Amber HollingsworthRecovery Conversation Simulator, Amber's Recovery Practice Lab · Interactive learning tool trained on Amber methodoloy

Defusing Defensiveness

13 Dec 2024 · 0 min

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0:28

Amber Hollingsworth offers brief coaching advice on defusing defensiveness by "normalizing" feelings or behaviors. She argues that normalization removes perceived judgment, which prevents the other person from feeling criticized and becoming defensive; instead defending them first reduces their sense of threat.

When you can normalize something, it takes the judgment off. And there's nothing that's going to get a person defensive quicker than feeling criticized or judged. That's what makes us want to tell this other person why we're doing it that way or why we feel the way we feel. Because whether they are or not, we feel judged and criticized. And so when you normalize it, when you defend them first, they don't feel like they have to defend themselves because they don't feel like they're in danger.