Advice Threads

[proteanmix]

I'd post this on the general forum but I don't want it to blow up into some big thing so I'm just putting it on my blog.

This is something I've been wondering about with advice threads.

Maybe it's my job that has made me like this, I don't know. I work with mental health care professionals and am often privy to a lot of patient information and cases. I'm no trained professional and I don't pretend to be one. Mostly I hear stories about patients from psychologists and psychiatrists about their patients. No names or anything so no breach of confidentiality.

Anyway one of the most common things they say is the further they delve into the patient's background and get information and stories from family members or friends about the patient in question, the more complicated the problem becomes and the patient is less of a "victim" and more of an actor and agent in their situation.

This isn't about criticizing the patient, but being open and honest with them about when they're at fault or how they could've contributed to whatever problems they're having.

This relates to the advice threads in this way: I notice when complexity is introduced to the threads; when people start asking in what ways the person seeking advice could have contributed to their problem I don't know, the tone changes. It seems like the default tone is, "you're a good person and you shouldn't be treated this way" and questioning the poster's motives is somewhat taboo.

Whenever I read threads like this I usually think of a situation between my mother and father when I was a teen. My parents had gotten into an argument in the car before going in the grocery store. My father started it. We all go into the store and my father asks my mother a question. My mother rolls her eyes and walks away from my father without answering him. I was still with my father and he turns to a man standing next to him and says, "See how she treats me? All I asked her was a simple question!" The man starts griping about his wife, blah blah blah and they temporarily become best friends.

Now this guy had no clue of what happened before we entered the grocery store. He didn't know about the argument they had in the car and how my father behaved. All he saw was my mother rudely walk away from my father and he instantly began to identify and commiserate with him. He didn't know how my father's behavior contributed to/caused my mother's response.

When I read advice threads, all I think is people are like the man in the grocery store, sympathizing with my father. No knowledge, no context, oversimplified, and quick to send a . How is this helpful? How does this get people out of their situations?

Anyway, I don't know if my perceptions are accurate or not. Are they? Does it seem like this to anyone else? This is one of the reasons why I'm reluctant to respond to advice threads or give advice in general. I feel like I don't have enough context to be helpful except in some placidly bland way. I also worry about saying something that makes matters worse by my line of questioning. Tone, facial expression, and body language is completely lost online and I really hate that.

 

[disregard]

Great points.. I am seldom compelled to offer advice (I'm a wonderful mix of a suspicion, misanthropy and apathy) and I definitely know that the grocery store incident is a great representation of most situations. The people that inflict the pain are naturals at turning the tables... masters of spin. I am wary of people that always have a story to tell..

 

[Guest]

In the grocery store incident, your father didn't necessarily want advice. It sounds to me like he just wanted to vent and merely sought a supportive audience.

As for advice threads, I figure that all the usual disclaimers apply: I'm not a shrink, YMMV, etc.

And generally it's considered good to present one's problems to a community (friends, family, or message board) so that, at the very least, others might see where the individual with the problem could be missing something obvious.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that the advice is going to be good. But assuming that the OP in an advice thread is an intelligent adult (more or less), a good brainstorming session by uninvolved parties might help stimulate some new thoughts or approaches.

Meantime, the OP has a lot of ability to provide clarifications as necessary and steer the thread in cases where the thread gets totally off-course. And of course the OP can totally disregard the advice altogether. So I assume the OP's interests are pretty well covered.

 

[proteanmix]

So do you all think when people come in asking for advice, is it really advice they want or just an opportunity to vent?

Venting just allows the person to talk without much input. It's mostly an excersize in sympathy. Advice is solution seeking or here's what dictionary.com says

advice - an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action, conduct, etc.

venting - to express (one's thoughts or feelings, for example), especially forcefully; to release or discharge (steam, for example) through an opening.

I'd think that venting is step 1 of the process and advice is step 2. Are we perpetually stuck in step 1?

 

[Guest]

Personally, I don't differentiate between venting and advice-seeking. I give them pretty much the same input either way. If they're just venting, they'll simply tune me out. If they want advice, hopefully something I say might be on the mark; but that's their call to make, since they know their situation best.

Sometimes I can tell that someone is just venting, but I provide advice anyway. I figure the OP will just tune it out, but maybe some of the other readers will profit.

Alternatively, sometimes someone really does want advice, but I don't have anything to offer. So I just give them a thumbs-up or a hug and at least let them know that I concur with their appraisal of the situation as presented.

 

[proteanmix]

Thanks, FL.

I didn't want to come across as belligerent or insensitive. I'll go back to work now.

 

[Guest]

No problem. I know what you're saying. Sometimes a mass of conflicting advice given in a thread causes one to say, "What the hell are we doing to that poor kid?!?!"

But when I was in the military, during long boring hours we used to sit around and chew the fat in the barracks. People would bring up personal problems, and we would all dissect them and have fun brainstorming ideas about them. It seemed to be a useful exercise in the end. Even if the advice isn't taken, it's good to check in with the community and see where it stands on things.

 

[Atomic Fiend]

Yes.

 

[kelric]

i think that your statement is correct more often than not. Between the combination of venting in the lieu of asking for advice and asking for advice and only presenting a limited (and biased) set of information about the entire situation, it's common for things to seem much more simplistic (and enticing a positive response from advice-askees) than they really may be. I know that I'm guilty of both of those at times - not that there's anything particularly wrong with venting or looking for confirmation now and then (note - now and then is not *constantly*), but I'd agree that not all requests for advice are created equal.

I also think that it's more difficult to interpret the advice-seeker's real intent online. All of those cues from voice tone, body language, etc. aren't there. Also, the "opposition" is even more separated - for your example in the grocery store, Man #2 at least could tell that your Mom was upset by seeing her himself, getting some information aside from your Dad's comments - online that just doesn't work. Not that an online forum is *bad* for such things, but it's certainly not as clear-cut as a face-to-face situation. Online it's just more difficult for an advice-giver to get an objective picture of what's really going on - or if the asker really is looking for advice at all.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

When I give advice (and I rarely shy away because I think I'm so f'in great at it) I try to analyze the situation objectively. You're absolutely right that the superficial pep talk is worthless nearly all the time. Nevertheless, it's a popular response that people, not just on a forum, give to people in need. I have two explanations 1) they don't know how to delve into people's problems, aren't comfortable, or are too lazy; shallow positive reinforcement is easiest next best thing because it does temporarily relieve symptoms of depression or anxiety in most cases (maybe not so much anger, tho) 2) I think the responders are uncomfortable with sadness. Often times, I think, it's the empathic people who will jump to do this because they're afraid of getting "infected" with the other person's sadness. Ego strength is lacking.

 

[disregard]

Edahn, do you think it also might be a form of submission? The positive reinforcement?

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Interesting idea. It didn't really cross my mind, but I wouldn't really, especially since replying is usually optional. In a case where someone is bitching about another person and the other person ego-strokes -- for sure.

 

[LucrativeSid]

I've actually thought about this quite a few times. One example that strikes me is when one day a friend of mine calls me on the phone all heartbroken. He tells me that his girlfriend just left him for my best friend. Now, there's no way that I'm going to start judging my best friend who is not even present no matter what my friend on the phone tells me. His information is obviously biased and he'll leave out everything that incriminates himself. I told him that I would offer advice, which is the internal kind that you could use no matter what, but that I would make no judgements against anyone and that I wouldn't help him blame anyone or feel justified in being angry. There was three different people involved, and sure enough, all three of them had different stories and they all seemed valid enough to be believable on their own. In the end, all three people made mistakes, but nobody was to BLAME. They all get along now and none of them were mad at me for not defending their sides. I refuse to play favorites and I think that's why so many people trust me, they always know exactly where I stand, and so I was able to help the heartbroken friend to feel better by being straight with him and hanging out with him for a week. Ironically, I had to do the same with my best friend only a month or two later because the same thing happened to him! Hahah! It's hilarious how some guys act... They should just listen to everything I say.

In the end, though, it's themselves that the advice seekers need to work on, and all the extra input may help, or it may not, but I think it at least makes them feel better for a little while. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of the time, even if someone adamantly refuses to admit something bad about themselves that's been pointed out on the forum, the truth really did hit them, and it slowly soaks in and helps them... If you have to use anger to deny something, you know there's a hint of truth to it.

 

[alcea rosea]

I understand what you mean but I think it's impossible to know everything. So most of times one has to make up their mind about a situation with a little amount of information.

I myself want to comfort somebody if they are feeling sad because I have that kind of empathic obsession but that doesn't meant that I wouldn't be open to the view of another person involved.

 

[TenebrousReflection]

I know it may not always come across that way, but usually when I write or post a thread like that, I'm not looking for advice in the sense of "what I should do", but what I'm looking for are the perspectives of others so I can get a better picture of things I may be blind to that could affect the situation. Essentially, I'm looking for opinions and insights to help me make more informed decisions when I start to question my judgment and decision making ability (which has been fairly often recently ).

Things like "what not to do" and "why its a bad idea" are much more valuable to me because it both gives me a new perspective to consider and does not steer me to a specific course of action (of course there is no gaurantee I'll follow the "what not to do" either, but those type of responses do make me think about things I may not have considered otherwise and whatever end decision I make, I think its a good thing to have considered as many options as possible).

Whenever someone comes to me with a blaming someone/somethign else type of situation, I'm nearly always skeptical of them and expect I'm only hearing part of the story. Rather than chalenge them directly on that, I try to think of questions to ask to get them to tell me more about why they feel the way they do and get insight from that method and maybe help them see things that might give them a new perspective (sometimes they will say somethign enlightening to me that they don't see the significance of and I'll have to be more direct in pointing out to them that it may be something important to think about).

 

[Totenkindly]

What a neat blog entry.

Yeah, it's something to be wary about.

(And I have heard shrinks refer to the "pull" as well -- when a patient comes to them, they're usually seeking something, they want the shrink to respond a certain way, and the shrink's job is to identify the pull and not give into it, instead focusing on what the patient needs.)

When someone shares a story, I usually have a lot more questions under the surface. If it seems appropriate and constructive, I will ask them. If it seems like it won't do anything positive except make the situation worse, I'll file them away and wait for a later opportunity.

It's inevitable that we all contribute, purposefully or not, to the bad situations we're in in SOME way, even if it's a very slim contribution. That's how systems work, you can't even observe an interaction without affecting it.

The parking lot crap seems to just be typical "social commiseration" -- and I don't place a lot of stock in it either way, it's just the sort of crap people naturally do whether or not it's fair or makes sense. In general, I try to ignore it unless it seems appropriate to challenge it.