978-0078036934 Chapter 8 Solution Manual

Activities and Discussion Questions

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How to Deal with Your Anger

William W. Wilmot, Collaboration Institute

Read the below list of guidelines for managing anger. See Activity Directions below. *

1. Notice your anger and say to yourself or out loud, “I am angry.”

2. Take several deep breaths. Take that short time to think about what you will do next.

3. Think about anger in this situation–would others get angry? Do you have a choice in your

anger? What are those choices?

4. Look for the feeling underneath your anger. Begin with fear. Ask yourself three times,

“What am I afraid of here?”

5. Figure out ways to deal with that fear or other underlying feelings. Ask yourself, “What do I

really want?”

6. If you want something from the other person, ask for it instead of blaming or accusing him.

7. Practice new behaviors:

• Listen more carefully

• Use I-messages instead of blaming or accusing

• Ask for what you want, and for more information

• Stay connected to the other person

• Continue to do “self–talk”

• Breathe deeply to stay calm

*Activity Directions: Use the preceding/following set (on the next page) of questions to analyze

(a) “The Wedding Fight” (Chapter 8 Activities) or (b) a difficult, angry conversation students

have experienced themselves.

OR….

You can use it for any of the dialogue in the Instructor’s Manual, students’ actual conversations,

or clips from movies.

Activities and Discussion Questions

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How to Deal with the Anger of Others

William Wilmot, Collaboration Institute

1. Try to figure out what the person might be afraid of.

2. It’s okay to say, “Hey, I don’t like being on the defensive here.”

3. Ask for more information instead of shutting the other person off. Say, “Tell me more about

that,” or, “I didn’t know you thought that. Tell me how you came to think that.”

4. Open up more channels of communication—phone, face-to-face contact, more notes, more

meetings.

5. Ask what the other person needs or wants. Try to solve the problem.

6. Work toward common goals–things you both can agree on.

7. Listen careful to what the other person says. Say in your own words what you think he or

she said.

8. Ask if the other person will listen to you, too.

9. Never say, “You shouldn’t be angry.” Feelings are facts, too.

10. Say over and over that you expect that you will be able to work this out together.

11. Ask for suggestions for solving the problem together. Give ideas yourself.

12. End with, “I want to keep this from happening again. What can be done to learn from

today?”

Activities and Discussion Questions

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Chapter 7: Mapping Your Conflicts

Activities and Discussion Questions

Brief Systems Analysis (Application 7.1 in the text)

Ask students to respond to Application 7.1 in the text prior to coming to class. They are to bring

their paragraph about the group and should have thought about the questions ahead of time, but

are not required to have a written response to them.

In class, review the six principles of systems and ask students to identify how each principle

comes into play in their own groups or systems. Use the experiences and expertise of the

students to help articulate the ways in which the theoretical principles that underlie systems

theory are present in their lived experience.

You may choose to have a full class discussion of each principle, or to divide the class into six

groups and have each group relate their assigned principle to their personal systems and then

report back to the class how the principle is lived in practice.

Activities and Discussion Questions

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Coalitions

Have students draw a diagram of their family, workplace or a school group. After reviewing the

principles of coalition formation, ask the students to work in groups of 3-4 to discuss their

diagrams in relation to those principles.

Discussion questions

1. What are your patterns?

2. Are you the communicator?

3. What are the downsides of being attached to your older sister? Or being the Mom? Or being

“caught in the middle?” Or being the “isolate”

4. How have coalitions shifted in your family, work, or school group over time? How do

members of the system adapt to physical and emotional change with respect to coalitions?

An additional activity for coalitions would be to analyze the sample conversation on the next

page, called the “After the Party Fight!” This dialogue may look familiar, as it is also located in

the Chapter 7 Test Bank. Finally, the dialogue could be used to analyze many concepts

throughout the text (power, destructive moves, name calling, TRIP, systems, styles,

forgiveness—just about anything really!)

Activities and Discussion Questions

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Sample Conversation

“After the Party”

Dan: That was a blast!

Sarah: (stony silence)

Dan: (raising his voice) I SAID that was a great party!

Sarah: I BET you had a good time. I’m sure the 17 women you

danced with had a great time, too.

Dan: Oh, I get it. You’re pouting. Is that it—You’re pouting,

aren’t you? Well, at least you’re consistent, since that’s what

you were doing all night anyway.

Sarah: I had to do SOMETHING with while you’re making a

complete ass of yourself!

Dan: Look who’s talking. You’re such a loser at parties, no

wonder no one wants to dance with you.

Sarah: I’m not a loser. I’ve told you a thousand times that

parties like that aren’t for people like me, but you never

listen. I don’t like parties because you drink too much, and I

can’t stand your friends either. When you’re with them, you

make me totally miserable.

Dan: At least I have some friends. You’d have some, too, if

you didn’t hang around Christine all the time. You’re always on

my case about how I screw everything up around the house. You

think I’m an idiot.

Sarah: How could you screw things up at the house—You’re never

home! You’ve been saying for 6 months that you’re going to

clean out the garage, but you never do. It’s either fantasy

baseball all summer or hunting every weekend in the fall.

Dan: You know why I hunt all the time? Because the animals are

more fun than you are. And they don’t go looking for fights for

no good reason.

Sarah: This isn’t a fight. It’s a discussion. And I hardly

went looking for it.

Dan: Yeah, good one. And I bet you didn’t pick out that $500

worth of clothes you’ve been hiding in the closet for the last

week either?

Activities and Discussion Questions

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Sarah: Whatever. Let’s just drop it. You’re drunk. I should

know better than to deal with you when you’re like this.

Dan: Now you want to drop it. You’ve been at me since we got in

the car. You brought it up—let’s talk about it. How, exactly,

do you think we’re going to pay for your little shopping spree.

We haven’t paid for the last one yet. Obviously, I’m not going

to get any help from you, since you’re the “struggling student”

with no job.

Sarah: How did you know about those clothes anyway? Besides, I

was going to take them back on Monday.

Dan: Christine told me.

Sarah: WHAT!?!?!? You are such a jerk. And she’s a real piece

of work, that one, too. She’s the one who said I should buy

them in the first place.

Dan: Maybe she just finds me a little more interesting than

you. She probably felt sorry for you.

Sarah: That’s it. I’m done. I’m so over this. I’m getting my

own apartment