Attending & Listening Skills

1. Attending & Listening Skills Foundation for the other intervention skills covered in the course.

2. Typical Sequence of Skills

3. Attending • Psychological: • Physical:

4. Nonverbal Communication • Definition: • Intentions:

5. Attending Acronym: SOLER • Squarely face the client. • Open posture. • Lean toward the client. • Eye contact. • Relax or appear natural.

6. Guidelines & Precautions • Verbal messages should match body language. • . • Meaning of body language depends upon one’s culture & unique personality. • .

7. Active Listening • Definition: • Intention: • Challenge:

8. Skills for Soliciting Information

9. Closed Questions • Definition: • Intentions: (1) obtain specific information about a client or (2) confirm understanding.

10. Open Questions • Definition: • Intention:

11. Guidelines for Questioning • Use open questions to inquire about a general topic & closed questions to obtain more specific details about the topic. • Use questions sparingly or you may fall into a question-answer format. • Use a variety of helping responses. • Don’t ask leading questions or give advice in the guise of a question (“Don’t you think. .?)”

12. . . . . • Try to turn “why” questions into what or how questions. • Be careful asking “How do you feel about that?” • Don’t ask questions just because you are just nosey. Questioning should be intentional and based on what the client needs.

13. Silence • Definition: • Intentions: • Helpful Hint:

14. Additional Eliciting Skills • Accents: • Minimal Encouragers:

15. Reflection & Summarization

16. Intentions: • Sounding Board. • Promote deeper exploration. • Communicate empathy. • Perception Checking. • Build helping relationship.

17. Reflection or Restatement: • Definition: • Guidelines:

19. Types of Reflection: • _______ communicating understanding of a client’s description or perception of a situation. • ________ communicating understanding of the emotions expressed or indicated by the client. Frequently, feelings must be inferred because clients might not have revealed their feelings directly. • ________communicate understanding of the client’s worldview. What is the meaning or personal significance that clients attach to their experiences?

20. Steps involved in Reflection:

21. Templates for Reflecting Feelings: • “You feel _____(emotion).” • “You feel __ because of ___.” • “Perhaps you are feeling ____.” • “It sounds like you feel ____.” • “My guess is that you feel _____.” • “If I were you, I might feel _____.” • “I wonder whether you feel ____.” • “Maybe, you feel _____.”

22. Summarization: • Definition: • Intentions:

23. Self-Disclosure • Definition: • Intentions: