Having got the physical setting arranged, greeted the client, and sorted out a contract, what happens next? In this chapter we get down to the nitty gritty of effective counselling – what the counsellor does to facilitate the counselling process.

We start to look more closely at some important counselling principles, qualities and skills, the first one being primary empathy. Empathy hinges on the quality of active listening. Empathy will not flourish in an atmosphere of deficient listening. The client will know we are listening by the quality of our responses and by how accurately we respond to his feelings.

To aid listening the counsellor uses a range of skills, which are developed and demonstrated through this chapter and throughout the book. Figure 8 shows the listening skills the counsellor uses to facilitate exploration of the problem.

This chapter emphasises that the skills used in counselling are those we use every day. We are not talking about extraordinary skills, although when they are tuned and refined, they can achieve extraordinary results.

Primary Level Empathy

Empathic responding is a vital part of active listening – hearing what the client says from the internal frame of reference, and responding in such a way that the client knows and feels that the counsellor is striving to understand. In this section we are concerned mainly with primary level empathy – that is, responding to the facts and the expressed feelings. Later on we shall work with advanced empathy, which deals with the implied facts and feelings. A helpful suggestion is to say ‘You feel – because...’. The ‘because’ helps to tune into the content, and/or the behaviours underlying the feelings.

Examples Of Primary Level Empathy

Active Listening

Sensitive, active listening is an important way to bring about personality changes in attitudes and the way we behave toward ourselves and others. When we listen, people tend to respond in a more emotionally mature way; become more open to experiences; become less defensive; more democratic and less authoritarian.

When we are listened to, we listen to ourselves with more care, and are able to express thoughts and feelings more clearly. Self-esteem is enhanced through active listening, because the threat of having one’s ideas and feelings criticised is greatly reduced. Because we do not have to defend, we are able to see ourselves for what we truly are, and are then in a better position to change. Listening, and responding to what we hear, is influenced by our own frame of reference.

Poor Listening Habits Identified

Figures 9 and 10 identify some of the blocks that can get in the way of active listening.

Knowing What To Avoid

• When we try to get people to see themselves as we see them, or would like to see them, this is control and direction, and is more for our needs than for theirs. The less we need to evaluate, influence, control and direct, the more we enable ourselves to listen with understanding.

 

• When we respond to the demand for decisions, actions, judgments and evaluations, or agree with someone against someone else, we are in danger of losing our objectivity. The surface question usually is the vehicle that has a deeper need as its passenger.

 

• When we shoulder responsibility for other people, we remove from them the right to be active participants in the problem-solving process. Active involvement releases energy, it does not drain it from the other person. Active participation is a process of thinking with people, instead of thinking for, or about them.

 

• Judgment – critical or favourable – is generally patronising.

 

• Platitudes and clichés demonstrate either uninterest or a verbal poverty.

 

• Verbal reassurances are insulting, for they demean the problem.