I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT !

 "I don't want to talk about it!" is an assertion that virtually everyone has delivered and/or received. Thinking about that assertion, I believe, is worth the effort. And, inspired by the ancient Dutch Aphorism, "Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback" I frame this blog post in terms of a trust-discuss nexus. Let's begin with the fact that talk has its evolutionary-physiological roots in a sensation-perception-action complex. The volitional actions of all mobile organisms usually are directed toward perceived life-sustaining targets and away from life-threatening ones. Our primate, non-human ancestors, like all mammals, typically would flee from or attack a perceived approaching dangerous agent; they were limited to such direct actions. But homo-sapiens evolved a language system that enabled them to mentally “decide,” however quickly, slowly, effectively, or ineffectively their response, and when the threatening agent was a language-possessing human, both the threatened and threatener could substitute language action for motor action. Thus, with relative safety, they could determine who and what to trust and distrust. Applying this framework to disputing interlocutors, then, consider what happens when one member emphatically declares, "I don't want to talk about it!". In essence they have excise out from the contentious interaction our unique and critical human advantage. Left is the non-human, mammalian options to flee or attack. Of course, fleeing and attacking come in degrees. For instance, there can be spatial and/or temporal elements, such as literally running away or ceasing the dispute for some time period. When the interlocutors agree with the spatial or time separation, they can resolve to defer their contentious interaction to a more propitious space and/or time. However, when the issue ultimately is not mutually resolved for both participants, they have devolved to a sub-human problem-solving level, at least for their disagreement. I addressed the thorny, ubiquitous problem of refusal to talk in detail in my previous books, so I now limit myself to only one of the ideas: melding metacommunication with the sensation-perception-action complex. When metacommunicating, interlocutors communicate about their communication. In the current case, they would discuss how and why they are not communicating adaptively. So, for example, first, the participants ask about sensation (What literally did you see and hear in my communication?) Then, they ask about perception (How did you interpret what you saw and heard?). Finaly, they inquire about action (What did that do to you and/or What do you think that did to me?). I strongly suspect that you will find that issues of control, and/or power, and/or identity will be critical and must be addressed to surmount your communication impasse. And those complex issues are essential for the relationship trust that left on horseback. And I trust that we can successfully tiptoe, step-by-step through them in my future blog postings.