Parent: You keep pushing this “Analyze before you act” thing.
Dr. B: Yeah.
Parent: So, don’t just Assume you know why something happened?
Dr. B: Yeah.
Parent: Because if you do, you can make an Ass out of U and Me?
Dr. B: Yeah.
Parent: So, is that the answer? Analyze before making an Ass of yourself?
Dr. B: Yeah.
Parent: Do people actually pay you for this?
Dr. B: Yeah.
BEHAVIOR
(Assume you know why) RESPONSE
Parent: What’s it take to get you to act?
Dr. B: Good analysis.
Parent: So, what are we supposed to analyze?
Dr. B: Here is my recipe for analysis.
Parent: At last.
Dr. B: I start with the assumption that all behavior has some good reason.
Parent: Like hitting his little sister?
Dr. B: That isn’t good behavior, but it probably had a good reason. And you need to figure that out.
Parent: Good reasons for bad behavior. This should be good.
Dr. B: Behavior, especially bad behavior, is often done in the service of managing some emotion.
Parent: Emotion?
Dr. B: Probably an intolerable emotion.
Parent: So, I need to find out that he was mad enough to hit his sister?
Dr. B: I see where he gets his impatience.
Parent: Now that didn’t sound very professional.
Dr. B: In your example, anger is probably a good guess.
Parent: Of course he was angry, if he hit his sister.
Dr. B: Or jealous. Or hurt. Or bored. Or …
Parent: I get the point. Don’t just assume I know the answer.
EMOTION
BEHAVIOR
Dr. B: When you find the answer-
Parent: I’ll know why he hit his sister. What good …
Dr. B: No. You will know what emotion felt intolerable or created an urgency to act.
Parent: Ok. So, what’s next?
Dr. B: Emotions, like anger or jealousy or hurt are signals that something is wrong.
Parent: So, I need to figure out what was wrong.
Dr. B: Yeah.
Parent: Don’t start that again.
Dr. B: Guess we should add frustration to that list of possible emotions?
Parent: Exactly.
Dr. B: The next part of the analysis is finding what ISSUE gave rise to the strong, intolerable EMOTION.
ISSUE
EMOTION
BEHAVIOR
RESPONSE
Parent: So, in my case, the issue giving rise to my frustration with you would be how slow and obtuse you can be at times.
Dr. B: And then your reasonable RESPONSE could be, “Please be more concise. We’ve only Got A Minute”.
