I once looked forward to presidential elections. Primaries, prime-time conventions, spirited debates, a victory for one party, dignified defeat for the other and finally the pomp and circumstance of Inauguration Day. The whole season was a celebration of democracy, a reminder of the success — and occasional frustration — of the great American experiment.
My enthusiasm has withered.
Now I want to fast-forward past all the nonsense, exaggeration and hostility straight to Jan. 20, 2025, while praying there’s no violence before, during and after. Conversations (perhaps too strong or polite of a word) have been commandeered by loud, extreme voices on both sides. Civility, which I know still exists among the majority in the middle, is drowned by vitriol.
How can we return to actual conversations — about politics or any other topic that deserves thoughtful dialogue? Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, longtime leaders in couples therapy, education and training, have some ideas.
The Dallas-based couple, married since 1982 and authors of bestselling books including Getting the Love You Want, have a new book that promotes structured dialogue in place of monologue conversations. How to Talk With Anyone About Anything: The Practice of Safe Conversations offers a blueprint for what they call Safe Conversations Dialogue.
“No one is listening unless they have to,” Hendrix said during our recent conversation. And when we do have to listen, he said, it’s often to a teacher, boss or leader, people who might talk down to their audience in a way that creates inequality and therefore anxiety.
Those interactions lead to conflicts of all kinds — from personal to international.
Because that’s the way humans have been communicating for millennia — listening to respond rather than to understand, speaking to someone instead of speaking with someone — we need some help switching to true dialogue, according to Hendrix and Hunt.
“We’re not going to get rid of differences,” Hendrix said. “What we need is a way of talking that moves from competition to collaboration.”
The couple offers a three-step process of structured dialogue for more productive interactions and relationships:
- Mirror: The listener accurately reflects the content, tone and intensity of the speaker’s message, either word for word or paraphrased. “When I mirror, I ask, ‘Did I get that correctly?’ " Hunt said. “It’s a check for accuracy.”
- Validate: The listener acknowledges that the speaker’s ideas are valued. “To validate doesn’t mean I agree with you, but I see how you see things as a different reality,” Hendrix explained.
- Empathize: The listener describes what the speaker might be feeling and follows up to see if the description is accurate. “You imagine what it must feel like to live in their world,” Hendrix said. “It’s the most powerful connector.”
Hendrix and Hunt agree that their dialogue template, explained in their new book with everyday examples, won’t rescue us in time for Election Day 2024. But they do have hope that change will eventually come. Take a look at Liberia, they say, a country with a history of polarization and unrest.
Joseph Boakai was elected president of Liberia in 2023, following a close runoff with incumbent George Weah. Boakai is determined for the whole nation to learn Safe Conversations, Hunt said. When he was campaigning, he promised to introduce the dialogue skills to the country, and he’s currently training his Cabinet with the help of Deborah Lindholm, founder and CEO of Foundation for Women, a nonprofit that helps women in poverty and offers training based on the work of Hendrix and Hunt.
Part of the Hendrix and Hunt method includes sentence stems — starter phrases that you can adapt to fit your dialogue. The book includes stems such as:
- Is now a good time to talk about …?
- Did I hear you accurately?
- What you’re saying makes sense.
- Given what you’ve shared, I imagine you feel …
I asked the couple about the effectiveness of a conversation if only one side has studied and practiced their principles.
Hunt is optimistic that one conversation partner can provide a model for others. Monologues don’t work well in relationships, but “if you use dialogue with someone else, they get curious,” she said.
How to Talk With Anyone About Anything emphasizes the importance of curiosity in fostering connections with others.
“By opening your mind to learn how others see the world and why, and by accepting another perspective, you gain access to diverse viewpoints that will expand your own perspective on reality and improve your relationships with others,” the couple writes.
That sounds a lot healthier than consuming content only from extreme sources or posting angry missives on social media or refusing to talk with someone who believes differently.
Maybe we can’t change the nation’s tenor by Nov. 5, but we can be intentional about asking questions without judgment, listening with intention and imagining ideas from a different perspective.
I’m holding on to hope that 2028 will be a little quieter, a little gentler and a better celebration of our democracy.
Part of our opinion series The American Middle, this essay equips readers for civil disagreements.
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