Psychological and Emotional
Barriers to Communication

Defining Psychological and Emotional Barriers to Communication

Some commentators define psychological and emotional barriers to communication broadly as any mental or emotional issues that prevent the effective transmission of messages between individuals.

These issues may affect verbal, non-verbal and written communication, and may also interfere with sending, receiving or interpreting the message.

It is worth being aware that this is a fairly broad definition (see box).

Mind the overlap!

There is some overlap between psychological and emotional barriers and other forms of barriers to communication.

In particular, some commentators suggest that stereotypes and bias, and resistance to change, are psychological barriers to effective communication. However, we categorise these as attitudinal barriers to communication.

In general, on this page, we use the term psychological and emotional barriers to describe transient states, situations or feelings, rather than underlying beliefs or values.

Psychological barriers are those associated with your mental state but not your emotions. They may be divided into categories including selective perception, distraction and inattentiveness, different frames of reference, memory issues and defensiveness. Emotional barriers are those associated with how you feel.

Examples of psychological barriers include:

When you are tired, you are often less able to talk or write coherently. You are also less likely to remember anything that you are told. People with chronic fatigue often say that it feels like being in a fog. This is an example of something that may cause distraction and inattentiveness.
When you think that the other person knows more than they do, you can end up confusing them by failing to explain fully. This mismatch in levels of understanding is often seen in leaders communicating change. They are fully aware of what is happening, and the 'plan' for change, and often seem to assume that others have a similar level of knowledge and awareness. They therefore under-communicate the change programme, and are surprised when people are not aware of details. This is an example of selective perception.
Someone with low self-esteem may find it harder to communicate openly and honestly and share their views with others. This is an issue of frames of reference, because they often see themselves as less 'worthy' or able than others.
Someone with a mental illness may also find it hard to communicate clearly. This is because both the illness and any medication may affect how your brain works. This can therefore influence how you hear and interpret information, and also how (well) you remember things.
When you are preoccupied with personal affairs, you may find it harder to concentrate at work. This might be because you are stressed about your relationship or your family—but it could also be because something is going really well. If, for example, you have just got engaged, you might easily struggle to focus at work until you have fully processed this change in your relationship. This is another example of something that may cause inattentiveness and distraction.
If you are worried about being criticised, you may react defensively even to constructive feedback. This is a protective and reactive mechanism, but is often unjustified by the original communication.

Examples of emotional barriers include:

When you are stressed or frightened about something, you may be distracted by this and find it harder to pay attention to what someone else is saying, especially if it seems much less important. You may become angry if someone tries to make you focus on something else instead of what is on your mind—and anger can also make you less receptive to communication.
When you have had bad news, and you are distressed, you may be so focused on what you have heard that you do not even hear what those around you are saying. People who have been in an accident, or bereaved, often do not remember precisely what happened, or are hyper-focused on particular details, but have no idea who else was there.
If you feel a bit impatient with someone, that can prevent you from appreciating their point of view. You are less likely to listen openly to their ideas or be receptive to them.
When you dislike someone, you are more likely to infer underlying negative meaning to their communications (and our page on the Ladder of Inference explains more about this). If there is a possible subtext, you will read it negatively, rather than positively.

Emotional barriers to communication are mainly associated with negative emotions

Negative emotions tend to form greater barriers to communication than positive emotions. This is largely because when we feel positive, we usually also feel more open to others—and this makes us more receptive to communication.

However, this does not entirely follow. Very positive emotions can also be distracting.

Psychological and emotional barriers to communication can be highly disruptive.

Many of them are also often largely invisible to other people, because they are very much internal to the person or people involved. This makes them extremely hard for anyone else to address.

Managing Psychological Barriers to Communication

There are different ways to manage psychological barriers to communication, depending on the barrier itself.

For example:

If you are tired, the best way to manage this is to avoid communicating anything important, and ideally catch up on your sleep.
The best way to manage a mismatch in levels of knowledge is to increase your awareness of your audience and their level of understanding and knowledge.

Crucially, it is important to be aware that there is a barrier to communication occurring—and then address that barrier.

Ways to check whether your message is getting through—that is, whether something is acting as a barrier—include clarification, reflecting and questioning. It is also a good idea to be reasonably self-aware, so that you know when you are not at your most effective.

You may also want to reflect on whether your communication skills could be improved in some way (and our Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment may be a good starting point for this).

Managing Emotional Barriers to Communication

Emotional barriers to communication are slightly different. Here, the approach depends less on the emotion involved, and more on identifying that there is an emotional barrier to communication occurring.

The obvious thing to do to avoid emotional barriers to communication is not to try to communicate when you or the other person are experiencing a significant negative emotion.

For example, if your partner is stressed about work, now is probably not the time to try to discuss your relationship, or give them some feedback about their behaviour. It probably isn't even a very good time to tell them that your parents are coming for the weekend.

Similarly, most of us will understand that it is nearly impossible to have a calm conversation when either of you is angry.

However, it is not always easy to identify when someone is in an emotional state. Especially at work, we may be quite good at hiding our emotions—but that doesn't necessarily make us better at communicating in that moment.

There are therefore three important skills that you need to develop to improve this ability.

These are emotional awareness, self-control and empathy, all important aspects of emotional intelligence.

Emotional awareness is the ability to recognise your emotions and their effects

People with good emotional awareness are able to accurately recognise and name their own emotions.

They also understand how their emotions affect their thoughts and actions, and how they are connected to their personal values. This means that they have a good understanding of what is happening to them, and how they are likely to behave.

You can find out more about this crucial skill in our page on self-awareness.
Self-control is the ability to manage your emotions

Self-control is about building on your emotional awareness to manage your emotions appropriately.

It is important to be aware that self-control is NOT about hiding or masking your emotions from yourself or others. However, people with good self-control often appear calm and unemotional even when they are not.

People with good self-control can remain calm under pressure, and continue to make good decisions even when their emotions are engaged. Their emotions are harnessed appropriately in the right causes, and for the right reasons.

For more about this, you may like to visit our page on self-control. You may also be interested to read about other aspects of self-regulation, as part of building your emotional intelligence.
Empathy is the ability to recognise and respond appropriately to the emotions of others

Empathy is, effectively, the state of 'feeling with' someone else: that is, entering into their emotions with them.

People who are empathic tune into others' emotional cues. They listen to them, and also pick up non-verbal communication to enable them to understand what is happening. They take time to understand others' perspectives and views, and are sensitive to these. They then use that information to help others, building on their understanding of their needs and feelings.

For more about this, see our page on Empathy.

Building skills in these three areas will help to remove or smooth many emotional barriers to communication.

A Final Thought

Emotional and psychological barriers to communication can be extremely disruptive.

They are also often hard to detect, because they are internalised. However, people with good emotional intelligence are likely to find them easier to manage. Developing your emotional intelligence is therefore a good general strategy to reduce these barriers to communication.

Continue to:
Avoiding Common Communication Mistakes
Language Barriers to Communication