How to Create an Environment of Respect & Inclusion

Maintaining an atmosphere of respect and inclusion involves handling conflict positively, not suppressing it.

Maintaining an atmosphere of respect and inclusion does not mean preventing conflict. Good relationships --- and good organizations --- depend not on the avoidance or suppression of conflict, (which psychoanalysts consider inherent to the human condition), but on its safe, and civil, expression. Rancor, bullying, disrespect and exclusion arise when conflicts are badly managed. Avoiding or censoriously suppressing conflict will more likely lead to such destructive outcomes than simply enabling the clear expression of conflict. Respect and inclusion are continuous processes, rather than a singular event.

Instructions

1. Sustain an attitude of benevolent neutrality. This involves suspending immediate emotional reactions when potential disagreements or differences of viewpoint emerge. Remember, it takes just a single person to influence the ethos of a group by maintaining an ethical attitude of respect and inclusion. Because all benefit from such an ethos, most people tacitly support it. Sigmund Freud recommended an attitude of "evenly suspended attention" and emotional neutrality with patients, eschewing the role of expert or authority in order to encourage free thinking. Emotional neutrality also fosters respect and inclusion, whereas instantaneous emotional reaction often sabotages both.

2. Express differences of viewpoint positively and impersonally. This doesn't mean adopting an aloof or unfeeling attitude; it means refraining from reacting to personal attacks with a personal counterattack. Treating someone's passionately conveyed intervention as food for thought maintains a spirit of inclusion and integration. You might disagree privately with the expressed opinion or the form of expression, but if you say: "I hadn't thought of it that way before", you maintain communication and inclusion more effectively than if you were to state: "There's no need for rudeness!" Similarly, statements like: "That's given me an idea. Let me share it with you", ruffles fewer feathers than statements like: "I totally disagree with you. We should do 'X' instead".

3. Practice "strong friendship." The British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips maintains that the psychoanalytic relationship is more akin to a form of friendship than a medical treatment: patients must feel safe so that they can speak as freely as possible. The analyst functions as a strong friend, someone who will not judge or condemn, belittle or collude. An atmosphere of respect and inclusion involves not only adopting this strong friendship model but also ensuring that truthfulness remains central. For example, Person A may seek to recruit Person B into a collusive relationship at the expense of Person C by means of malicious gossip. Strong friendship tactfully declines the collusion by not getting drawn into taking sides and instead acknowledges that unresolved issues need attention between Persons A and C.

4. Refrain from the psychological defense of "splitting." Originally described by Freud, this phenomenon was explored meticulously by the Hungarian psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and her followers. When confronted with painful or unpleasant experiences, people sometimes resort to a psychological emergency tactic -- imagining that good, comforting, experiences can be neatly severed or "split" from disturbing, painful experiences. But this creates an artificial world filled with improbably good and unrealistically bad persons and forces. Those designated "bad" get expelled, while those designated as "good" get embraced. This amounts to fake inclusion, setting up a pernicious "us" and "them" dynamic and sowing the seeds of disrespect and division. Develop an ethic of integration -- finding the truth in all contributions -- rather than resorting to splitting.

5. Sustain the awareness at all times that everyone possesses both strengths and weaknesses. An atmosphere of respect and inclusion depends heavily on one guiding principle: That what unites human beings (mortality, venerability to loss, illness, misfortune and the capacity for kindness) far outweighs what divides them. Find the truth in apparently antagonistic interventions rather than disparaging or ignoring them. For example, an angry outburst may signal the eruption of hitherto unacknowledged hurt feelings. Reacting with reciprocal anger will simply confirm to the injured party that he or she really is under attack. Respond with compassionate wisdom, such as: "No one noticed your suffering. How can we fix that?" It is these types of responses that will help sooth distress and foster cooperation.

Tips & Warnings

• Neutrality is wholly compatible with warmth, good humor and congeniality. Don't assume it means standing apart or acting like a robot. It means not taking sides and keeping a space open for intelligent reflection.

• Seriously disturbed individuals may launch continual and serious attacks on the atmosphere of respect and inclusion. Seek external consultation when situations like this arise -- some people need to put an inclusive environment to severe test before they can have faith in it, others take delight in sabotaging it. Professional guidance may help diminish the destructiveness of such challenges.

References

• "Advice to Doctors on Psychoanalytic Treatment" in "Wild Analysis"; Sigmund Freud; 1912/2002
• "Freely Associated: Encounters in Psychoanalysis"; Adam Phillips and Anthony Molino; 1997
• "Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946 - 1963;" Melanie Klein; 1997