INITIAL LEARNING
This first stage involves recognition that there are different ways of communicating than you typically use.  Often this leads to a combination of confusion and excitement as you begin to learn and start practicing the self-disclosure skills.
 

AWKWARD USE
In this stage, you have increased awareness of alternative ways of communicating but frequently experience difficulty in using the new skills.  You feel clumsy and mechanical, and when you use the skills, it just seems like you are not being yourself.
 

CONSCIOUS APPLICATION
In this stage, you begin to use the skills more effectively, but you are still self-conscious when you use them.  Using the skills feels more comfortable than it did before, however, and you begin to use your own language more in carrying out the skills.  Nevertheless, you still feel somewhat mechanical and often have the sense that “this isn’t fully me.”
 

NATURAL USE
It is reached only after a period of time (sometime around six weeks) in which you have continued to practice the skills and use them frequently in your daily life.  When you reach this stage, you are able to use the skills spontaneously, comfortably, creatively, and congruently to relate to others.
 
 

Raymond C. Hicks, DMin. MemCare, Int’l

07/14/99 Back to Articles