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Between the action and the reaction is the feeling

When we map Action and Doing words on paper, we are listening for the kick-off or triggering points. If you were a filmmaker, it is those points where you would shout action, and someone would start doing something, and you’d expect the camera to start to roll. The action such as smiling makes no sense without figuring out intention. What are they doing, and how does it relate to me? I respond to the action because I have my own idea of what they are doing and intending by it. For Tony Ryle in developing his idea of reciprocal role procedures the heart of this reaction was some anticipation of the impact of the response. We assume that if we can get some kind of map in our minds of what is going on behind the action, we can make sense of its emotional impact on us and think about how to cope and respond. However, a great many of our interactions are routine transactions of the ‘Hi how are you?’, or ‘Tickets please’ kind. In these moments, the action triggers the reaction so fast that we barely notice the gap because it is such a smooth and fast transaction. Our intentions, our fears and doubts are wrapped up in the automatic push and pull of the action-reaction sequence.


For example, you are walking towards me head-on down the middle of the pavement. We don’t know each other, but we know the transaction involved. We assume we know what we are doing and barely give attention to it. You shimmy left, and I shimmy right without a word or even a thought. In passing, perhaps you nod, and I nod back. The doing, the intention, the actions and reactions and feelings and anticipations involved are all condensed into one movement. Our transaction is embedded in the informal rules of the crowded city street and conventions in our culture. The language used is gesture and body movement rather than words, but we are noticing and negotiating something between us. These are reciprocal role procedures so deeply engrained and habitual and so efficient most of the time we barely consciously register them. But even in these most fleeting transactions, theres is some room for anticipation and recalculation of how to respond or misattunement in response. We bump into each other and in therapy as in life these small 'butterfly' moments of bumping into each other are a vital part of the process of change.


These are fast brain responses in ways richly described in various contexts by Kahneman. As he points out, they are essential as shortcuts and work in different ways for many transactions. They are efficient rules of thumb or relational heuristics as depicted by the action-reaction template. They provide enormous advantages in terms of helping us navigate through a complex world. We cannot self-consciously consider every single encounter. Though, we need half an eye or ear out for the risky or deviant moments that need more deliberately negotiating. Conversationally we are bypassing or ‘fast brain’ reacting to many transactions which may sometimes be far from the right response. Kahneman offers a wide variety of everyday examples wherein the fast part of our brain jumps to misleading or harmful conclusions despite the logic seeming right.

In the context of having better conversations and being more aware of our relationships when we talk, it is likely that others are a major help in checking and stepping in on our ‘fast brain’ reactions. Our companion will tug our sleeve at a busy junction if we are stepping out without caution, or nudge us if we are about to impetuously say the wrong thing. Our conversations are peppered with these rapid exchanges.


Between the action and the reaction is the richest of spaces for a word or gesture, for feeling. The reaction takes on the dignity of a response. We are lessened when we are just responding to each other without noticing, naming or negotiating our anticipated and chosen responses. What we are doing when talking with a map is giving space and voice to that watchful awareness and spotting the fast and spontaneous reactions that need calling out for slower and fuller attention.


What makes this fast-moving transaction the potential space for conversational awareness is the gap between action and reaction. We should follow Newton in thinking that for every action, there is an equal reaction. The energy comes flying back in a retort or goes off somewhere else outward, away or inward. We are forever tracking and noting (and, in this work, mapping) the direction of our reactions. If only to keep some sense of control, participation or ownership over what is happening.


As my colleague Lucy Cutler notes. ‘Perhaps the energy cannot be destroyed, but is contained or restored or exacerbated in some way.’ We carry with us, everywhere we go, an invisible conversation that each assumes the other is having about their reactions. There may be any number of inner reflections which add up to an underlying conversation with the self.


One benefit of talking with a map is to develop an eye and an ear for these interior conversations that shape what we are thinking, doing or saying and the climate of feeling around us as a result.

[Google books link] Kahneman D (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow. London: Penguin.


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