3 emotional intelligence tips for helping a friend in a rough patch

3 emotional intelligence tips for helping a friend in a rough patch

There are many different ways to define a friend. A friend is someone who helps you get places and who lifts you up. They motivate you and want you to succeed. Francis Bacon argued that a friend is someone who can do what you cannot do yourself — including those things that matter after you die. But one of the most important and universal functions of a friend is to be a listening ear. When you’re sad, you call up a friend. When you’re going through a rough patch, you go for a drink with a friend. When you’re grieving, struggling, worrying, or suffering in any way, you need a friend.

So, if a good friend is someone who talks with you when you’re going through something hard, a great friend is someone who knows just what to say or do when you come to them. So, how do we support someone going through a challenging time? What do we do when someone comes to us with something upsetting — even traumatic?

To answer just that, Big Think interviewed psychiatrist Jessi Gold, the bestselling author of a new book called How Do You Feel? that explores emotional awareness and how to take care of yourself and others when it comes to trauma. For Gold, there are three things to bear in mind when helping someone through a rough patch.

1. Listen, but don’t solve

When someone shares their traumatic experiences, one of the first things people try to do is solve the issue. It’s easy to think that a good friend — like a good parent — can take away the problems. But friendship is not parenthood, and sometimes a problem can neither be fixed nor should it be “fixed” (at least by you, right now). When we resist the urge to fix the situation right away, we respect the emotional process. As Gold put it, “Trying not to problem-solve immediately is helpful because I think it is a little invalidating to someone if you immediately jump to that.”

By simply listening and validating their feelings, you create a safe space for them to express themselves without the pressure of finding immediate solutions. This allows them to process their emotions at their own pace. Most of the time, people “probably just want to tell someone. And so, as hard as it is to be that someone, trying not to problem-solve immediately is helpful.”

2. Set boundaries

Supporting someone through trauma can be emotionally draining. Emotional contagion is the phenomenon where — if you are around someone long enough, especially someone with powerful emotions — you start to take on another person’s emotional state. Sometimes, this is a good thing; a laughing effusion of happiness cheers you up. But when someone shares something deeply painful, it can be hard. It’s usually a bearable and even necessary sacrifice on the part of a friend, but sometimes it can be too much. It might even trigger your own kind of trauma. That’s why it’s crucial to establish boundaries to protect your mental health.

“Be okay having boundaries,” Gold told Big Think. “It’s going to feel bad, plain and simple. So just tell your friends that. Tell them you can’t really deal with that anymore. You deserve and need time. So if something like [trauma contagion] happens, I would say make sure you do something for you.”

This isn’t weakness or failure on your part. By prioritizing your well-being, you ensure that you can continue to offer support without becoming overwhelmed. Setting clear boundaries might feel uncomfortable initially, but it ultimately preserves your ability to help. According to Gold, being honest about your limits is essential for sustainable support. It’s better to be there for your friend in small, manageable doses than to spiral and not be there at all.

3. Encourage professional support

While friends and family can offer invaluable and often first-responder support, professional help is essential for addressing deep-seated trauma effectively. See your role as a kind of triage. Offer what help you can — listen, ask open questions, and offer kind and non-judgmental words of support. But if at any point you feel out of your depth, gently suggest the idea of getting help. Therapy can often provide a structured environment to explore and heal underlying issues.

“If you really want to get at the root of what’s going on,” Gold said, “then therapy is the right place for that. It helps you unpack it in a more strategic way, in a way that is safer for you.”

The problem is that friends often take on too much. Most of us know at least a bit about things like depression, ADHD, anxiety, and so on. Our family members, schoolmates, and neighbors likely have one or more of these. But this familiarity gives a dangerous illusion of competence.

“I think that people are more well-versed in mental health and have more self-awareness than previously and more access to information, but because they have more access to information, it is often wrong,” Gold said.

The fact is that therapists are trained in how to deal with these situations. Of course, it would be nice to be there for your friend, but a lot of trauma — especially the kind that might lead to years of mental health problems — needs evidence-based research and professional help. You could, I suppose, spend years studying psychology with a focus on psychotherapy and trauma, or you could call upon someone else who’s done just that.

This article 3 emotional intelligence tips for helping a friend in a rough patch is featured on Big Think.

The post “3 emotional intelligence tips for helping a friend in a rough patch” by Jonny Thomson was published on 11/20/2024 by bigthink.com