How do I feel when people are angry? When we practiced in the class, I tried to answer that question. After I talked, I thought about it once again. It occurred more clearly to me that I tend to act as a victim particularly if the angry person has come across as threatening to me. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield says most people have one dominant control drama. The book categorises basically four types of people: intimidator, interrogator, aloof and poor me (victim). From this point of view, when people are angry, and if I perceive them as intimidators, I think I would probably behave as though I appeal to the mercy. My instant reaction could be to say something like, "I haven't done anything to you." In my childhood, that kind of reaction of me was more obvious and intensive. I suppose acting as a weak and helpless victim should have harmed me emotionally more than any actual physical damage which could have happened.

I have always hated intimidators who threaten, aggressively behave, use violence, physically and verbally abuse, give fear, and don't give a damn what's going inside me. And although my brain is not busy with them as long as I don't confront them, I still hate them. I think I haven't directed the same hatred to myself, but I have been unhappy with myself for being too cowardly. I wish I had fought in the streets since childhood so that life could have hardened me. Maybe some sort of desensitisation would have occurred. When I look back from this moment of my life, I say to myself I would happily see them as learning opportunities if I had experienced some hardship of life, especially confrontation with the beasts, bullies and baddies.

Alan pointed out that using the pronoun you instead of I is a sort of shifting experience to others. He also tried to encourage the students to use I instead of you. I was already aware of that. His attempt to correct a student's use of the pronoun you seemed to me a bit futile. The words people choose to use may be a stubborn habit that is hard to remove even with constant conscious effort. It should be quite difficult to change the way people speak after they have kept talking in the same way for many years.

"Some people sometimes..." I find that kind of thinking ideal. To me, it goes without saying. When I make assumptions, I often find it very difficult to generalize. I try to avoid using words such as everybody, nobody, always, never. If I don't have any statistical evidence, even using 'most people' assumption sounds unfair to me. I think that when I dare to generalize, I should at least clearly state that what I am saying is my own personal opinion. In our case, setting up sentences like, "Clients feel that..." seems to invade a kind basic principle, so I should avoid that.

One of the assumptions that Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) suggests is that people reflect their primary representational system in their speech as well as in their body language. That idea doesn't seem to fit me exactly. As a speaker of two languages, I realize that my choice of words mainly doesn't come from what a part of the theory claims. For example, in English I often say, "I see" in the sense of "I understand". But in Turkish, I mostly use "I understand" instead of "I see". In my vocabulary, some ideas or experiences sound interesting in English, but they tend to look interesting when I switch to Turkish. As far as I can see, I use what I use because some words are simply easy to say for me. When I say, "I see", I use just one syllable. If I preferred to use Turkish equivalent of how something sounds instead of how it looks, I would have to use a long phrase. Consequently, I think that my choice of words doesn't reveal whether I am a visual, auditory or kinesthetic person.

When I pretended to be the zombie listener, I couldn't keep a straight face. Nor could I refrain myself from actually listening to what the speaker was saying. When I was the speaker, I found myself trying to get attention of the zombie listener. I could still talk as if the listener were really listening. I think it didn't give me a real life experience because I knew it was a kind of game. In fact, in my everyday life I realize that if people whom I consider worthy don't listen to me when I talk, I often feel annoyed, hurt or resentful.

I learnt this week that the clients often come to the counsellor with one issue, but it gets complicated as the story is unfolded. I think that would be the case if I went to counselling. I can often see connections between different parts of me, that is to say, connections between my thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Besides, starting with the bits that hurt less could be my strategy when revealing what mattered to me because I often relax and feel more confident as I talk, which could help me express myself more clearly.