The meaning of communication is not what one of the participants does, but what everyone does. And the reaction that seems obvious and even necessary to us is never the only possible one. For example, a wife will say to her husband, “You are a fool!” It seems like he's offended. But no, it will only become an insult if he answers: “You yourself...” But the dialogue can develop in a variety of directions. - And today is Monday. - What makes you think so? - I was a fool, but I will become a prince. - Probably, I made you angry with something. - It’s good that you’re dissatisfied with my intelligence, and not my earnings. - Next time I’ll be smarter. - Have pity on me, poor thing. And so on. That is, generally speaking, we decide every time e, where to turn the conversation, what to turn it into. True, we do not always notice this moment of decision. And he is.*** It is clear that we can be captured by feelings - and then we will act based on them. Moreover, we may have feelings in advance - and then what is said almost does not matter: we will react not to the current situation, but to all previous ones. And not even necessarily those who were with this interlocutor, with this partner. There is an old joke about this: - My fish... - A fish means a pike, a pike means a toothy one, a toothy one means a dog. Mother!! He called me a bitch!***But there is another type of communication - ideal, when behind the remark addressed to us we hear the needs of our partner. What does he want now: consolation, respect, recognition of his right to his own opinion? And we react based on this knowledge. This is also true in the opposite direction: when a partner is able to empathically guess what our needs are - even if he is not ready to satisfy them, sometimes it is enough to simply acknowledge their existence - such communication is an order of magnitude deeper and more humane.***What is stopping this? Most often, fear - both rejection, lack of acceptance, loneliness, and merging, loss of oneself. Own unsatisfied, unrecognized and unconscious needs: for safety, for love, for belonging. But also the lack of habit: there was no place to see how communication occurs on a deep level, there was no place to learn. What can help this? Psychotherapy, of course: it is on these foundations (empathy, understanding of needs, goodwill) that the psychotherapist’s contact with the client is built. This is the fastest, but not the only possible option. Books and films can help - those that are watched not for entertainment, but for the sake of expanding experience, with an aim: to see how others do it, to learn. ***By the way, there are two wonderful books that are considered for children, but can also reveal something about themselves to adults: Mary Poppins by Pamela Traevers and “The Neverending Book” by Mikael Ende. True, in these two cases it is the book that is better than the film adaptation. Who knows good films where the characters communicate this way - at the level of understanding each other’s needs? Please tell me. I know for sure that they exist, but I can’t remember now. Thanks to everyone who answers.