” because it sounds accusatory. When people feel blamed, they’re likely to skew the information to boost their self-esteem and avoid incrimination. It’s better to ask how something happened, followed by, “what happened then?”

3. Avoid leading questions, such as, “You’d rather work than spend time with me, right?”

4. Avoid “yes or no” prosecuting-attorney-type questions, such as, “Just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ — did you even think about calling me?” Even police investigators have moved from methods of cross-examination to open-ended questioning.

We are more likely to discover the motivation of the other person when we use compassionate curiosity rather than aggressive interrogation. Also, we are likely to find that others’ actions usually don’t stem from intent to harm us. From a position of compassionate understanding, we can then continue the dialogue and express our own desires or intent to change the situation.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read “Compassionate Confrontation: ‘He said he’d spend more time with me, but has not followed through.’”

Read “Negative Projection: ‘I never had children, because my husband didn’t want to, and now it’s too late.’”

Read “Five Keys to a Great Relationship: ‘There’s nothing we can do to stay in love.’”