Benjamin Roberts

About

The two people who usually arrive in front of me are perfectly articulate everywhere else in their lives. They manage teams, negotiate contracts, and explain complicated things to strangers all day, and then become entirely unable to finish a sentence with each other. That contrast is standard and it is informative. Communication patterns between two people are not a measure of either person's ability; they are a joint production that has been rehearsed so many times it now runs without anybody choosing it. We interrupt the rehearsal. Both people usually recognize the script within about ten minutes. Early on I was in crisis services, where I watched articulate people lose all access to their words under pressure. It is ordinary. If you are eloquent everywhere but here, get in touch. The script belongs to the pair rather than to either person. Interrupting the rehearsal is most of the work.