Open and closed questions

When helper is having session with helpee, sometimes helpee have a lot of things in their mind and it’s hard for them to verbalise about those issues systemically. Moreover, helpee might wish to go through all of them in that session. However, this is not the best option for both helper and helpee. Given that the time of each session is limited, it’s not possible to talk about too much topic. It’s better to pick partial of them and focus on them first. As a result, it’s important for helper to use the focusing skill to assist helpee to prioritise what is the main theme that helpee wish to talk about during the session. For the rest, helper can discuss with helpee and see if they wish to talk about them in future session. During the practising session, I tried to use the focusing skill when helpee listed out a lot of things they wish to mention. Firstly, I listened to what helpee wish to talk about. Secondly, I listed out the issues that the helpee mentioned and asked that he wish to discuss in this session. During the process, autonomy is given to helpee, so that they have full control about what they wish to focus on this time. Even though I’m interested to other topic, it’s important to keep focusing on what the helpee wish to talk but not override his feelings and wants. Finally, helpee identified the isssues that he wish to talk at that moment and we had some time to talk about them. I found that focusing is very important because it allows me to utilize the session and find out what’s the most important thing that is in helpee’s mind, considering we only have limited time to talk about a few. I believe the focusing skill will be one of the skills that I use frequently when talking with helpee that worried and upset about many things. 

The difference between open and closed questions are whether they are facilitating the helpee to share more about their experience. For example, yes–no question is a typical closed question because it can be answered with a few words. In contrast, open questions are broad and can be answered by helpee in detail. In most of the case, it’s always preferred to use open questions when having a helping session with helpee, so that helpee is encouraged to share more about their feeling or ideas. And helper can then understand the helpee’s situation and provide suitable feedback afterwards. In some cases, closed questions might be useful and thus helper should still consider to use if it’s an appropriate scenario. Closed question can be used as a question to initiate further conversation. For example, asking if helpee agree or disagree with what the helper summarized, and continue with another follow up question after the helpee replied ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’. 

Apart from choosing open and closed questions, there’s another core question that helper need to bare in mind. When I’m thinking of what kind of questions that I wish to ask the helpee during the session, there’s always a temptation to ask questions that satisfy my own curiosity but not for the benefit of the helpee. It’s critical for me to ask questions that are corresponding to the helpee’s situation and is helpful to assist helpee to deal with their own situation. If helper is aware of this temptation and understand the importance to keep focus on helpee’s agenda, that can help to minimize the tendency that helper asking irrelevant questions.