Navigating Difficult Dialogues
(Originally written: December 23, 2025)
Written by Daam Barker, Ph.D.
The holiday season can be a wonderful and fulfilling time to gather together with family and friends and to celebrate relationships. Many of these gatherings may include some relatively challenging encounters, since people have a rich array of differences in perspectives given their race, gender, age, income level, culture, politics, religion, values, and more. Depending on the cross-section of those gathered, the atmosphere may grow tense when sensitive subjects are raised.
What happens at those moments can lead to the diffusion of tension, engaging, and constructive conversations. Or, the conflicting views and heightened emotions may become heated and very uncomfortable. If the latter scenario mirrors your past or possible future holiday season encounters, and/or any gatherings to come, I encourage you to continue reading for insights into what psychologists refer to as “difficult dialogues” and what to do about them.
Difficult Dialogues
Psychologists refer to the exchanges involving differing opinions over charged subjects, “difficult dialogues,” and that these encounters can lead to relationship ruptures. In fact, the incidence of contentious and unresolved communications has increased in recent times, with the impact of the 24-hour news broadcast and social media. Global connectivity shapes and often makes the territory even more challenging.
Two Aspects: Definition and Triggering
Difficult dialogues are challenging for several reasons, two of which I want to introduce here. First, they move us away from the comfortable territory of casual conversation--sharing information, promoting connection with others, and listening to learn. Instead, these kinds of exchanges are defined by debate--proving the other person wrong, establishing one right answer, and using listening to prepare a counterattack.
Another important aspect of difficult dialogues includes the triggering effect they can cause. When we are triggered by what another person says, it is due to the activating, and sometimes hijacking, of the part of the brain responsible for the fight or flight response to perceived threat or danger. It causes our bodies to react as if we are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger without adequate means to defend ourselves. While what is received may be justifiably offensive and a legitimate reason to feel attacked, it may not truly represent imminent threat to life and call for us to retaliate or recoil in the ways that feel instinctive. In other words, there is no saber-toothed tiger coming after you. So, you don’t really need to evacuate or prepare to fight back!
Suggestions for Effectively Navigating Difficult Dialogues:
Choose Your Battles
As you anticipate potentially contentious encounters, always remember that you have a choice to respond or not. Engaging in predictably contentious interactions can take a lot of energy and can be mentally and emotionally exhausting. Give yourself the right to decide whether it is prudent for you to expend the energy required at that moment in time.
Dialogue vs Debate
It can also be useful to remember the differences between dialogue and debate to allow them to guide what we choose to say, the purpose of what we say, and how we choose to listen. The objective is to stay in dialogue and avoid debate.
Triggers
It is important to understand your own triggers. Do you know what makes you feel threatened? If we are ever going to encourage others to consider differences of opinion constructively, it requires that we don’t lose ourselves to the fight or flight response. I do not mean to suggest that there is a foolproof way to avoid being triggered. However, self-awareness does improve self-control.
Suggestions for Resisting Triggers
Be curious about the other person’s perspective
Resist all-or-none thinking or dichotomous thinking. This is what psychologists call a “cognitive distortion”, and one that does not allow for the greys or subtleties of viewpoints to come through in conversation.
Name the discomfort caused by what was said or done and where you feel it in your body. For instance, does it make you feel: Angry? Disappointed? Tightness in your chest or an achy stomach?
Either suggestion alone can be helpful; however, the combination can function to convey acknowledgement of the other person’s position while also giving you the benefit of expressing your experience.
When More Help May Be Needed
Using these suggestions can certainly improve difficult dialogues. If difficulties in relationships persist, therapy can be an excellent resource to provide the stability and skills needed to bridge the gap. Therapy can help you hold true to your perspectives and values while maintaining the good that keeps you connected to the important people in your life. It is a particular interest of mine to help people reach these goals, and I would be happy to help guide you toward more positive connectedness.