Dr. Caroline Fleck
speaker
364 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Caroline Fleck’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And your job is just to kind of formulate the best argument you can. That's essentially what you're doing. So you start asking questions to try and understand their position better. And you're just tweaking it and tweaking it. If you watch great interviewers like late night hosts, you'll see you can see them playing a version of this game. They're trying to pull out the best interview they can.
It doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with what the other person is saying or whatever. They're just trying to crystallize that message. And that informs how they listen and then the questions they ask. And without fail, there's a sense of genuine curiosity there because it's genuinely there.
Okay, so as I'm playing that game, I'm just asking at this level, it's just kind of mindful awareness that I'm projecting here. And as I'm listening, I am hearing the emotion. I am starting to make connections in my head. I am looking for what is the kernel of truth in what this person is saying? Where is this coming from? What is the feeling behind this? What function does this behavior serve?
With suicidality, it's often relief from pain. If they had a way to relieve pain, they would take it. And this is the only option they see. I don't agree with that. But importantly, validation does not require agreement. I'm a vegetarian, but I could validate why somebody would choose to eat meat. That doesn't mean I agree with them. I just see the validity in their argument.
And I can focus on that instead of the part that I disagree with. And importantly, if I focus on that first, the conversation around perhaps changing their opinion is much more likely to be successful.
Validate the valid. Yeah.
That's when I pivot to more like behavioral stuff. Okay. So that would be, you know, we have all sorts of reinforcement shaping that we do to try and kind of nudge the person in the other direction. But the interesting thing is the person will just be more receptive to you. you're curious, they absorb that curiosity.
So one of the other mindfulness skills we use here, there's that attending one and then there's copying. which sounds so weird. But let me tell you, if you are like up at night, you can't sleep. Google the research on mimicry or copying. It is fascinating stuff. Like simply copying another person's body language. Okay.
It does.
Yeah, it does.
It would, but here's the thing. So as soon as we were talking and I was starting to feel like, ooh, this isn't going well, I would in my head just say, like, copy. I'm not going to be too... you know, drilled in, but I just give like myself a message copy.
For me to copy you. I just tell myself copy. And I slowly start to assume a similar position. Okay. And I'm intentionally doing that because I'm trying to attune to you. And this isn't me just being weird. Doing this activates mirror neurons. wherein as a result of copying your expression and your body language, I will start to feel, I will start to taste some of what you are experiencing.
That is how mirror neurons function. We are designed to copy. Babies mimic the facial expressions of people, of their parents and caregivers. When we're attracted to people or we want to impress them or we like them, we naturally copy them. When we sense threat, we tend to close up. And interestingly, those are the moments oftentimes, conflict, right, where connection would serve you best.
It's just not what we're wired to do.
That's right.
Mirroring, uh-huh, and mimicking.
Oh, my gosh. So I'm trying to think of some of these really quirky studies. They looked at, for instance, when waiters simply repeat back an order compared to those who don't, they get a 25% higher tip on average, right? Copying increases altruistic behavior. towards the person who did the copying, it also overcomes implicit racism.
So they have ways of measuring kind of subtle forms of racism that you're not even aware of. They'll give you an assessment to measure that. And then they'll have you copy someone of the opposite race, copy their movements in a video or something, and then they'll measure it again. And that implicit racism has significantly decreased.
Just by copying. Yeah. So this is what I'm saying about how you use these entry skills to cultivate more understanding and empathy. And that is how you move to higher levels of validation. Because my full-time job is working with people who are saying, doing, and believing things that are distorted to the extent of being pathological.
Well, Caroline, it's clear. I guess this is done. I guess we're not working together anymore. Me saying, I'm sorry, what happened? I emailed you yesterday. You didn't respond? Didn't respond to me? Oh, I'm so sorry. I had so many... Immediately I'm getting defensive, right? I am so sorry. I had so many... You know that I self-harm.
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