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On giving advice I was going to title this On Giving Advice to an Adult but with proper interpretation it is pertinent to all advice giving. ANIL MITRA © June 2016—June 2016 Advice is possible only when you have understood. Otherwise you are not advising, even if you think you are. You may be just ‘talking’ but you are probably performing the ego function of projecting. This is how people and parents teach and spread worry rather than problem solving. Advice is useful only when there is a problem. Otherwise advice giving is probably projecting and spreading your sense of problematicity (call it anxiety) on the world. Advice is appropriate only when you asked for. Otherwise you may be intrusive and presumptuous. You can’t know advice is possible, useful, or appropriate unless you listen. A person who gives advice but doesn’t listen is likely covering and projecting their own sense of problematicity. Professional advice givers, known also as therapists, have education in such matters. Because the sense of being in the world often has maladaptive traits, therapists benefit from training in recognizing and avoiding, the tendency to project and spread their own sense of being in the world. |