Listening and responding skills

Listening and responding skills are very important to the helping interaction because that’s the way that helper shows their understanding about helpee’s experience and assist helpee to see themselves more plainly. A few weeks ago I had an hour to share my recent experience with my life coach, and I shared my struggle about the future plan for the next two to three years. During the conversation, I shared my concern about where to settle in long run, career pursuit, and so on. During the first half of the section, my coach applied restating skill and reflecting skill frequently to make sure he understood what I said. On the other hand, he tried to repeat words that I mention repeatedly during the conversation, such as uncertainty and financial stability. His action helped me a lot because that confirms he recognise my main concern from the twenty minutes sharing. After I shared my situation and my concern, my coach started to use his own words to sum up what I said during the last twenty minutes. The summarising skills assisted me to express what I said in a few sentences, so that we can bring those content to the next procedures of the coaching section. When I rethink the coaching section. I can still recall the feeling of being understood by the appropriate usage of the responding skills mentioned above. That’s very valuable and that enhance my willingness to share more because I know that the opposite side is aware of my saying and feeling underneath. 

Apart from talking about my experience of experiencing good listening and responding skills, I’d like to talk about the power of silence. During the lecture time, we’ve gone through a lot of verbal ways to connect with helpee and create an environment that convey receptivity. Some people might think that the best way to help the others is to provide useful feedback and suggestions throughout the whole helping session. However, I think it’s only a myth, not truth. As a helper, sometimes keeping silence is a good way to participate and is beneficial to the helping section, verbal ways are only partial of our toolbox. There are a few importance of silence. Firstly, silence provides time for helpee to think before they say anything further. It is a way for helper to allow helpee to organise what he/she wish to talk after shared many information, allowing a short interval for them to pause before they talk further.  Secondly, silene is also a good way to facilitate listening. When helper is keeping silence, he/she can put most of the focus on listening what the helpee is talking about and observing how the body gesture reflect the emotions of helpee. If the helper spend too much time on talking, it’s difficult for helper to do the things mentioned above. Thirdly, silence is also beneficial to helper because that allows helper to plan the next move during the time of silence. Helper can organise the content that the helpee shared and think of the best way to respond, such as paraphrasing with empathy, raising questions to remind helpee the existence of inconsistency or other counselling skills. To conclude, the power of silence is larger than our imagination. It’s worth to keep silent wisely when helper participate in a helping section. Sometimes it’s more useful than keep talking and try to persuade helpee to do something to react to their life events.