In neurolinguistic
(NLP) theory terms I am a very visual person. I prefer to see a film at the
cinema than listen to an audiotape (which can drive me mad after about 10
minutes). As I noted in an earlier chapter, I can often remember passages of
words visually so that if I am stuck, I can think back to the page and lines.
If I lose something, I can think back to the approximate circumstance and
remember where it is most likely to be. This, of course, falls down if you have
a tidy partner who puts things into categories and is not particularly visual.
Jan will often move things, and then I am totally lost – I have no visual image
of where things might be- they are not where I left them! I am sure she does
not do that on purpose, but occasionally I have wondered…
This visual sense
has held me in good stead in all sorts of circumstances. Once I have driven
somewhere, I can always recall the way to get there. In fact when I am planning
a journey, I often think through the journey visually in advance to ensure I
remember where we took a wrong turn last time. I rarely lose my car in the car
park. When I have committed diagrams to memory then I can usually recall the
majority of the diagram and piece together the rest. (Of course, as I age,
these abilities are deteriorating, so my memory may be less clear and less
detailed).
So this means that
I have visual memories of particular patients who gifted me their story
regarding the onset and process of their illness. Often, if I meet the patient
again (even after some years), I can remember the salient features of their
story and, if pushed, will be able to fill in the gaps; or at least need
minimal prompting to be able to remember once again.
What goes with this
way of experiencing the world, is the use of language. I use a lot of visual
words and descriptors. So if I am describing something to a friend, it is as if
I am seeing the event as a picture in my mind, and using that on which to base
my description. The detail I use depends on how I perceive the other person’s
expectation; some people get awfully bored if you describe every little detail.
There are two other
styles of ‘being in the world’ in NLP theory (which fits so much with my experience
in clinical practice; but more of that later). The first is the ‘touchy-feely’
way of being in the world. People like this are sensitive to emotional nuance,
and pick up others feelings very quickly. We tend to feel other’s distress very
deeply, in part because we ‘get’ every nuance of their posture and facial
expression, but also because the words used each have a ‘feeling’ or ‘tonal’ value.
We also tend to mirror the other person’s body language, which is marvellous in
giving us ‘the feel’ for what they are trying to express. However, we have to
be careful with this, because if we go too far with mirroring we may parody the
person’s stance and they can become offended. The other reason for being
careful, or at least controlling the mirroring, is that we can, as it were,
‘take on’ the feelings of the other – both physical pain and mental anguish –
and become overwhelmed ourselves. I used to find myself doing this in the early
days of my clinical training, and could get quite distressed. These days I am
much better at noting the style, the body language, the words used, and the
feeling tone it all gives me, and labelling it in my mind – but being very
clear that it is the other person’s problem, not mine.
The third major
style of operating in the world is the logico-deductive. These people tend to
be very organised. They make lists either in their minds, or on paper. If they
are not allowed to follow through with a process which has a beginning, a
middle and an end, they can be come either slightly confused or irritated to
the point of anger. They may have little time for people who are visual and get
the big picture quickly, believing them to be ‘lucky guessers’ (I have been
called worse things). They may have little time for people who are
‘touchy-feely’ because they don’t want to hear the whole story, and all the ins
and outs, they just want the facts in a clear (preferably time-based) order.
They cannot manage the emotion (or ‘do not have time for it’), because it gets
in the way (and ‘does little to change the facts’). “If you are going to solve
a problem, then just get your facts straight and in order, and then develop a
stepwise plan to deal with each facet.”
This is a very
superficial explanation of something that is complex and subtle; fascinating in
its own way, but may need much more explanation to persuade some of you of its
worth. At this point I just need to tell you, that as human beings we are never
simple or clear, never quite fitting comfortably into boxes. So in NLP terms,
we are a mix of these three broad modes. I can tell you that I am primarily a
visual person, with a strong secondary style which is ‘touchy-feely’, and with
the logico-deductive bit of me being a rather poor third.
So what did this
mean on the wards? Well, retracing our steps a little, you will realise that I
got to ‘see’ the general picture the patient was telling me quickly. I heard
the symptoms and found it fairly easy to fit that ‘into a picture’. I could
feel their pain, their anxiety, their worry for the future, and at the physical
level I found myself very good at feeling lumps and bumps and developing those
into an overall diagnosis. I was not good at the lists of alternatives that
needed to be considered and excluded. I tended to go for the main diagnosis and
fixate on that. But as a student, I was expected to have learned the lists so
that I could spout them on demand. That for me was ‘boring’, and seemed to be
such a waste of time when you had already decided what was going on. I got
myself into difficulties, and was often told I was ‘jumping to conclusions’,
which were ‘unwarranted’, and not part of the logico-deductive process. I was
‘being superficial’. From time to time over the months, I got to the point of
despair, wondering whether I could do all this. Eventually I began to develop
the lists on paper (an ‘aide memoire’), and memorised them, so that I could
spout the rhetoric on demand. I was so good at ‘being with’ patients, often
able to get nuances of history others could be denied. I felt for my patients,
began to develop good patient-doctor alliances, but I had to work at the logic.
Writing these things now, I am aware that I am
describing my younger self using concepts and understandings that have been
hard fought for over the years. I think whenever I got too depressed at my
apparent ‘incompetence’, or my ‘glibness’, I went and did other things to fill
my time. The saviours were bridge, squash and rugby, and a lot of other
pursuits that will appear in this narrative as we move along. Of course, the
main saviour of my sanity was Jan, who seemed to be there when I needed her,
understanding of my complexities and difficulties, and supportive for when I
was depressed (again).
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