Chapter 5 - Paraphrasing, Summarising & Reflection

Question 1

ACTIVE LISTENING

Answer 1

ENCOURAGING + PARAPHRASING + SUMMARIZING

Question 2

ENCOURAGING

Answer 2

verbal and nonverbal expressions to prompt clients to continue talking

Question 3

Encouragers

Answer 3

• Head nods and positive facial expressions
• Open gestures
• Minimal verbal – “Ummm” or “Uh-huh”
• Repetition of key words from last statement
• Silence with appropriate nonverbal behavior

Question 4

PARAPHRASING

Answer 4

• A paraphrase expresses the meaning of a client statement in different ways
• Provides mirror reflections that are clearer and more briefly than original statement

Question 5

Purpose of paraphrasing

Answer 5

1. let the client know that you are listening and understand what they are saying
2. clarify confusing content
3. highlight issues by stating them more concisely
4. check out the accuracy of your perceptions as the counselor.

Question 6

Paraphrasing – when you take a small part of what someone has said and reflect it back in your own words.

Answer 6

• The listener (counselor), restate briefly, clearly and tentatively what the speaker said - conveying empathy, acceptance and genuineness.
• Restatement – Repeating or paraphrase of the content or meaning of what a client has said that typically contains fewer but similar words and usually is more concrete and clear than the client’s statement.

Question 7

Generally shorter and more concise than the client’s statement, typically focusing on the most important material rather than repeating everything verbatim

Answer 7

E.g : if the client has been talking at some length about many things that have been getting in the way of studying, the counselor might just paraphrase “so, you have not been able to study lately” or “studying has been difficult for you lately”

Question 8

SUMMARIZING

Answer 8

• brief statements of longer excerpts from the counselling session.
• In summarising, the counsellor attends to verbal and non-verbal comments from the client over a period of time, and then pulls together key parts of the extended communication, restating them for the client as accurately as possible.

Question 9

When To Use Summarization?

Answer 9

• The client’s presentation of a topic has been either confusing or just plain lengthy and rambling.
• A client seems to have expressed everything of importance to her or him on a particular topic and summarizing provides closure so you can move on.

Question 10

Practice Summarizing

Answer 10

• Listen carefully
• Identify one or two of each of the key experiences, behaviors and feelings experienced
• Use these to communicate a statement back to the speaker that summarises the core message of the story of the incident
• Check out your understanding with the client

Question 11

Paraphrase VS Summarize

Answer 11

• Summaries are longer paraphrases.
• Summaries usually cover a longer time period than a paraphrase. We are “reflecting back” whereas paraphrasing can be used after a few sentences.
• A summary may be used after some time: perhaps half-way through a counselling session, or near the end of a counselling session.
• The summary ‘sums up’ the main themes that are emerging.

Question 12

REFLECTION

Answer 12

• verbal response to client statement / emotions (Content / Feeling)
• Involves identifying client emotions and then rephrasing this affective component back to the client
• The feeling may be found in direct verbal or nonverbal communication.

Question 13

Purpose of Reflection

Answer 13

• To assist client to explore their feeling in greater detail.
• To understand their hidden emotions.
• To sort out complex and confusing emotions.
• To indicate client that they are understood and facilitate client’s open communication

Question 14

Example of Reflection

Answer 14

Client: This sure has been a crappy week. Nothing went right at the job, and my wife and I argued all the time.

Paraphrase: It sounds like this has been such a tough week for you in a lot of respects.

Reflection: Wow. I imagine you must be feeling disappointed in the way your week has turned out, with nothing going right for you.

Question 15

Reflection of feelings response is used to attend to the affective portion or the emotional tone of the client’s communication.

Answer 15

• A reflection of feelings is similar to a paraphrase, but it has an added emotional component that is missing in the paraphrase.
• To help you see the differences in these two listening skills, consider the contrast in the following example: