Oh yea, as a general rule of thumb I have found that if any party is getting emotional (defensive, frustrated, hurt, etc) then the conversation will have to pivot to feelings.. something about the pre-frontal cortex going offline when we get into a certain state.
I've seen this state called different things, like "Exiles" in IFS therapy, "below the line", "tilted", "triggering painful spots", I usually call it "defensive".
(Aside... a thing I've learned is not to ask if someone is feeling defensive (if they are, they'll say no). Instead I think the better move is to ask if they feel like I'm not listening, or not understanding their position. This lines up with the internal thoughts of feeling defensive.)
All this to say, rational conversation is possible when two people are in a rational state but there are other states of being.
(Aside.. I find that rational communication techniques like NVC are actually devilishly hard to put into practice all the time because they go out the window when we get tilted.)
(Aside... EFT couples therapy is designed around communication in an emotionally vulnerable state as opposed to rational, and supposedly has pretty good empirical results)
I've seen this state called different things, like "Exiles" in IFS therapy, "below the line", "tilted", "triggering painful spots", I usually call it "defensive".
(Aside... a thing I've learned is not to ask if someone is feeling defensive (if they are, they'll say no). Instead I think the better move is to ask if they feel like I'm not listening, or not understanding their position. This lines up with the internal thoughts of feeling defensive.)
All this to say, rational conversation is possible when two people are in a rational state but there are other states of being.
(Aside.. I find that rational communication techniques like NVC are actually devilishly hard to put into practice all the time because they go out the window when we get tilted.)
(Aside... EFT couples therapy is designed around communication in an emotionally vulnerable state as opposed to rational, and supposedly has pretty good empirical results)