Two wrongs don’t make a right but sometimes they do make us feel better. Why??

Gillian and Joelle do a deep dive into justice seeking behavior, which can present as someone treating others the way they were treated or seeking to make others feel like they are feeling.  It turns out there are a lot of reasons why we might be inspired to do so.  Our most helpful response in such situations is empathy, validation, and reassurance that their needs are as important as everyone else’s.  An emphasis on the use of visual processing tools to find an alternate path to express distress, feel calm, and self-protect is highly effective.  Some options include contingency maps, comic strip conversations, SODAS, and behavior chain analysis.  

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau and I'm Joelle Van Lent. Hi everyone! Hi everyone! We're so glad to be back with you. Joelle was just telling me that, Joelle, you might be getting sick again in an early fall of already endless respiratory illness. I think me and everyone in Vermont that works in schools seems to be running through some cold kind of things. But yeah, so maybe I'm getting over one and maybe approaching another. So I'm just going to get my immune system all boosted up and set at the beginning of the school year. Beefed up, I like like a ginger turmeric immunity shot. I also like, I like some fire. cider Sometimes I'll squirt Sinex water up my nose, but it's hard. It's hard to stay ahead of it. Yeah, I think instead of the treadmill, I'm going to watch some binge TV. Okay, I think that's going to get some more rest. Yeah, that's my plan. Yeah, that's a really good plan, and I'm sure that'll be good. In the schools, I feel like there is a time where I just, more often than not, didn't have any voice Halloween weekend, 'cause I would just always get sick throughout October and then just not have any voice Halloween weekend. You know what's so great is that this year, Halloween is on a Friday, which means that nobody that works in a school has to work with students of any age the morning after Halloween, which is so brilliant cause that was just always the worst time. Yeah, November 1st is rough. Yeah. And then right after that, you have the whole daylight savings thing, and then everyone's a mess from that. It's a real gauntlet. We see you all. Yes, we do. Joelle, you were saying that you have been seeing something that seems a little bit new for you, and we're going to try to unpack it today. Yeah, so it seems to be coming up a lot lately, but it's not a new topic. It just seems to be coming up a lot where there are students who feel wronged, feel as though someone, an adult or a peer, has made. them angry has angered them. And the way, so it's like a couple of things. One is maybe getting stuck on I was wronged and not really being able to like talk through the context and then therefore feel better and let it go, or feel like justified in their action because it was prompted by somebody else. So it's sort of like two wrongs a right kind of thing. And I've heard it described as justice seeking, but then I have had the opportunity to talk to two different middle school-ish aged kids about this pattern. And both of them said a very similar thing to me, which I had never fully understood. So both of them said like, so one of them said when someone makes me I feel like I really need to make them feel angry. And then I actually feel calmer and better, even though I usually get in. And so he was saying that it's kind of worth getting in trouble because they don't wanna feel angry. And so it's like sort of, and the other student described very similarly that like actually retaliation in this kind of actually how they're self-regulating anger. And that when adults say two wrongs don't make a right, and just because somebody you felt wronged that you just made it worse, that actually then they feel like we're leaving them with their. So you just want me to sit here and stew or. there's no way to get rid of my anger. Nothing is quite as And I don't think I ever thought of like justice-seeking behavior as self-regulation. Ooh, okay. That's so powerful! So, all right, that makes me think of a few shrinky things that maybe we can unpack. You can let me know how much we wanna belabor these or not, and then we can like definitely like bring it back to just like the more concrete. But okay, so I was just talking with a loved one yesterday about how anger is a protector, right? And so anger usually is covering up I like to think about everything as fear, but anger certainly comes out if we feel like something is like at stake. right Or something is at risk or we have to protect something. So I would be interested to think about that. It also makes me think about in my super shrinky grad school, which was so shrinky that at times we were even talking about Freudian defenses, which a lot of Freudian stuff has been debunked. But the defenses are interesting. And one is called turning passive into active. So that's classically when if a person has been made to feel powerless, right Or if a person has been made to feel maybe even like scared in a powerless way, it's a very common human habit to kind of find the next person to make feel that way instead of you. There is this idea that that is a psychological defense because it does work to the emotional check sheet in some way, right? So I'll use this example a lot when I'm teaching. But let's say that a kid is getting bullied by a parent at school; then they get dropped off at school, right? That kid might turn and kind of say the same bullying words to somebody who they experience as less powerful than them in like the school pecking order. That is turning passive into active. And it's actually sometimes something that human psyche will do almost unconsciously. So almost without asking the person first, it can be a reflex because it can. kind of work to get that unbearable feeling ofYeah, so that makes sense. It's sort of like the idea of like in one part of my life, I am the target of aggression or unkind behavior or what, and it's making me feel powerless and angry, or some degree maybe even of like humiliation, which is all mixed with fear that that might happen again. And then you turn around and you feel maybe I've thought of it in the past as like you sort of maybe have a very simplified template of relationships. I'm either the aggressor or the victim. And so then you position yourself with peer dynamics or with other people as like if I have the opportunity I would be much more comfortable being the aggressor. I'd rather be that than the other. That's right. And it's sort of like dog eat dog in a way. And that also, I mean, I would be curious about how that might happen on the adult realm in the adult realm, on teams and stuff too, because that also reminds me of something that's like more nuanced but that adults do all the time. Like couples therapists will often talk about moving a couple away from a stance of where, like, there's always a one up or a one down position. Yeah. And I find that when I'm doing couples therapy a lot too, oftentimes a duo will start in this position of like, well, who's the rightest. or the wrongest. Or like how can I like make my case? Whereas, you know, really it's like well it's less about who is like right or wrong, and it's less about who is like kind of winning this argument or winning this relationship. But it's more about can we all sort of get our needs met? And so, you know, I wonder if there might also be a little bit of a parallel process. Like if teams, when humans, when adult humans get stressed out, they tend to go to a little bit more of a like who's right, who's wrong; let's shore up the kind of more one up one down kind of dynamic. And I wonder if it's on teams where that is happening that we do see more of this behavior. from the kids also feeling like, well, either I'm the aggressor or the, yeah. And I think in my experience that is for kids and adults mostly either, like, you could call it an impulse or unconscious. I don't think that it's like a decision that people make. Like, this is how, no way, no way. This is all unconscious, yes. Right, so I think that's like part of why psychotherapy works, is that you look at the pattern of your behavior and you have these aha moments. It's like, oh, I am treating other people the way, in fact, I was. I don't want to solve the problem that way. And I think, like, it's, but I think what's interesting is that a lot of what I think we forget to do as we're offering interventions and services to change behavior, is we forget to tell people what to do instead. Yes, and we forget to tell them that we are highly, highly motivated for them to feel comfortable and for them to release distress. So, I think there's responses that we have in situations where someone is bullied and then turns around and bullies, or someone feels accurate or inaccurate in our opinion, wronged, and turns around and wrongs back that person as a way of evening things out and feeling calmer. When we say basically don't do that, I think what they feel like is like you're just basically wanting me to sit in anger, humiliation, fear, powerlessness. Yes. And just because that you don't want me to act, you want me to remain passive. Like you're saying, moving passive to active, like you want me to remain passive and in distress. And you don't understand that that's an unbearable state for me, that I actually can't stay in that. And if I'm not mean to the next kid, then I'm probably gonna have to bolt out of the. Like, this is unbearable. Right. And I think where it can be so confusing for us is that if we are only seeing the child who's acting in bullying ways towards someone and we're not seeing what's happening to them in another. context we don't see where that comes from. And also if we think somebody totally misresponded and misperceived something, and then turns around and retaliates, we feel like you misread that. And so if I can help you read it more accurately, then you will feel better. But now it's sort of like I have to double down on how I read it because not only are you telling me that I made a mistake in how I interpreted something, now you're making what I did seem ridiculous. Ooh yes. So it takes a pretty strong person to be like, oh I double messed up. It sure does. So I wonder if one of the interventions here could be, and everyone's so overwhelmed. right But let's say that we do witness one kid aggressing toward another or being a jerk to another. Of course, our first impulse is to be like, hey, stop doing that right? Even though then the story might be, well, someone else did it to be first, or I have to get this anger out of my body, da da da. If we see one kid being a jerk to another kid, I wonder what would happen if we started at, whoa, you must've been so angry to do that because I know that to be outside of your character. Like, how can I let me attune to you, let me help you with your anger, not to get away from that conscious discipline strategy of like you go to the victim first, which yes, but also I think if we more often address a kid who's just been a jerk with, you must have a huge amount of anger right now. That must feel terrible. What can we do right? That kids might trust us more next time to give them another channel to get that feeling out of their body rather than having to solve it on their own by aggressing. You want, I mean it's this is a Bruce Perry quote. But if you want people to be empathic, you need to treat them with Yes and so, and if you want people to have genuine regret for harmful actions, you need to convince them that what they needed was also important. Yes, and validate how they were feeling first. So it's like this is why I love Contingency maps, collaborative problem solving, sodas, comic strip conversations, all of the visual processing, where we say this is what happened. Can we back up to what went on before that? Because I don't know what led you to that place, rather than going right to the negative impact of their behavior. We want to say this is what you did. I sure didn't expect that. Can you help me see what went on before, and then what went on before that, and what went on before that? And let's back up until we see where the kernel of this might have started. And then you can say what would have been a different path, but they have. to know that you're curious about how they got there in order in order to hang with you in any kind of a productive conversation. I think that curiosity is so important. Right? Taking the time to walk it back with them is so important. And I also think that that communicates to a kid, we know you wouldn't have done this for no reason. Yeah, we know that you're a good person who is making, you know, whose behavior has meaning. You're a person who makes sense and we may not like where you landed, but we're not gonna stop it. Well, you just did a ridiculous thing. What a ridiculous thing you did, right? We're gonna be like there must be a reason for. this Let's figure out what it was. So we know what to do. Yeah, and like when kids say when you're like, you know, you really made so and so feel angry, are you really hurt, so and they're like, yeah, that was my goal. Yeah, we immediately, I think as adults, we're like we, you on purpose hurt so and so. But, and I don't know how it took me 26 years of being a psychologist for a kid to explain to me, I don't, I'm not just out to hurt people. I want to feel better. Yes, I want to feel better, right? And that's the pathway to feeling better. Also, I mean, the amygdala is basically just a machine for detecting threat. Mm hmm, so you know, I also just want. to name on the mammalian level, sometimes mammals do hurt other mammals on purpose, and it is to like rescue themselves or to defend themselves, right? So it also, and I understand why, right? Because we don't, we don't want anybody developing any kind of antisocial personality. Yeah, like we as adults, we don't like to hear that a kid hurt someone else on purpose or that a kid got any kind of gratification out of hurting someone else. But it also is true that mammals get a gratification out of hurting others all the time if their brain is telling them that that's the only way to get back to safety. Mm hmm, right? Like if you're feeling threatened. you know in a more pervasive way than it might be your goal to neutralize the threat by hurting wherever you think the threat is originating. And the gratification, so to speak, that you get might be, I think I just made myself safer. That's right. It's relief. Yeah, like I do think it's I really do firmly believe it is incredibly rare for a human being to actually get pleasure from harming another human being, me too, especially when they are starting from a regulated state. That is like a true sociopath, right? I think there are— they are on our planet. There are very few of them, very, very, very rare. And when we're talking about a child or an adolescent. I think we don't want to get alarmed by a car. An honest statement of that was my goal. I wanted to make them feel the way they made me feel. I think that we, it's concerning. I don't know that it's alarming about like who that person is going to be 20 years from now. I think we need to slow down and say, can you help me understand how we got here? Yeah, and the best way to protect them from becoming someone who is potentially, you know, harmful to others 20 years from now or whatever, is to teach them how to feel calmer and protect themselves in ways that are safe and effective, but convince them that your feeling of safety. and your feeling releasing distress is incredibly important to me in this process. Like that, I also want other people to be safe, but I want you to be safe and comfortable. Other people, and I think we mess that up a lot. Actually, I think we do too. I think once we see somebody as the aggressor, they're no longer as valid or important as the other people in this space, and then that's gonna continue to fire up that aggressor's threat response. Right? Yeah, but I, yeah, I think that all people have less of a need to be aggressive if they believe that their needs will be met. Yeah, and like not to get too shrinky about it either, but like even if it is a concerning situation where somebody is on a path toward an antisocial stance for whatever reason,

this is still the right way to prevent that: 18:38

to show them empathy, to show them compassion, to let them know that they matter and that they're important, make them feel a sense of belonging and unconditional positive regard. That is the antidote to that. That is, you know, it makes me think about restorative circles a little bit. I know we were seeing so much that like five years ago. Is that still a practice that you're seeing a lot like in Vermont schools? Yep. Yep. Pretty big deal. Pretty big. That's awesome. Yep. Yep. And one thing I really like about that practice too is that you know, yes, we are there. Yes, we've sort of chosen like, you know, a victim and an aggressor, but there's also really room to bring in the humanity of the aggressor too, right? And and to take into account what the what the context might've been for the aggressor, right? Like, kind of see if the aggressor has needs that we could have met differently as well. So I think that, you know, on a really concrete level, those practices, like that approach to discipline, is very much in line with what we're talking about today. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking about kids and teenagers. We're not talking about. adults We're specifically talking about kids and teenagers. We're talking about that part of a, is of course going to be supervision. Yep. And and when there's a pattern of behavior, but we're also talking about that part of a safety and an intervention plan is going to be empathy, compassion, and showing, like, like true curiosity about how we got here, backing up to see if we could meet the same goal. So if the goal was that you want to feel better and safe, how could we meet that goal through another path? And that's not to be permissive. That's because a person who has been aggressive literally cannot do better the next time until We help them access more brain safety because the only the only part of their brain that's going to help them do better next time is the wisdom brain. It is the top part of the brain that will not awaken for use If if that person is still feeling really under threat. A lack of belonging is a big thing that the amygdala clocks as threat. Right? So, you know, as much as we might want to, you know, jettison or close down on a kid who we see as aggressive, because of course our amygdala wants to protect all kids. And now we might see this other kid as a threat. Right? The more, more, more we can attend even, and especially to the aggressor's humanity. the I think the safer everybody will be in the long run, honestly. Yeah. So, to give like a concrete example, I think it's very different. If a student is aggressive at recess and the response is, you harmed others; therefore, you've lost recess tomorrow versus, I want to understand how we got there. I want to make sure that you feel safe and that other people are safe. Let's process that. And then tomorrow, you're going to have recess but away from the group with me, and we're going to role play and practice what we're learning. And then on day, you know, after tomorrow, you'll have recess with the group with with close supervision to practice that because we want to make sure that you're safe and calm and that other people are as well. I think it's just it's still there's still a consequence. You lost recess with the group and it's still there. So it's still taken very we're providing the scaffolding to keep everyone safe. But the language that we're using and the emphasis and the focus is different. And I think rather than feeling rejected on top of whatever else was going on, which the next time you're out at recess could inspire more justice-seeking behavior. You know it's just it's it's subtle but significant, that difference. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's. really true Yeah What was what was your other shrinky thing? Do you remember you had to? Oh well, it's in the same category, but it this is all so shrinky. But it's another very primitive defensive projective identification. So I was just going off of what you were saying about, you know, how a person really can experience relief of the symptom of anger by having upset someone else. And and someone might be like, what? But I just want to be like, no, it's real. There's also something called projective identification, which educators as well can be on the receiving end of with kids, where sometimes a person is experiencing such an unbearable emotion that they will treat another person in such a way as to inspire that same unbearable emotion in the other person. And seeing seeing the other person light up with that unbearable emotion, I think creates comfort. We'll we'll have to give an example of this, but let's say I had a super unbearable emotion. Let's say I felt like the worst person in the world and like everybody hated me. Right? Let's say that I was, for some reason, really good at getting you to feel bad feelings. And let's say that I interacted with you in such a way that I pushed all your buttons. And now I can see that you, Joelle, all of a sudden. feel like everybody hates you, and you're the worst person in the world, and you're mad about it. My body might calm for a few reasons. One, I'm now seeing you feeling the same way I was, and I'm going to feel soothed because of that. Two, maybe now, maybe I have a kind of nervous system that like calms down if someone else is more upset. So if I can get you more upset, maybe I can actually just feel my nervous system go into like, hey, hey, hey, like it's not that bad kind of role. And also, there really is something to a person feeling like they can get the unbearable emotion literally out of their body and into the body of someone else. Yeah, if they can see that they've spiked up enough of a clear psychological defense, but I know it sounds a little bit nuts to talk about because it is a really primitive one. But I absolutely have felt myself on the receiving end of this both in schools and in the clinical space. And it really is true. You can all of a sudden feel yourself get very triggered. And then the person in front of you does immediately call them, and they're like, whoa, you're like pretty triggered. It's like, wow. And that, like, what you're describing is a theory, but also something that's been researched and found to be true in terms of our neurochemistry, correct. Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah. And a child, a teenager, and actually almost, well, a lot of adults nobody would be able to say the reason I did that was because of my neurochemistry. I really feel like, so it's like when people are honest and with, like, I felt better after I did that. I think it's really important that we are curious about, tell me more, because they're not going to be able to explain. Most people are not psychologists who have studied this research, so they're not going to be able to explain, like you just did, why doing that made them feel better. And so, I think we need to pay attention to you wanted to feel better and that worked. not freaked out what they just said. Right? Yeah. So maybe partly what we're fleshing out today is like helping people understand there actually are real clinical psychological reasons why it might bring relief to make the next person feel bad. And that there's ways we can understand that and then support a person in other ways so they don't need to do that. But that, yeah, the fact that somebody felt better after making someone feel bad, that's not really cause for alarm. That's more just elucidation of an unfortunate but very well-known and quite universal principle of humanity. Right? And could come from desperation. Oh yeah. Could come from fear; could come from survival instincts; could also just come from a relational template that's been modeled to them, and they're repeating it in a way that might make them feel better/ slash icky. Like it, I think that this is very deep psychological stuff. And so when you and I can geek out on it like this and get really fascinated by it, when you're dealing with a railroad situation, my hope in bringing this up and talking about it in this deep dive is that when people see this in their interactions, theycould recognize that what's going on is a lot about human nature and that our job is to say it makes total sense, actually. And there's other ways to get that same relief or sense of. And so let's think about those other ways. You're probably not going to really talk a lot about why that made them feel better. You're going to talk more about what is another way that you could have felt better. Yes, I love that. So you're not going to really go into all of your understandings about why that makes sense. You're going to focus on what to do different. But man, if you're a kid who's just messed up and you are having the humbling experience that, yeah, I did upset the next person, and that did make me feel better, for you to be in the presence. And then you're like courageously. talking about that actually for you to be in the presence of an adult whose first response is, " Oh yeah, that makes sense. That's a human nature thing. Okay, let's talk about how to work with that rather than being in the presence of an adult who's like, " You what? That sounds bad, right?" That's going to have a totally different impact on this kid's nervous system. Right? And I think sometimes our conscious or unconscious, oh, um, makes kids think, oh, about themselves. Yeah, of course it does. Yeah. So it's we just want people to feel a little calmer and more confident in moments where kids are being honest about this response and and... able to understand like what is my role. Cause this seems like a pattern, and I need to keep people safe. I need this kid to understand that this is really serious. And another thing that I feel like I'm talking about a lot in these situations is that it also is important to offer a consequence. If if a natural consequence did not play out, because what that like the kid who said to me, it makes me feel better, even though it then gets me in trouble. The motivation, like I got in trouble, like what is the purpose of in trouble? The purpose for him was, and for many kids now, it's motivation to try that other strategy that you're offering me because I can feel better, and I won't get in trouble. So, that makes it more appealing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, people are just trying to get back to homeostasis. They're just trying to get back to feeling okay. And so, if it does unfortunately, but naturally have some reward, right? If making the next person upset does, to some degree, bring an angry person a sense of regulation, we do need some level of consequence to counteract what would otherwise be kind of a reinforcing effect. What are some thoughts that you have on, like, some consequences for that kind of thing that have worked or that have seemed appropriate? Yeah, I think for me, it's like for example, recess with the group is a privilege. Oh yes, recess, which means really play outside with another human, is not a privilege. So what kind of recess you have? I think that in terms of the restorative world, this is where the restorative world is so beautiful. It's like, I think that action, so like you're talking about wanting to put passive into action. So making somebody sit in a room or create some harm in the community is really potentially not great for their sense of humiliation and shame and creating a more anger cycle. So an active plan for doing acts of kindness for the a favorite trick I have is to at a faculty. meeting, take a Google Doc and ask everybody to take five minutes writing in the Google Doc one or two jobs that you actually need done, like a closet needs to be cleaned, or paper needs to be shredded, or books are all disorganized and need to be put back in their right bins. And then when you have somebody who needs to do some repair, but it isn't going to be direct to what happened, they pick a job from the list, do the job, write their initials next to it, and the adult whose job that was sends them a thank you note. And they don't need to know why they did it. Last thing, you cut off on write their initials. Yeah, oh yeah. So the student writes their initials next to it and then the teacher whose job that was sends them a thank you note. Oh, cool! So it's like we didn't just make up paper shredding of paper that didn't need to be shredded. You're actually doing a job that needs to be done. Somebody is writing you a thank you note. And now your action took from the community, so now your actions are giving back to the community. And the teacher doesn't need to know. Maybe you organized my books because you were, or maybe you were naughty. It doesn't really matter. But thank you so much for organizing my. And it starts to create a sense of like I was passively contributing. And you get the dopamine and the reward that that offers in a very experiential way. Oh, I love that. Yeah, so you do a meaningful thing for the community that actually needs to be done, and you receive a meaningful thank you because you made a positive impact. It's not shame-based, right? No one really needs to know why it was that you did it. It also makes me think about you and I talk about all the static load a and what to do if you get stuck in a fight, flight, or a freeze response. Being a jerk to the next person or showing up as kind of angry, that's a good sign that somebody might have been in a fight response. And what we always talk about is how a fight response. likes purpose and accomplishment. Yeah. And this fulfills that as well. So that's another way to get ourselves out of an angry state; truly, it's to find a. Our brain will respond to that just as well as it will to making somebody else feel bad. And so that's a nice way to sort of teach that strategy too. Yeah, yeah. It's a consequence and it's a strategy in one. Yeah, just today I was sitting in a classroom observing, and a student was done with her tasks, and she was putting all the books back in the bins that they should be in. And I said to her, do you think someday you might be a librarian? And she was like, I hope so. I really love books. And I was like It also looks like you like things organized. And she was like I really do And I was like I always have to. It feels so good, doesn't it She was like, " This makes me really happy That's so wonderful! Yeah, purpose and accomplishment, right? Purpose and So I think that's one of my favorite plans for response. Yeah, or consequence, yeah. Oh, back now. All right, so we should probably wrap. But yeah, so we rattled off some visual ideas. We could try to put those in the show notes. I think comic strip conversations. Did you say behavior chain analysis? Or you said something different, but similar to that. I didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking. of Yeah, so comic strip conversations, sodas. Sodas, behavior chain analysis, contingency maps. Contingency maps, OK. So we can put those in there. And now we have some concrete ideas for consequences other than just making them sit and stew in their anger passively. That's right. Yeah, well, I think this is our final episode of season three. All right, so we will be back in the spring. And thanks all for being on this ride with us in the fall. May we all not have too many upper respiratory viruses in the meantime. That's right. All right, take care everybody. Thanks for everybody. Bye. Medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Listeners should always consult with a qualified mental health professional whenever needed for specific concerns or questions related to their personal situation. Stance of Curiosity is produced by Jillian Boudreaux and Joelle Van Lent. Our cover art is by Aaron Lanou, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.