Listening Skills Lecture Notes

Listening Skills Being an active listener for counselors is very important because: - Showing concern - Stimulate and encourage clients to act as a counselor. - Create situations that teach - Clients need new ideas. To achieve the goals of communication, it is necessary to understand and listen to each other. In therapeutic communication, midwives need to learn active listening skills. The listening skills that need to be understood are as follows. 1) Listen to client complaints without interrupting the conversation. 2) Give the impression of hearing and understanding what the client is saying 3) Answer each question patiently and attentively 4) Give a short, complete and easy to understand explanation and repeat important information that the client should know. 5) Use general terms, not medical terms 6) Show verbal communication with a smile and attention To be a good listener, a counselor must have the following abilities. 1) Able to relate to people outside his circle. 2) Have ways to help clients 3) Treating clients to elicit meaningful responses 4) Be responsible with clients in counseling In interpersonal communication, there are 4 forms of listening that can be used according to the situation that can be faced. 1. Passive Listening (Silent) Listening requires skill and continuous practice, by listening we obtain complete information from the client, although this requires patience. passive listening is usually done when clients tell their problems, talk non-stop, excited with feelings of annoyance or sadness. When the client stops talking for a moment, the counselor can be silent to give the client a chance to think and calm down. 2. Give Verbal Signs of Attention Counselors need to respond to clients using words or verbal attention. This is done to motivate clients to be enthusiastic about speaking. Examples of verbal attention are "yes...", "then...", "then..." next what etc. This can be done when the client tells a long story about the events they experienced. 3. Open the conversation Opening the conversation can be done with an invitation to speak or asking questions to deepen and clarify. Asking questions is done if the counselor is not satisfied with the answer given by the client, it is necessary to clarify what the client has expressed, indicating that the counselor is following the flow of the client's conversation. 4. Active Listening Active listening is providing feedback or reflecting on the content of speech and feelings, namely summarizing, reflecting on the content of speech (paraphrasing) and reflecting on feelings. a. Summarizing In communication, expressions often use long messages. As a form of our acceptance of this expression, summarizing skills are needed. Summarizing is conveying the main points of what the client said after giving the client the opportunity to speak for some time. Summarizing skills can be done in the following ways. 1) Give the client the opportunity to convey his expression in full. 2) Show attitude and attention 3) Make notes to summarize the discussion 4) Provide a response at the end of the conversation 5) Summarizing is also a process of active listening. By listening actively, midwives can summarize well the content of what is being communicated. b.Content Reflection /Paraphrasing Restating the client's statement or message using other words, providing input to the client about the essence of the statement that the client has just made by summarizing or clarifying the client's statement. Usually done by using some of the client's words and adding the counselor's words. c. Reflection of feelings Expressing the client's feelings as observed by the counselor from the client's voice intonation, facial expression and body language as well as from things implied by the client's verbal words. This relates to the client's emotions. The midwife expresses the client's feelings from what the midwife hears and observes.The aim of this reflection is that the midwife can understand the client's feelings, know the client's emotions and help the client solve the problem. The difference between reflection and summarizing is that reflection is as follows. 1) Done after some time after communicating directly with the client. 2) Includes some information spoken by the client 3) Begins and ends with a conversation conveying goals and greetings