Article On The Power Of Words

The "Power of Words" copyright 1996 Morgan Seminar group is an insightful article written by Rebecca L. Morgan author of "The Lonely Crowd", 1961, Yale Univ. Press. pg.89. The article focuses on the affects that our words have on the people around us and the power of those words to change a person's life in a positive or negative way. As I share my review of this article, I would like to highlight two areas of Mrs. Morgan's article corresponds to interpersonal communications. The first area is the power of words and how they form communication apprehension and secondly, the power of words to bring about a self-knowledge awareness.

As I began to read through some of the situations of the author's life experiences, I began to reflect on times in which words were spoken to me as a child which affected the way that I felt about myself. I remember hearing the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". While it's true that the words didn't break my bones, they did break my spirit. If hurtful negative messages are repeated again and again, they become destructive. This weeks' study talks about communication apprehension which refers to a state of fear or anxiety about communication interaction. People who have been hurt by other peoples words will often times put up walls to protect themselves. Because some people have been told that they are not good enough or that they can't do anything right; they develop an inability to engage with others. Many label there fear of making mistakes and being humiliated as "shyness". I found it interesting that when Mrs. Morgan began to become negative, unmotivated, and was experiencing feelings that her words were not being of any use, that she turned to a nine-day seminar to get the help she taught she needed. In chapter three of the Interpersonal Communication Book, it talks about the rewards of self disclosure. As