My respect for the power of using “and” rather than “but” began early in my work as a psychologist. 

A common client dilemma I faced as a therapist was married women who came into therapy due to problems related to husbands who were often verbally abusive and often worse. Or chronic alcoholics. Or serial adulterers. These men typically refused to come in for counseling or change in anyway. The question of whether these women should leave those husbands often came up. Their friends and family certainly thought so.  But the women would often talk about the love they still had for their husband or that he was a good provider or, less often, a good father.

“I know you care about him and he provides a certain level of financial security,” I would say as gently as I could, “but you deserve better.”

“But I love him,” would often be her plaintive reply.

We would dance around this dilemma, often with little progress. I would try to deconstruct her notion of love and underscore the respect that she deserved.  And my client would all too often counter with the factors that kept her stuck in a clearly unhealthy relationship.

Then one day, I changed my strategy. I don’t remember why. Maybe I changed my wording just by happenstance. Instead of trying to move her forward in the direction I thought best, I embraced her stuckness.

“He can be awfully mean and you’ve acknowledged he often disregards your needs. AND you also still love him and he’s a good provider.  To stay or leave, what a dilemma. Of course it’s a hard decision for you to make.”

“But I deserve better.”

I was thunderstruck. It was the first time I had ever heard my client voice her deservingness. What just happened?

We began to make progress after that. She ultimately left her husband, but based on her own emotional logic. I began to say AND rather than BUT more often. When I said “But” I was clearly taking sides in the dilemma. In essence I was saying “I grudgingly admit there are these factors pulling you in the wrong direction—that you love him, that’s he’s a good provider, BUT now I am going to tell you the important things for you to consider, the more healthy reasons for you to do what I think best.”

I suspect her friends and family were doing exactly the same thing. In fact, I feel certain they grew impatient when she explained all the reasons why she stayed with this guy who clearly didn’t deserve her. And yet, if it was all that clear to her, she would have simply left him long ago.

The Wisdom of “And”

If we’re stuck, whatever the outside logic of the world, it’s because we feel the reasons to stay and the reasons to go—or whatever our conflicting choices might be—its because the factors on either side of the equation are roughly equally emotionally weighted.

At that moment in the therapy session, I may have been one of the first people in her life to give equal importance to both sides of the dilemma. I didn’t try to talk her out of her love for her husband or the economic realities of his being a good provider. With both sides of her dilemma given their due, she no longer needed to defend why she was stuck in this most uncomfortable of all places. She could give voice to her healthier instincts on her own.

The shift to using “and” rather than “but” was important. It was only in the ensuing months that I came to fully understand just why.

“But” negates whatever comes before it.

And accepts both sides of the dilemma.

And it also begs the additional sentiment, “There’s this AND there’s this. What a dilemma! Of course, I’m (you’re) torn.”

When I do this, I embody empathy and capture nuance and complexity.

Right and wrong, there are always shades of gray.

Mark Carlson-Ghost, PhD

Image courtesy of Pixabay

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