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Normalize to Break Down Defenses

16 Dec 2024 · 0 min

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0:29

Short extract from a YouTube video by Amber Hollingsworth giving interpersonal coaching advice: use defending-first statements and normalization (e.g., “it happens to the best of us” or “I’ve been there”) to reduce a person’s defensiveness and communicate non-judgment. The clip focuses on techniques to make people feel understood so they can lower their guard.

You defend them first because it makes them feel like they don't need to pick up their weapons, right? They can unholster the gun, they can set the grenades in the knives and everything down, because it immediately makes this person feel like, hey, I get it. Or another way you can do this is you can. And I do this in coaching a lot is just to normalize what's going on. So it's a way of saying, hey, it happens to the best of us, or it happens to a lot of people, or it's happened to me before, because then it. What it does is it says, I'm not judging you.