Hi Jane,

Thank you so much for these great questions. I’m going to answer each one separately.

-What if I don’t have the mental energy to listen to someone emotionally dump on me for an hour? Does that make me a bad listener?

You always have a right to decide what you’re able to do at the time. And let’s face it, sometimes we just don’t have the energy to be good listeners. What you can do is you can say to the other person “you know I really really want to listen to you well but I’m tired right now, so could we set a time to talk about this later or tomorrow?” Also, when you listen fully usually it doesn’t take an hour. It’s because people don’t listen well that the other person goes on and on. Good listening is powerful. For instance, my standard therapy session is 45 minutes. Because I listen intensively, it doesn’t even take that long to get fully into something and have the other person feel better.

-Does the pink elephant syndrome also apply to mindfulness techniques that encourage not thinking?

This is a great question and probably appropriate for a separate article about meditation. I think almost all meditation approaches involve focusing attention on a single thing such as your breath, being aware when you get distracted by extraneous thoughts, and refocusing back on the breath or the mantra. You don’t try not to think of other things instead you notice when you do and refocus back on the central focusing on the breath or a mantra or sounds.

-I love the point about how to ask questions! My husband and his dad have a habit of asking a lot of questions and we have discussed that a lot.

Closed questions often end up sounding like an FBI interrogation. That’s why I suggest avoiding it. Also, most questions are actually suggestions in disguise. Case in point you are complaining about work and someone says “have you thought about changing jobs?” That’s not a question it’s actually a suggestion. You should change jobs. The easiest way to avoid unproductive questions is simply to use only open-ended questions that begin with “what” or “how.”

-When is it right to tell someone they need to talk to a therapist instead of telling me about their problems?

This is also a terrific question. A general rule of thumb is that if someone is always talking about the same problem, or is suffering significant depression or anxiety about that problem, they might benefit from talking to a professional therapist. And of course, it depends on your relationship with the person. If it’s a casual friend or acquaintance you may not want to expend the effort of intensive listening. But if it’s a close friend or partner even if you do suggest they talk to a professional it is also very kind and supportive to be a good listener.

-I feel a little intimidated by all these concepts, I bet if we can get even 10% of this stuff it would be very helpful.

It’s perfectly normal to feel a bit overwhelmed by all these concepts. None of this is taught in school. And these are subtle and difficult skills to learn. They will also tend to feel unnatural at 1st like any new skill. But with repetitive practice, they will start to be 2nd nature. And as you say even if you just improved by 10 or 20% that would make a significant difference in the quality of your emotional connections. Most of the improvement comes from stopping the bad behaviors such as making suggestions, giving advice, or narcissistic shifts.

I have some questions.

-What if I don’t have the mental energy to listen to someone emotionally dump on me for an hour? Does that make me…a bad listener?

-Does the pink elephant syndrome also apply to mindfulness techniques that encourage not thinking?

-I love the point about how to ask questions! My husband and his dad have a habit of asking a lot of questions and we have discussed that a lot.

-When is it right to tell someone they need to talk to a therapist instead of telling me about their problems?

-I feel a little intimidated by all these concepts, I bet if we can get even 10% of this stuff it would be very helpful.

I would like to thank you for writing and publishing this article; I have found not only useful, but very reassuring. I am want to instantly Google new medication I am prescribed, and the landscape almost invariably looks bleak. To illustrate this point, I was recently prescribed olanzepine (known as Olexar in South Africa, where I live) for major depressive disorder (as adjunct to flouxetine) and, upon visiting some of the forums containing user-generated reviews and ratings, I was so spooked that I seriously considered not taking it at all, which could have been disastrous. You article has done a lot to set my mind at ease, and for that I thank you.

Cheers,
‘Jeff

ps. Unless the author is dead, or their email has changed, you can almost always get a free reprint of any paper by just emailed the corresponding author. So PLoS ONE isn’t that much of a revolution, and, as above, it has issues.

pps. I don’t think that an “overview” is how one should characterize a meta-analysis. Meta analyses are generally considered stronger evidence than the individual studies, although they have to be done right (as does any study!)