Announcements / Upcoming Workshops
March 24, 2021
Feeling Great: A New, High-Speed Treatment for Depression and Anxiety.
A One-Day Workshop by David Burns, MD. sponsored by Jack Hirose & Associates, Vancouver
Click here for more information including registration!
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Podcast 234: How To Deal with Whiners and Complainers
In today’s podcast, we bring to life two of the earliest CBT techniques I developed way back before I wrote Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. The are:
- The Anti-Whiner Technique
- The Anti-Heckler Technique
they are both based in two of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication:
- The Disarming Technique: You find truth in what the other person is saying
- Stroking: You find something positive to say to the person
- In addition, if appropriate you can include Feeling Empathy, especially in the Anti-Whiner Technique. This means that you acknowledge how the other person is feeling
The Anti-Whiner Technique
Most of us know someone who tends to whine and complain a great deal, and you might have noticed that when you try to help them, cheer them up, or give them some advice, their whining and complaining just escalates, so you end up secretly frustrated and annoyed.
If you’re tired of this pattern, you might want to try the Anti-Whiner Technique, which can be incredibly effective, but it’s anti-intuitive. You simply agree with the person who’s complaining, and give them a compliment.
Rhonda and David will illustrate this with complaints like these:
- Nobody cares about me!
- I never get to do what I want to do.
- Nobody likes me.
- I never get invited anywhere.
- I never get to do anything fun.
- I’ve tried everything and nothing seems to help.
- All the doctors just seem to care about themselves.
- Nobody listens to me!
- Life is unfair.
- People only care about themselves
- I have to do everything for myself. Nobody helps.
- I can’t hear very well, my sight is deteriorating, and I’ve got hemorrhoids! What can I do? Preparation H doesn’t help at all!
- My students just don’t listen. This younger generation is totally screwed up!
- Nothing helps! I’m depressed all the time. I’ve tried everything.
- No one every said one kind thing to me!
- I’ve got so much to do, but I just can’t get started, and everything just keeps piling up!
The Anti-Heckler Technique
I love treating public speaking anxiety because I used to struggle with this problem myself, but now I totally love public speaking. One of the many reasons that people fear public speaking is because they’re afraid someone in the audience will become critical or hostile, or ask them something they can’t answer.
The Anti-Heckler Technique is fairly easy to use, and works like a charm if done skillfully. It’s similar to the Anti-Whiner Technique we just illustrated. Just make a list of hostile things that the audience member from hell might say during your talk, or during the Q and A period, and then respond with the Disarming Technique plus Stroking.
Rhonda and I will illustrate this with these kinds of critical comments.
- You’re full of shit and you know it!
- What you’re saying isn’t true and doesn’t make sense.
- You’re a total fraud and a fake.
- You’re not supposed to say that.
- You talk too fast.
- You are confusing.
- You don’t know what you’re talking about.
- You are not following the outline you gave us.
- It’s too cold, too hot.
- You’re wrong about that.
- You are quoting outdated research that’s been debunked already.
- I didn’t like it when you made jokes.
- You don’t know enough to teach this class.
- You’re disorganized, incomprehensible, and boring.
- You always call on the same people in the audience, you play favorites.
Rhonda and David also explore why it is so hard to use these techniques in our personal and professional relationships, and why we lapse into adversarial defenses when we could collaborate with others in the spirit of mutual exploration and learning.
Most of it has to do with the idea that we have a “self,” or “ego” to defend!
As the Buddha so often said, “Selves are cheap. Selflessness is dear!”
Dr. Rhonda Barovsky practices in Walnut Creek, California, but due to Covid-19 restrictions is working via Zoom, and can be reached at rhonda@feelinggreattherapycenter.com. She is a Level 4 Certified TEAM-CBT therapist and trainer and specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. Check out her new website: www.feelinggreattherapycenter.com.
You can reach Dr. Burns at david@feelinggood.com.
This is the cover of my new book, Feeling Great. The kindle and audio versions are available now too!
Another excellent presentation on a very important topic. We all know or work with “whinners”…if you don’t like that term, I use the SNL character “Debbie Downer” (or “Donnie Downer” for males) to describe those that I interact with. DrE
Good point, Ed. I had a colleague who used the term, “help rejecting complainers,” but that is also pretty disparaging and overlooks the therapist’s role in this common dynamic of trying to “help” or rescue someone who is feeling down. d
Hi Dr Burns,
I really enjoyed the latest podcast – best one in a while, in my opinion. I particularly liked the bit about heckling – like you, I’ve overcome a fear of public speaking to a point where I enjoy it – I even got into amateur stand-up comedy for a while.
Which brings me to my question – I kind of stopped the comedy because I was terrified of the heckles and not being able to come up with something witty on the spot, and was in danger of letting the heckler throw me off course and destroy my delivery for the rest of the show. Do you think the same kind of tactics you talk about on the podcast would be effective with comedy audiences?
Thanks for all your great work; it’s truly been life-changing for me.
Brian
Thanks Brian, I think you’ve also asked a ton of great questions on YouTube. Glad you are using this format now. And yes, some similar thing would work. there are tons of options, and finding something you are comfortable with would be the key. What’s an example of a heckling comment that might throw you off track? We could start there! d
Thanks for your quick reply! I think you may be thinking of a different Brian – I’ve asked questions here on the podcast notes before, but never on Youtube,
Anyway the worst heckle I got was ‘Why don’t you tell a few jokes?’ when I’d spent 5 minutes trying to that may not sound too bad but it was said by a well-respected and well-known comedian, who we amateur comedians were supporting and who most people had come to see.
It totally threw me and I struggled through the rest of my set. It was a horrible experience and put me off stand-up for a long time.
Thanks again!
Hi Brian, thanks, that sounds awful! I started my public speaking career in academics with a similarly humiliating experience.
There are tons of ways to go, like doing a Daily Mood Log on this experience, because your thoughts, and not his comment, upset you. Another idea might be to get brave and tell him the comment was disturbing to you, only because you respect and admire him so much, and ask if he’d give you a few minutes to tell you what you were doing right and wrong, so you’d know: 1. Is there any hope for me? and 2. If so, what should I be working on?
If you’re open to learning, it could be eye-opening.
Just some random thoughts, but I can really understand how awful that must have been for you. Kind of like PTSD now! david
Hi again, David, thanks for your response once again – I had written a post to thank you before, but there was a link to a Youtube video in it so maybe it didn’t get past the moderators which is fair enough.
You’re absolutely right about approaching the man in question – in fact that is actually pretty similar to what I did, after the show. (He sort of fobbed me off by saying that he was trying to help me get laughs – a friend of mine called him out on it and he stormed off in a huff.)
I was also wondering about what I could do DURING the show, as it happened, to try to deal with the situation without losing my nerve. The Youtube video I linked to showed my personal favourite stand-up, Stewart Lee, dealing with a heckler in the most unexpected way possible. Lee generally adopts a surly, semi-hostile stage persona, but when an audience member told him to do some ‘new material’, he changed tack and began a huge monologue about how sorry he was for wasting the man’s time, and how sympathetic he was to his plight, but how he couldn’t really change his material halfway through a show, having children to bring up and a mortgage to pay, etc, etc.
The man was totally disarmed, and the comedian’s refusal to defend himself made it even funnier. (If you’re at all interested, the video is only about 3 or 4 minutes long and can be found by googling ‘Stewart Lee heckler’.)
Thanks again for all your great work – as I’ve said, you and your amazing colleagues have changed my life for the better.
This adds some illuminating material, and I can see that he was trying to help you get laughs, but often humor has a hidden angry or hurtful component, and I can see why he stormed off in a huff when called on it. The same has happened to me twice, and I didn’t want to “see it” at first.
I think you are on the right track about disarming. That’s pretty much ALWAYS the way to go, but as you know, it has to be done with warmth, confidence, and a twinkle in your eye, perhaps.
Hit me with five “horrific” jabs, assuming I am doing stand up comedy. I will TRY (no promises) to see what I can come up with.
When learning the Disarming Technique, which I created more or less, I spent 20 minutes a day imagining the most impossible criticisms someone could throw at me, and practicing how I would disarm them. It was hard at first, but got easier and easier, then super easy. I also imagine the worst heckles I might get, and how I would respond with Stroking and Disarming, which is always effective if done with skill.
In your situation, which is slightly different, the same practice might be super useful. Warmly, david
PS, doing a Daily Mood Log on your thoughts, too, could help a lot. Heckling could never upset you. Only distorted thoughts about heckling, like “I suck” or whatever. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius, a student of Epictetus, said: “If someone criticizes you, you can say, ‘If only you knew me better, you would have a lot more than just that to criticize!’” This was, I think, the first example of using Disarming in a humorous way. david
Hi again – Wow! I can honestly say I’m humbled; you’re being incredibly generous with your time and your wisdom, and as always your thoughts on the subject are absolutely invaluable. I really, really appreciate it.
Personally I’m not sure if the guy was being sincere when he said he was trying to get laughs for me – I’ve heard since he can be very obnoxious and is something of a bully (I know I’m labelling him, sorry, but this is what I’ve heard about him).
Anyway, here are a few heckles I have heard (either to me or other comedians) – ‘You’re not funny!’
‘-Give us some new material for a change!’
– ‘That’s just stupid!’
And, though it’s not exactly heckling, I’ve tried to do a set where the compere who introduced me kept quietly saying ‘hurry it up’ / ‘we’re running out of time’ – from the start of my act to the end, which was extremely distracting and made me lose my nerve completely. (He was another amateur comedian and surely knew it would have this effect – it’s a competitive little area and I’ve seen quite a lot of this kind of thing.)
And finally, though it’s not heckling again, I’ve been in small venues where significant chunks of the very small audience would go to see a friend performing, or just the main act, then talk loudly amongst themselves while other comedians are trying to deliver their material,
Again, thanks so much for all your help, Dr Burns. It was a very fortuitous day when I first discovered your material!
Thanks, Brian. Here’s another paradoxical approach, and just a suggestion. You might contact him and tell him how much you admire him and his obvious success and skill, and wonder if he’d have a couple minutes to give you some tips and suggestions on how to improve your efforts. You could tell him you suspect he gets lots of requests, but you’d be honored to pick his brain a little, even if only briefly.
I believe his motives, like mine and most of us, were mixed, and he really DID think he was being funny, and kind of hid the aggressive piece, which is super hard to admit publicly.
Here’s my response. Heckler says, “That’s just stupid!’”
Response: “Listen, I’m just getting started. You haven’t heard ANYTHING yet!”
Or “Stupidity is one of my lesser flaws, actually. When you get to know me better, you’ll see that stupidity is just the tip of the iceberg!” (or you’ll have way more than just that to complain about.)
What I’ve illustrated might be lame and must be done with warmth and confidence at any rate. But maybe get the engines in your brain started.
this next is super lame, but I am at least trying:
Heckler: ‘Give us some new material for a change!”
Response: “Well, I know you loved it so much last week when I was here, I thought you’d want to hear it all again!”
Or, “I know how painful it was for you the first time you heard it and that’s actually why I’m repeating it tonight! . . . Just kidding! And a great suggestion!”
Super lame, this is new for me! I use the fail shameless approach to learning! These are super challenging, but really great to get them under your belt! Warmly, david
Hi again, David – I’ve just realised my last post didn’t get through the moderators (again, I suggested a comedy Youtube video you might like – didn’t link to it this time but fair enough, rules are rules).
Anyway, thanks so much – I love your heckle responses! They gave me a chuckle anyway, and something to think about. This whole conversation has been very illuminating and helpful – once again, I am beyond grateful to you for your help, both one-to-one like this and of course all the life-changing tools you’ve given me through your work.
thanks, I don’t know what this means: “didn’t get through the moderators (again).” Maybe there is some automation that prevents links which could, in theory, be dangerous. Glad you liked my feeble efforts, but you have to start somewhere! david
I forgot to indicate in my comment that the thing I really love about your approach is that you let your patient know that you are not there to help them, you are there so they can help THEMSELVES overcome the issues they present. I wish more practitioners would mimic your approach.
thanks, Ed! david