Effective Listening

Effective Listening Second Edition Mike Green Developing Dialogue Skills For the Counseling Interview Improve your dialogue skills by learning how to: – Let your counselee know that you heard him. – Establish trust with your counselee. – Understand his body language and affect. – Ask “open” questions. – Show your empathy and understanding. – Keep silent at the right times. – Use appropriate self-disclosure. – Provide feedback and confirmation. Why a book on listening? Isn’t listening something we all do, all day long, all of our lives? Yes, of course it is. But how well do we do it? Is our listening really effective? As most of us can testify, there is often a big difference between what one person says and what another person hears! Often, in normal conversation there is a lot more going on than we realize! For the conversation to be meaningful there are many variables to be considered that will have a profound effect on the quality of that conversation. Listed below are a few of the variables to be considered during any discussion. 1. What I actually said. 2. What I really meant to say. 3. What I tried to avoid saying. 4. What you heard. 5. What you didn’t hear. 6. What you thought you heard. 7. What you thought I meant. 8. What you said in response to all of the above. 9. What I then heard you say. 10. What I thought you meant. And so on. Added to all of these variables are things like: my mood or attitude, your mood or attitude, the type of relationship (business, personal, formal, informal, superficial or intimate), the time of day, the location, the purpose of the conversation, and a host of other less obvious components. Considering all of this, one can quickly see that the ability to listen effectively is important in any conversation. But it is crucial to counseling conversation. Effective Listening will enable you to take your counseling to the next level.