Educational articles

Associative photo / J. Suslavičiūtė

The famous psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung said: "Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will run your life, and you will call it destiny." But how to see what is unconscious? What are we hiding from ourselves? How do we read more than the mind can comprehend?

The unconscious communicates with us through language. We talk every day, we talk a lot. Both with ourselves and with others. By listening attentively to ourselves or to another person, we can become aware of many hidden things. The main way to decipher the language of the unconscious is through linguistic analysis.

What is important to consider in order to understand the hidden information in language?

How jokes are made. There is always some truth in jokes, but it is not literal. "Well, wait a minute, I'll get back at you one day", an acquaintance tells you in jest. But what he's really saying is that he feels bad about what you've done and will make you feel bad too, given the chance.

What recurring themes in conversations. What's on the tip of your tongue is on your mind. The recurring themes can give you an idea of what is most important and relevant to a person at the moment.

What they say about others. People like to talk about things that relate to them - directly or not. And when we talk about others, we also talk about ourselves.

If there is something "white" we are jealous of. White envy of your colleague because he got a promotion? It means that you want the same for yourself and you feel that you have not done something to achieve this goal. Jealousy points are a great way to understand what you want, what goals you need to achieve and where you need to work harder.

What words are used. "It's just like we agreed with the customer", the employee tells you. But is that a sure answer? Either you have agreed or you have not. You can't be in the middle. Obviously there is no agreement. The little words give away the true meaning of the idea.

When analysing a speech, it is important to listen to the whole speech without discarding anything. Pay attention not only to what a person says, but also to how he or she says it. Does the intonation and emotion of the voice match the words?

Excerpt from the Rasa Baltė Balčiūnienė Leadership Training Programme