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Handbook of Experiential Learning...
Learning to Hear Stage Talk
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Learning to hear stage-talk messages--messages that express a desire to move the relationship in a particular way or to stabilize the relationship at a particular stage--will help you understand and manage your own interpersonal relationships. Over the next few days listen carefully to all stage-talk messages. Listen to those messages referring to your own relationships as well as those messages that friends or acquaintances disclose to you about their relationships. Collect these messages and classify them into the following categories.
- Contact messages express a desire for contact: Hi, my name is Joe.
- Closeness messages express a desire to increased closeness, involvement, or intimacy: I'd like to see you more often.
- Stabilizing messages express a desire to stabilize the relationship at one stage: Let's keep it like this for a while. I'm afraid to get more involved at this point in my life.
- Distancing messages express a desire to distance oneself from a relationship. I think we should spend a few weeks apart.
- Repair messages express a desire to repair the relationship: Couldn't we discuss this and work it out? I didn't mean to be so dogmatic.
- Dissolution messages express a desire to break up or dissolve the existing relationship: Look, it's just not working out as we planned; let's each go our own way.
Share these collected messages with others in small groups or with the class as a whole. Consider, for example:
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