Never Say Never…

One of my favorite movies when I was a little kid was An American Tale with Fievel Mousekewitz. One of the songs I remember was “Never say never” sung by the French pigeon to Feivel when he said he would never find his family. All I ever really remember was the line “Never say never whatever you do” and I remember thinking “but he said never!”

Statements using the words never, always, etc. are called absolute statements. These statements take something that might sometimes be true and make it sound like it is always true. One of the common times we use absolute statements is when we are frustrated with someone about something. Do you remember a time when you said in an argument “You always….” or “You never…” or maybe you remember being on the receiving end of an absolute statement. Another time we use absolute statements when we are frustrated with ourselves – usually when we make a mistake or fail in something and we say to ourselves “I always…I can’t….” etc. However, if we stop to really think about it, more often than not, it is not actually an always or never. Even if it is 99% it is still not always or never. These statements can become self-defeating and relationship-defeating. Remember a time when someone said an absolute statement towards you – how did you feel? I know I feel frustrated, sometimes even hurt and angry, sometimes even hopeless and helpless – especially if the statement becomes one I absorb to start thinking about myself. Always and never statements don’t leave a lot of room for hope of improvement. 

There’s another thing we sometimes do that falls in the same line of thinking as absolute statements, but is on a larger scale and usually applied to a group of people. It is what we call generalizing. Sometimes this happens we experience something with one person and then apply it to the whole group we identify that person as belonging to.  Sometimes it happens when we’ve heard other people talk in such a way of assigning certain characteristics to a whole group of people and we absorb it to think that way too. 

The example that first comes to my mind that most of us have probably heard about or experienced in some point of our lives is in regard to different racial groups than our own, or had people make these generalizations about the racial group we are in. By the way, generalizations don’t have to be negative; they can be saying something we think is positive about a whole group too – like everyone in this group is good at math, for example. Everyone is the same type of word as always and never, and more likely than not, it is not true of everyone in the group. I think sometimes we forget or maybe even have never thought about that generalizations and stereotypes happen to more groups than racial groups. I also think we are sometimes guilty of generalizing about racial groups and other groups and we don’t even realize it. If we don’t think or say the word everyone, it is sometimes hard to catch the generalizing mentality. Below are some groups other than racial groups that I’ve heard people make generalizations about: 

Women are _________

Men are ________

People of this sexual orientation are __________

People of this age demographic are _________

People in this other religion than my own are ___________

Another group within one’s own religion – I’ll use my own religion for an example: 

Conservative Christians are _________

Evangelical Christians are ________

Liberal Christians are __________

People in another denomination than my own are __________

Let’s think about if we heard someone say something about the group we’re part of (and I’m sure many of us have at some point). What went through your head? Maybe nothing. Or maybe frustration or hurt, especially if the statement made about the group didn’t fit you as an individual though you identify with that group. 

Just as absolute statements that we make towards ourselves can be self-defeating and absolute statements made in a relationship can be relationship-defeating, generalizations can also be defeating. Not only can they cause hurt when someone from that group hears it, but also they influence how we think and therefore influence how we behave and speak to people of that group.  They can hinder us from learning or receiving from that group. As we speak and think about ourselves, our relationships, and various groups, let us be aware of absolute statements and generalizations. When we catch ourselves using absolute statements and generalizations, let us challenge ourselves by first reminding ourselves that there is rarely an always, never, or everyone-in-this-group; and second by examining the particular situation to find the times that disprove the always, never, or everyone-in-this-group thought. 

By: Adrienne Kather, LPC