The Importance Of Perception Checking

It was Daniel Handler (author of A Series of Unfortunate Events) who said “Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.” It was three years ago when it all happened. I was going for my English final at Saddleback College, only to receive a text message from my mother that my sister was in the hospital. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a terrible disease which causes a person 's own immune system to destroy the protective shell around a person 's nerves. I mention all this, because it impacts a person 's personality to the point they become easily aggravated and affects their relationships. Especially coming off an already shaky brother-sister relationship, the MS took an even greater toll on us, though …show more content…
Perception checking as described by Interplay as “a three-part method for verifying the accuracy of interpretations.” It is accomplished by first describing an event which occurred to a person, giving a person two interpretations of what happened and asking if the individual is correct. One might question what is the purpose of such a technique, to which I reply that it is a protection from making false evaluation of people and creates division between them. An example would be if your spouse slams a door, if one were to not follow perception checking, they would assume such a person was angry when in reality they weren’t, aren’t, and feel hurt by such a statement. I chose perception checking because I believe it can help me not judge my sister incorrectly, but instead realize the complexity of everyday …show more content…
She enters the car silently and with a large amount of force, slams the door with what I evaluated as extreme anger or frustration. It required a lot of control, but I decided that instead of saying “Why are you angry?” I instead decided to spend time to think how can I implement perception checking. First I had to describe the behavior without pushing my sister away by making an evaluation, give some interpretation, and to ask if I was right. So I asked while driving down PCH, “Hi Noor, you slammed the door pretty hard, is it because you are tired or maybe it was windy, if you mind me asking?” Her to my reply was surprising for it was a simple “Oh sorry, I haven’t driven with you and forgot your doors weren’t as heavy as mama’s.” Through this experience, perception checking helped me prevent an awkward situation with my sister by letting my judgmental side misdiagnose a situation. In my religious background, backbiting or spreading rumors of people about people is regarded as a huge sin, and I honestly believe that perception checking is a beautiful concept because it is the complete opposite. This is why I fell in love with this technique and wanted to become proficient with it for my