Dr. Karin Tamerius is a political psychiatrist and the founder of Smart Politics, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching progressives how to communicate more persuasively with people who hold different views. Since the 2016 election, she has worked to introduce psychotherapy skills to the political realm, pioneering the development of new tools to help individuals have constructive conversations online and off. Most notably, she’s written three highly successful “Angry Uncle” chat bots for The New York Times that have reached millions of readers, and she has created an original model to “tame” trolls on social media. Prior to that she earned a B.A. in political science from UC Berkeley and an M.D. from UC San Francisco, and pursued graduate study in political science at the University of Michigan.
In addition to running regular workshops teaching Democrats how to advocate for their beliefs without sacrificing their relationships with Republican friends and family, Dr. Tamerius has trained thousands of volunteers for progressive organizations like MoveOn.org, Indivisible, Women’s March, and Netroots Nation to campaign more effectively. Her work on political dialogue has garnered international attention and been featured in many media outlets including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Time, NPR, FiveThirtyEight, Forbes, and Business Insider.
In this episode, we discuss:
-How to use the skills of therapy to have effective one-on-one political conversations, including: building trust, respecting autonomy, and sharing information.
-The Smart Politics and how it differs from other bridge-building organizations in its progressive political advocacy orientation.
-Skills for listening deeply and nonjudgmentally.
-When it is helpful, and not helpful, to offer information/facts/data.
-How to find agreement and common ground by focusing on values, goals, and emotions.
-How to be more persuasive when sharing your perspective and circumvent the brain's internal defense system.
-How chatbots and AI can help us practice having depolarizing conversations.
-The Change Conversation Cycle: Inviting, Listening, Reflecting, Agreeing, Sharing.
-The Change Conversation Pyramid: Comfort, Connection, Comprehension, Compassion, Cognition.
Resources from this episode:
Smart Politics: https://www.joinsmart.org/
Change Conversation Cycle & Pyramid Handout: https://www.joinsmart.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Smart-Politics-Handout.pdf
Dr. Tamerius' website: https://www.karintamerius.com/
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