Active Listening Skills Flashcards
Open-Ended Questions
DESIRABLE
Feelings Focused Responses
DESIRABLE
Be sure to attend to feelings at least 50% or more of the session.
Cognition-Focused Responses
DESIRABLE
Clarifying or Clarification
DESIRABLE
Reflection
DESIRABLE
Mirroring client responses focusing on either verbatim, feelings, thoughts, content, themes.
Immediacy
DESIRABLE
Use of Self
DESIRABLE
Not self-disclosure: I feel sad as I hear you speak about this…I’m aware I’m feeling protective of you right now.
Linking
DESIRABLE
Joining themes of past conversations or patterns to other similar themes currently.
Silence
DESIRABLE
Use of the quiet or important pauses in counseling to emphasize the importance of the feelings, insight, etc.
Interpretation
DESIRABLE
Effective use of summarizing a theme, or conceptualizing, and sharing your hypothesis with the client
Summarizing, Summarization
DESIRABLE
Can be of a long list that the client has presented, or can be at the end of a session, or at the end of a counseling episode.
Reframing
DESIRABLE
This is a type of re-interpretation which is to hold up a metaphorical mirror or “painting” but set in a different frame.
“You say that you feel like you let your friend down, but I’m wondering if perhaps your expectations were so high that you couldn’t possibly have met those demands that you places on yourself.”
“Tell me…”
DESIRABLE
Statements that are a variation on an open-ended question designed to elicit an expansive response. Another variation could be “Help me to know…”
“Tell me what that was like for you.” “Tell me what frightens you about the situation.” “Tell me what your first reaction was.”
Tracking
DESIRABLE
A type of active reflection that might use a variety of the techniques above, but the key goal is to stay on track with the client. You the counselor pick up where the client ended and continues seamlessly. It is a form of synchronization. Use tracking to avoid the “popcorn approach” or the “rat-a-tat-a-tat” or the “twenty-questions” approach. Tracking is like sorting a ball of yarn, you have the yarn, and then the client has the yarn…or some people might think of this as using “talking stick” It is a sequence of communication that builds upon itself, rather than a fragmented “52 card pick up”
Leading and Pacing
DESIRABLE
In a non-emergency or crisis situations, the client does most of the leading, and the counselor most of the pacing. Only with young children, or with intellectually differently-abled persons, or persons in crisis or emergency, should the counselor lead more than the client.
Presupposition
DESIRABLE
The counselor assumes, based on something the client has shared, that the client would have a feeling or reaction to it.
Closed-Ended Questions
USE SPARINGLY
Most useful when client is in crisis or emergency state, or with very young clients or persons with intellectual difficulties.
“How does that make you feel?”
USE SPARINGLY
No more than one per every two sessions.
Self-Disclosure
USE SPARINGLY
Problem Solving
USE SPARINGLY
Instead of helping the client to solve the problem, focus more on how the client can discern their own discernment for how can discover a problem-solving strategy of one’s own design. It is a bit like the adage, I can feed someone a fish, or I can teach them how to fish.
Action Planning
USE SPARINGLY
Action planning might also be considered Treatment Planning. Action planning and Treatment Planning are an essential part of counseling and it is related to successful counseling outcomes. Action planning is part of problem-solving there is a time and important pacing consideration for when action planning is best. Counseling should contain lots of process orientation, especially leading up to the stage/timing at which action planning and problem solving are appropriate. While outcome orientation is very important and highly related to active listening and attending skills.
Interpretation
USE SPARINGLY
It is not advisable to tell the client what their experience is, however, sometimes patterns emerge that may not be visible or conscious to the client. An interpretation may be helpful to the client in linking themes or patterns together.
Confrontation
USE SPARINGLY
Sometimes confrontation is appropriate, but only sparingly.
Probing
USE SPARINGLY
Deeper form of clarification, but without becoming confrontative.
Double Question within one
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
Judgment
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
Judgmentalism, no.
Values Statement
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
A values statement or a values judgment is judgmental, and lacks the quality of Unconditional Positive Regard. Use only with care, for instance, when you are concerned about the client’s welfare and safety. Values statements at any time should be devoid of imposing one’s personal values, attitudes, and opinions on the client.
Leading Question
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
This type of question is kind of like what a prosecuting attorney might ask of someone on the witness. It os a b it of a trap-like question and seems to communicate that the counselor has an agenda.
“Why Questions”
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
Refrain from using “Why” questions. It can result in the client feeling defensive.
Broken Record
MOSTLY UNDESIRABLE
It is preferable to make each response unique. Avoid sounding like a broken record. Find alternate phrasing to ask similar questions or to reflect.
