Barriers to communication

A barrier to communication is something that keeps meanings from meeting. Without realizing it, we inject communication barriers into our conversations. Communication barriers are high-risk responses-most likely to be destructive:

• diminish the other's self-esteerm
• trigger defensiveness, resistance and resentment
• lead to dependency, withdrawl
• feelings of defeat or of inadequacy

Each barrier is a roadblock, a feeling-blocker. It reduces the likelihood that the other will constructively express true feelings. There are dirty dozen of communication spoilers:

1. Judement: the major barrier to interpersonal communication lies in our very natural tendency to judge- to approve or disapprove of the statements of the other person.  Few of us think of ourselves as judgemental. Yet our primary reaction is to evaluate what has just been said to us, to evaluate it from our point of view, our own frame of reference. Although the tendency to amke evaluations is common in almost all interchange of language, it is hightened in those situations where feelings and emotions are deeply involved. The stronger our feelings, the more likely it is that there will be no mutual element in the commnication. There will be just two ideas, two feelings, two judgments missing each other in psychological space. This tendency to react to any emotionally meaningful statement by forming an evaluation of it from our own point of view is the major barrier to interpersonal communication.

• Criticizing: making a negative evaluation of the other person, actions, or attitudes. Many of us feel we ought to be critical- or other people will never improve.
•  Name-calling: label others unfriendly, stereotying, be little others, putting people down. Labeling prevents us from getting to know ourselves and others. There is no longer a person before us-only a type. When actually, we have caught the shadow and not the substance. Since we are convinced we know ourselves and otehrs, we make no effort to be in contact with the real. We continue to use labels to stereotype ourselves and others, and these labels have replaced human meanings, unique feelings and growing life within and between persons.
• Diagnosing: analyzing why a person is behaving as she is; playing amateur psychiatrist; mind-reading. We sometimes play emotional detective, probing for hidden motives, psycholigical complexes instead of listening to the substance of what a person is saying.
• Praising evaluatively: making a positive judgment of the other person . There is a common belief that all honest praise is helful. Praise is supposed to "build confidence, increase security, stimulate initiative, motivate learning ,generate good will and improve human relations". However, positive evaluations often have negative results.  Praise is often used as a gimmick to try to get people to change their behavior. It is not always true that to be praised is to be loved. " to be praised more often is to be manipulated, to be used, to be outsmarted, out maneuvered, out-sweet-talked."

2. Sending solutions: the solutions may be sent caringly as advice, indirectly by questioning, authoritatively as an order, aggressively as a threat, or with a halo around it as moralizing. Sending a solution often compounds a problem or creates new problems without resolving the original dilemma. It can erect barriers and can thwart another person's growth.

• Ordering: commanding the other person to do what we want to have done. When coercison is used, we often become resistant and resentful. 
• Threatening: trying to control the other's actions by warning of negative consequences that we will instigate. Fear always brings out the worst of our inner being. We normally end up with hatress towards people who bring fear to our heart.
• Moralizing: telling other person what she should do.  "Moralizing is demoralizing" It fosters anxiety, arouses resentment, tends to thwart honest self-expression, and invites pretense.
• Excessive/inappropriate questioning: closed-ended questions are often barriers in a relationship. "in everyday conversation, questions are usually a poor substitute for more direct communication. Questions are incomplete, indirect, veiled, impersonl, and consequently ineffective messages that often breed defence reactions and resistance. Thery are rarely simple requests for information, but an indirect means of attaining an end, a way of manipulating the person being questioned." 
• Advising: giving other person a solution to her problems. Advice is often a basic insult to the intelligence of the other person. The advisor seldom understands the full implications of the problem. Wehn people share their concerns with us, they often display only the tip of the iceberg. The advisor is unware of the complexities, feelings, and the many other factors that lie hidden beneath the surface. "Not knowing the question, it was easy for him to give the answer."

3. Avoiding the other's concerns

• diverting: pushing the other's problems aside through distraction. Switching a conversation from the other person's concerns to our own topic is called "diverting".  Sometimes we divert a conversation because we lack the wareness an skills to listen effectively. Sometimes we are grabbing the focus of attention for themselves. At other times we resort to diversion when we are uncomfortable with the emotions stimulated by the conversation.
• Logical argument: attempting to convince the other with an appeal to facts or logic, usually without consideration of the emotional factors involved. Logic focuses on facts and avoids feelings. But when another person has a problem or when there is a problem in the realtionship, feelings are the main issue. When we use logic to avoid emotional involvement, we are withdrawing from another at a most inopportune moment.
• Reassuring: trying to stop the other person from feeling the negative emotions she is experiencing. Reassurance is a way of seeming to comfort another person while actually doing the opposite. A person;s ingrained opinion of himself resists direct attempts at alteration. The word of Comfort means " strengthened by being with". Reassurance  does not allow the comforter to really be with the other.

At first glance, some of barriers eems quite innocent. Praise, reassurance, logical responses, questions, and well-intentioned advice are often thought of as positive factors in interpersonal relations.

if we are experiencing a strong need or wrestling with a difficult problem, the likelihood of negative impact from roadblocks increases greatly.

It is much easier to stamp out a bad habit by supplanting it with a good one than it is to try to stamp out negative habits by willpower alone. As we learn to listen, assert, resolve conflict, and solve interpersonal problems more effectively, our use of the readblocks will diminish.