Communication is an integral part of human life. The success of an individual in almost all spheres of life depends on the ability to quickly establish contacts with others in modern conditions. Everyone strives for pleasant and effective communication, but sometimes situations arise when the exchange of information is disrupted and it is difficult for partners to understand each other.
This is caused by communication barriers that significantly complicate dialogue between interlocutors.
How to Overcome Barriers in Communication with Others
Language sometimes turns into a barrier instead of a road.
Daniel Keyes. Flowers for Algernon. Dr. Strauss
- 1.What are 'Communication Barriers'? 1.1. 'I' and 'others': overcoming barriers
- Why do you dream about a person you don’t even communicate with?
- Why do you dream about an ex-girlfriend with whom you no longer communicate?
- How to Overcome Barriers in Communication with Others
- Transferring thoughts and emotions to another person. Is it possible?
- 20 Golden Rules of Communication that will lead you to success in communication (+Bonus)
What are 'Communication Barriers'?
These are factors that contribute to the loss and distortion of the meaning of information during interaction. They lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of communication, tension and negative experiences. They often become the main cause of conflict situations. All communication barriers are divided into two groups: psychological and communicative.
'I' and 'others': overcoming barriers
In everyday life, when we encounter situations of communication, intimacy, negotiations or general activities with other people, there is often a feeling of “overcoming the barrier” or the existence of some large barrier between individuals that does not allow them to adequately interact with each other. Many philosophers, writers and ordinary everyday researchers have paid attention to the colossal difference in a person’s perception of his “I” and the feeling of “others”.
Those people who are outside our “I” turn out to be strangers, unpredictable and often bring unpleasant sensations, pain and disappointment - precisely because the closer a person becomes, the more individual ideas about what what is right and what is wrong, how to live and act. The corresponding expectations are never met, because the other person is a completely different, separately formed personality, who has different interests, abilities and goals in life. However, even such a completely logical disappointment forces one not to open oneself to an understanding of “others”, but to distance oneself from communication. J.P. Sartre formulated this psychological process very aphoristically: “Hell is others.”
In fact, the path to mutual understanding is simple and unusually logical, strange as it may seem. In order to perceive other people normally and adequately, it is necessary to take a closer look at their characteristic reactions, modes of behavior, peculiarities of perception of the world, what and how they do, and how they react to certain events. Careful observation should be accompanied by the widest and most varied communication possible, using as wide a range of tools as possible - conversation, joint activity, exchange of impressions, joint creativity or sharing its results, etc. The more different situations a person shows himself in, the more we can learn about him, and the more accurate our behavior towards him will be.
Concept
Communication barriers , causal factors that prevent successful communication in which both parties absorb and exchange information.
Communication achieves success as a result of the reduction or absence of barriers when the sender's data is adequately perceived by the recipient.
The general classification of communication barriers divides them based on scale:
- Macrobarriers are global; they interfere with communication in general. For example, a geographical barrier, when one of the communication participants, being in a different time zone, cannot continue the conversation and goes to bed.
- Microbarriers are point-specific and relate to a specific area of interest.
For example, in everyday life a person is sociable, but he is taciturn with colleagues because he does not find communication with them interesting. In this case, there are personal and psychological barriers.
Psychological barriers to communication
Psychological barriers arise as a result of the individual psychological characteristics of people who enter into the communication process (secrecy, modesty, differences in temperament types), as well as as a result of the characteristics of the relationship between partners (mistrust, antipathy).
Personal aspects become decisive for the emergence of situations of unproductive communication. Due to the fact that each person perceives events and phenomena of the surrounding world subjectively, evaluates them from the point of view of his individual experience, it is sometimes difficult for him to understand a communication partner who has a different point of view and other characteristics of perception. Main types of psychological barriers:
- Aesthetic
barriers - arise in a situation when a person does not like the appearance of the interlocutor. This may concern the features of his appearance, clothing style, and certain wardrobe details. - Intellectual
barriers consist of differences in types of thinking, speed of mental operations and differences in the level of intellectual development. For example, communication between an optimist and a pessimist cannot always be called productive, because one will look for advantages and ways out in any situation, and the second will focus on the negative. An intellectual barrier can be classified as a barrier of incompetence, when a person does not understand the topic under discussion, which causes a feeling of distress or irritation in the communication partner. - Motivational
barriers appear when people have different goals. This leads to misunderstanding and distorted perception of information. - Moral or ethical
barriers - the effectiveness of communication is hampered by the incompatibility of moral positions, principles, and views. - Attitude barrier
- if a person has a negative attitude towards a partner, then his words are not perceived objectively, often with internal protest. It can arise as a result of previous communication experience or based on feedback from other people. - The barrier of negative emotions
or poor physical condition are situational barriers. Sometimes communication problems arise when a person is in a bad mood or state of health and is not in the mood to establish contact with others.
Barrier to substitution of facts and feelings
Sometimes in communication people react not to the facts and words of their opponent, but to the feelings that these words aroused. For example, one person made an appropriate remark to another, but he does not know how to accept criticism, so he instantly became offended and angry (this reminded him of how his mother often criticized him as a child). Objective criticism is a neutral fact. But the man succumbed to his feelings and answers his interlocutor: “If you don’t like it, do it yourself.” The conversation is over, cooperation has reached a dead end. And if a person responded not to feelings, but to the words of the interlocutor, then it would look like this: “Yes, a fair point. Thanks for noticing. Please tell me how to fix this."
What to do: develop the skill of managing emotions. Learn to manage your feelings and separate them from the essence. Do a psychological exercise right now: remember a recent situation in which you responded to feelings rather than facts, and figure it out. Get to the facts and answer them for yourself. Repeat this exercise every day.
Communication barriers
Communication barriers arise if there is a mismatch in vocabulary between interlocutors. This group also includes problems associated with the lack of analogies of concepts in different languages and other translation difficulties. Main types of communication barriers:
- Semantic
barriers arise when communication partners mean different things by similar concepts. For example, one person understands the phrase “a good method of achieving a goal” as a method that will not harm the people around him, while another understands it as a strategy to achieve what he wants at any cost, even if those around him suffer. - Logical
barriers - appear if a person does not know how to clearly and consistently express his thoughts. In such a dialogue, cause-and-effect relationships are broken, and concepts are often substituted. - Phonetic
barriers are a speaker's poor speaking technique. When words sound unclear and unclear, which makes it difficult to perceive information.
Causes
Lack of mutual understanding between interlocutors can arise for many reasons. These include:
- level of intelligence;
- unequal knowledge of the topic or subject of conversation;
- differences in the lexicon and thesaurus (a set of concepts corresponding to any field of knowledge);
- lack of understanding by partners of the communication situation;
- different worldviews based on differences of social, cultural, political, religious, professional, national character.
Barriers between interlocutors often manifest themselves as individual characteristics of a psychological nature. Examples of communication barriers of this kind:
- excessive frankness of one person and isolation of another;
- resentment, mistrust, suspicion and other negative feelings directed at the partner;
- intelligence versus assertiveness;
- intuitive rejection of someone else's personality.
These filters can act in such a way that true information is perceived as erroneous, and false information becomes acceptable.
How to overcome communication barriers?
It is impossible to imagine a person in the modern world without speech communications. Every day you have to communicate at work or school, with friends or colleagues. But the real problem can be a barrier that prevents one from communicating competently with others and separates a person from normal life.
One of the most common barriers is an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem believe that they are worse than others, do not see their merits and prefer to live their lives quietly and calmly. But in fact, you just have to change your image, start working on yourself and smile at difficulties, and the need for communication appears by itself. Self-doubt goes away with practice. Psychologists advise not to bypass people, but to try to keep up the conversation as often as possible.
Another problem in communication can be inflated self-esteem. A superiority complex manifests itself in a biased attitude towards other people. The person feels better than others and believes that talking to them can be disrespectful and condescending. Of course, such an attitude does not suit anyone and they will most likely try to avoid contact with such a person. But if a person himself understands the cause of difficulties in communication, then self-control and a loyal attitude towards society will help to cope with them. When talking, you can try to find positive traits in the interlocutor, thanks to this the conversation will be more comfortable for both parties.
It often happens that a person is simply afraid to come into contact with someone. For example, not finding the right words, seeming stupid or saying the wrong thing. There is a fear of not being accepted and judged. The person may have poor communication skills or an insufficient vocabulary. The way out of this situation is practice. You can practice in front of a mirror, as if talking to an imaginary friend. Try to correspond on the Internet, because without being able to look at the interlocutor, it is much easier to express your thoughts. Of course, you need to read more and develop your vocabulary in order to select words for any situation. It is important to remain yourself and not be afraid of what others will think. Each person perceives everything differently, and there will be those who can help overcome this barrier.
The difficulty lies in the fact that often the causes of communication difficulties are not recognized by people. This is especially true for psychological barriers. If communication barriers are perceived immediately and to eliminate them it is often enough to clarify the meaning of what was said, reformulate sentences and work on your speech, then psychological difficulties are a consequence of subconscious attitudes. They are difficult to control.
Watch your appearance and communication manners, they must correspond to the situation. Try to perceive your interlocutor objectively and without judgment.
Barrier to selective hearing
“You only hear what you want to hear,” one person accuses another. And perhaps he is right if the interlocutor has a selective listening barrier. People tend to seek confirmation of what they say or refutation of what they cannot accept. Some people refuse to accept any new information. Others are ready to accept some things, but not others. For example, they do not know how to admit their mistakes and therefore ignore any information indicating them. In any case, this is another protective mechanism of the psyche. This is how the brain tries to keep a person in his comfort zone, to maintain his sense of security and self-confidence.
What to do: Be open to new experiences. Behind psychological inflexibility there are often fears and complexes. For example, as we have already said, the inability to admit one’s mistakes and the fear of making mistakes. Determine what limits your perception. Why are you not ready to hear different opinions and perceive the world holistically? This is what we need to work with.
Ways to overcome barriers
Psychologists help overcome psychological barriers through individual or group therapy. The main goal of therapy is to eliminate the source of the triggering situation and reduce general anxiety. After a conversation with a psychologist and several tests, the specialist will be able to determine which therapy is best to choose for a particular person.
Methods of working to correct anxiety and fears:
- Interacting with fear through play. The subject chosen is a visual aid that resembles the client’s fear. With the help of an objective game, a person loses the situation, turning the plot in his favor.
- Increased experience of emotional reaction. A psychologist, using art therapy, teaches the client to experience positive emotions, which become the client’s defense in a traumatic situation.
- Switching emotions. The client interacts with the object of fear using phrases and gestures that emphasize its insignificance. This gives the client confidence and peace of mind.
- Manipulation by fear. It is carried out in parallel with the acting out of a disturbing situation or before it. The client holds the frightening object in his hands for some time and formally gains power over it.
- Imitation. The psychologist plays out the situation, allowing the client to imitate his actions and reactions. Since humans tend to unconsciously imitate others, anxious people who are prone to dramatization should be excluded from their immediate circle of friends. Constant contact with such people interferes with the normal effects of therapy.
- Emotional swing. The swing technique allows you to transfer the client from a situation of danger to a situation of safety. The transition is played several times in a row until the client learns to transfer a feeling of safety into a dangerous situation.
- Emotional conflict. Fear is an emotional phenomenon. You can get rid of it with the help of strong emotional influence. To do this, the psychologist models a situation in which the client has the opportunity to overcome fear or form a new emotional attitude that eliminates fear.
- Anatomizing fear. The psychologist acts as a teacher who explains to the client the structure of the object of fear. It focuses on the objective inability of the object to cause real harm. If therapy is successful, the person copes with fear independently without additional measures.
- Habituation or sensitization. The client is shown the object of fear and the neutral emotional reaction of other people to it. This allows the client to thoroughly study the object and get used to it. This gradually leads to a decrease in sensitivity to a frightening object or situation.
To overcome psychological blocks, active therapy is used in psychology. Since psychological stress affects the physical state, it is the bodily discomfort that needs to be eliminated first. This practice is very effective; it is useful not only for psychological health, but also for physical health. To overcome a barrier within the framework of individual or group training, use:
- Dance. Repeating dance movements helps you relax, free your senses and develop self-confidence.
- Movements. A person repeats a set of movements that express positive and negative emotions.
- Art. Artistic creativity reflects all the subconscious processes occurring in the human psyche. With the help of visual images, it becomes much easier for him to express fears and doubts and realize them in the form of real-life objects.
- Physicality. Physical contact in the form of light stroking movements relieves psychological stress and releases primitive feelings.
- Skills. The purpose of the session is to teach the client adaptive skills that are useful when faced with a difficult situation. Skill development is carried out first in a psychologist's office, and after initial mastery - in a real situation. The psychologist gives tasks that the client must complete: ask for directions, get acquainted, etc.
During one session, the psychologist uses one method of influence. The number of sessions in one therapeutic course may vary and depends on the client’s involvement and the depth of the resulting psychological trauma. To better understand the types of psychological barriers, you should watch a video where everything is presented in an easy and understandable form, and examples of situations are also shown:
