You hand your friend the beautifully wrapped gift. In delight, your dear one excitedly strips off the bow and wrapping, lifts the box, and then says in a crestfallen voice, “I can’t wear wool; it makes me itch. Here, you can have it back.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can you imagine how deflated and hurt you would feel if this happened to you? Yet so many of us — including our clients — have tremendous difficulty receiving the verbal gift of a compliment, and we metaphorically hand it back to the giver. Clients may be particularly vulnerable to doing this, as they are likely to be coming for therapy because they are already troubled about something which keeps them from fully enjoying life — and the same issues with shame, guilt, self-esteem or other problems that propel them to therapy are also likely to be causing issues with receiving (and possibly giving) accolades. March 1st<\/sup> is World Compliment Day, so what better time than now to look into what gets in the way of your clients being able to fully accept positive comments — and also see how they can “metabolise” those compliments better. This post examines the ways we dismiss compliments, why we don’t accept them, and how we can receive them more fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mckay & Mckay (2018) suggest that compliment responses\ncan be grouped into three types: accepting, deflecting, and rejecting. The\nworry for many people in fully accepting a compliment is that they will be\nregarded as conceited; outright denial, conversely, seems rude. So we often end\nup with a middle ground of deflecting that dilutes the praise and makes the\n“hot potato” of the accolade easier to handle. Here are some of the ways we\ndevalue both ourselves and the compliment giver in our response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Denying<\/strong>. We just plain disagree with the compliment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arguing<\/strong>. We argue against deserving the accolade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Narrowing<\/strong>. We make a broader-based comment into a smaller, less inclusive one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putting oneself down<\/strong>. We insult ourselves in order to downplay the compliment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attributing it to luck<\/strong>: We disavow our own hard work, saying it was “luck” that caused the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Transferring credit to others<\/strong>. We do not accept our part in a good result, saying others did all the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ignoring<\/strong>. We either fail to recognise the compliment, or just ignore it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fishing<\/strong>. We make the compliment giver work for it, seeking reassurance, even multiple times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n De-valuing<\/strong>. We suggest that the thing being complimented isn’t really so fabulous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questioning\/assuming insincerity<\/strong>. We question the giver’s taste or motives, wondering if they really meant the nice thing they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is it about compliments that makes them so tricky to\nreceive? Giving them can be tough for some, too, but that is another “can of\nworms”: one that we shall open in future articles. Looking into the common\npresenting issues in therapy, we can see that the following list of barriers to\ncompliment acceptance is not exhaustive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the client has recently lost a job or suffered a relational breakup. Maybe the person has chronic low self-esteem owing to a childhood of frequent criticism or the sacral wounding of not being deeply seen. Internalised toxic shame and guilt<\/a> — not around having done an inadequate job<\/em> but of being inadequate<\/em> — cannot but rise to the surface in response to the mismatched cue of a compliment. One client coined the acronym “NGE” to explain the times he missed opportunities, failed to come to his own defence, or simply did not let in the goodness of life. NGE stood for “not good enough”: his understanding of himself that explained (to him) much that went awry in his life, including accepting compliments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we know from object relations therapy, our “relational\ntemplate” or model of how to be in relationship, is formed early in life: certainly\nby age three. For clients where the “message” (usually implicit) up to that\npoint has been that they are unworthy of anything good in life and deserving of\nno praise, the natural sequelae — even when they do enjoy successes — is that\nthey will suffer from Imposter Syndrome: the sense that they are, at any given\ntime, just “playing dress-up in mummy’s shoes” and they are going to be found\nout — now! — for the “fake” that they are. The “real” person, they know, is\nincompetent and worthless. The result is usually depression, and a concomitant\ninability to let in “the good stuff”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The nature of abuse and domestic violence is that — for the\nabuse to work “effectively” — the abuser must isolate and devalue the partner\nor other abused person, eventually causing them to believe that they are so\npathetic and hopeless that no one but the abuser would be willing to put up\nwith them. As this tragic set of beliefs becomes inculcated ever more deeply in\nthe person (usually a woman) living in a situation of domestic violence, the\nchasm between how she sees herself and how the compliment-giver sees her\nbecomes too wide; the praise seems false and unrealistic and she cannot let it\nin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The condition of anxiety, especially social anxiety disorder\n(SAD), works to ensure that the receiver of a compliment experiences even\ngreater anxiety as a compliment is given. SAD is, after all, a condition of\nfearing judgment from others, especially publicly, and a compliment is a\njudgment, albeit a positive one. Similarly, those who suffer from chronic\nperfectionism may have had years of that introjected voice judging their\nefforts as always falling a bit short of the mark. How, then, to trust an\nexternal voice saying the opposite? It is too incongruent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, when we examine the pathology of narcissism, we can\nunderstand the difficulty of compliments. The definition of narcissism is\n“failure of relationship” — that is failure to be in right relationship with\nself; therefore inability to right-relate with others (H. Palmer, personal\ncommunication to author, 1998). The narcissist swings between seeing\nhim\/herself as perfection personified and the scum of the earth. There is no\nmiddle ground for right valuation: a necessary prerequisite for proper\nacceptance of a compliment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secretly, most of us long to be well-thought of, and\nsincerely given praise can give us that boost to the day that puts a spring in\nour step. So how should compliments be received in order to be fully\nappreciated? What shall we advise the client to do when receiving one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, it’s true: giving and receiving compliments can be\ntricky and take some practice, but positive feedback is crucial for validating\nour sense of ourselves. So why not encourage your client to have a go? Challenge\nthem that, on March 1st<\/sup>, they will find three people to compliment —\ngenuinely — and join in creating the most positive day in the world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You hand your friend the beautifully wrapped gift. In delight, your dear one excitedly strips off the bow and wrapping, lifts the box, and then says in a crestfallen voice, “I can’t wear wool; it makes me itch. Here, you can have it back.” Can you imagine how deflated and hurt you would feel if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,63],"tags":[104,553,95],"class_list":["post-4459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-counselling-theory","category-relationship-families","tag-communication","tag-compliments","tag-self-esteem"],"yoast_head":"\nHow we dismiss our compliments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why we have so much trouble in accepting the positive comments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Helping clients fully let in compliments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n