Attending behavior encourages client talk.

Contrast Interviewing :

A positive experience is identified and discussed in some depth. Then a negative experience is similarly identified and discussed. The two are then contrasted and compared.

Frequently a beginning counselor tries to solve the clientís difficulties in the first 5 minutes. Listen before you leap!

Eye contact :

When an issue is interesting to a client their pupils tend to dilate.

Notice breaks in eye contact. Clients tend to look away when discussing topics that particularly distress them.

European- North American middle-class individuals tend to maintain more eye contact when listening and less while talking. African Americans tend to reverse the pattern. Among American Indians eye contact by the young is a sign of disrespect.

Body Language :

North Americans prefer slightly more than armís length between people. British prefer even greater distance. Hispanic prefer half that distance. Middle Easterners may talk practically eyeball to eyeball.

A person may move forward when interested and away when bored or frightened.

Vocal Qualities :

Changes in its pitch, volume, or speech rate convey the same things that changes in eye contact or body language do.

People differ in their reactions to the same stimulus.

Verbal underlining is giving louder volume and increased vocal emphasis to certain words and short phrases.

Speech hesitations and breaks are another signal of confusion or stress.

Verbal Tracking :

People tend to change topics when they arenít comfortable.

Selective attention is when we tend to listen to some things and ignore others.

When you are lost or puzzled about what to say next .... relax. Take whatever the client has said in the immediate or near past and direct attention the through a question or brief comment.

Nonattention :

You can facilitate the interviewing process by the failure to maintain eye contact, subtle shifts in body posture, vocal tone, and deliberate jumps to more positive topics.

Silence :

Can be powerful way of supporting your client.

As you become more interested you may be tempted to over involve yourself and intervene too much.

The most important gift you can give a client is attending.
 
 

Encouraging :

These are head nods, open gestures, and positivefacial expression that encourage the client to keep talking. "Uh-huh", and Silence.

Restatement and repetition of key words have more influence on the direction of client progress. If they have a questioning tone of voice they function as a brief paraphrase.

Too much head nodding, gestures and parroting can be annoying.

Paraphrasing :

The goal is the facilitation of client exploration and the clarification of issues.

Aspects of the paraphrase may be in your own words, the main ideas and concepts should reflect the clientís view of the world, not yours!

1. A sentence stem using some aspect of the clientís mode of receiving information.

2. The key words and construct systems used by the client to describe the situation or person.

3. The essence of what the client has said in summarized form.

4. A check-out for accuracy.

Summarizing :

They encompass a longer period of conversation; at times they may cover an entire interview or even issues discussed by the client over several interviews.

If you are too close to what the client is saying, you may be guilty of parroting, and very little is gained. If you are too far from what the client has said, you may be guilty of imposing your own ideas on the clients world.
 
 

Three Part goal in using the Basic Listening Sequence

(The skills of questioning, encouraging, paraphrasing, reflection of feeling, and summarizing)

1. An Overall Summary of the issue...... Could you tell me more about.....?

2. The key facts of a situation........ What questions

3. The central emotions and feelings...... Could you share your feelings about....

The Positive Asset Search

1. Begin by asking what has happened recently that the client feels good about.

2. Use the BLS to bring out positive client assets in detail.

3. When a client constantly repeats negative self-statements, use a paraphrase and then follow with a carefully timed feedback from a more positive viewpoint.

4. One possible goal in counseling is to help clients find strengths in their weaknesses.

Emphasize human development rather than remediation of problems.
 

Empathy: Qualitative Aspects of Skill Usage

Empathy is experiencing the client's world as if you were the client. Use the important words of the client, but distilling and shortening the main ideas.

Basic empathy - the counselor responses are roughly interchangeable with those of the client's.

Additive empathy - the counselor uses influencing skills and adds congruent ideas and feelings from another frame of reference. Attending --- Reflections of meanings.

To be empathic means to take risks, your perceptions may be out of synch with the client's needs.

Flexing requires the interviewer to note the client's response to the interventions and intentionally provide another intervention more in synch with the client's needs at that moment.

True empathy requires you to be where the client is able to hear you.

Positive regard - responding to the client as a worthy human being. Selecting positive aspects of the client's experience and selectively attending to positive aspects of client statements.

Respect and warmth - Shown by your posture, your smile, and your vocal qualities.

Concretness - specifics rather than vague generalities.

Immediacy - being in the moment ---- Here and Now --- The present tense is the most powerful.... A focus on the counselor and client ( I - You talk).

Nonjudgemental attitude requires that you suspend your own opinions and attitudes and assume a value neutrality in relation to your client.

Authenticity and congruence - the reverse of discrepancies and mixed messages.
 
 

Stage 1: Rapport and structuring

Use the client's name.

Use attending behavior and client observation skills ...... Are they auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.

Move to stage 2 when the client begins to talk spontaneously about concerns and or you note that the body language is mirrored between you and the client.

Tell the client what to expect from the interview.
 

Stage 2. Gathering information, defining the problem, and identifying assets.

Why is the client here and what is the problem? Last item & whole list.

Central task is defining the problem as the client feels it.

What is the real world of the client?

What problem seeks resolution?

What opportunity needs to be actualized?

Give attention to the client's strengths.
 

Stage 3: Determining outcomes

"Define a goal, make the goal explicit, search for assets to help facilitate goal attainment, and only then examine the nature of the problem".
 

Stage 4: Exploring alternatives and confronting client incongruity

Explore possibilities and assist the client in finding new ways to act more intentionally in the world.

1. One could summarize the client conflict and frame of reference and use the basic listening sequence to facilitate the client's problem resolution.

2. One could summarize the client conflict and frame of reference and then add one's own frame of reference through influencing skills, (feedback, self-disclosure, directives, interpretation), or by using alternative helping theories.

Change does not come easily, and maintaining any change in thoughts, feelings, or behavior is even more difficult.

Role playing....... Imagery...... Behavioral charting and progress notes...... Homework........ Family and Group counseling........ Follow up and support