When someone you love is upset, ask one question before you do anything, suggests New York Times writer Jancee Dunn. 

She quotes her sister, a teacher of kids with special needs. When a child is emotionally overwhelmed by something, this teacher and her colleagues will ask: “Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?” This works, she says, because all kids handle emotions differently, and because the choice gives them a sense of control.

The approach works for adults too, says Dunn, who has adopted it with her husband. It makes sense: sometimes advice is the last thing you want to hear. Often you want the other person to react in a certain way – but of course they have no way of knowing this, so they offer something else, and you both leave the conversation feeling worse. (Jonah Hill’s frustration sums it up well: “They [the therapist] just listen; and your friends, who are idiots, give you advice. And you want your friends just to listen, and you want your therapist to give you advice!”)

There’s even a question of who is actually being helped in this interaction. Advice-givers may be trying to fix your problem because it makes themselves feel stronger, Dunn points out. Researchers have described it as a “subtle pathway to power”: people with a high tendency to seek power are more likely to give advice than those with a low tendency. 

The helped-heard-hugged question reminded me of some brilliant advice (not the idiot kind) on how to help a grieving friend, captured in short animation, by Refuge in Grief. It turns out that trying to talk someone out of their pain doesn’t work – it just means they’ll stop telling you about their pain. But the opposite, being acknowledged and being heard, can help. Well worth watching.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash