Tip1006 - Flashing For Love

Flashing For Love - Curbs Conflict

USA - As children we were often taught math and spelling with flash cards. "Angel Cards" and similar card sets are often used in alternative circles for guidance. Now there are flash cards for relationships, when words seem to fail you, or at least fail to communicate.

Nancy Dreyfus, a psychotherapist from the USA, discovered the value of flash cards on pure impulse. While sitting through yet another heated argument between a couple who were hurling verbal javelins at each other, she suddenly - on impulse - grabbed a paper and pen,and scribbled a message for the husband to hold: "Talk to me like I'm someone you love". The meltdown was dramatically swift: the behavioral shift surprisingly durable.

Dreyfus knew that she was on to something and soon developed the first home-grown set of 'Flash Cards for Real Life' and started using them with couples in her private practice. The 55 cards, which she uses for conflict intervention, were so successful with clients, colleagues, and friends that she had them printed on glossy stock and began selling them through a local distributor.

According to Dreyfus, written messages seem to accomplish something that mouth-to-mouth combat often can't: "I continue to be struck by the healing effect on intimate combatants when even a little decency is thrown in the face of their usual pattern of defensiveness, withdrawal, and terrible listening," she says.

Though the cards weren't designed for inter-generational use, one mother reported that they quickly defused a row with her 13-year-old, who seized the cards in the middle of a confrontation and flash the message: "Right now I don't need a lecture, I need your love."

'Flash cards for real life are available from Raphael Resources, 1002 Severn Lane, Wynnewood PA 19096, USA.

(Source: Global Ideas Bank: http://www.globalideasbank.org/ from an article by Meredith Gould Ruch entitled 'Flash Cards for Real Life' in New Age Journal (July '93).