Question

Please briefly describe the following communication techniques applied to group situations and motivational interviewing/counselling:

a) Active listening

b) Attending skills, use of body language

c) Paraphrasing

d) Reflecting feelings

e) Open and closed questioning or probing

f) Summarizing

g) Reframing

h) Exploring options

I) Normalizing statements

Answer 1

a)Active listening;

Active listening means,as it's name suggest that actively listening ,that is fully concentrating what is being said rather than passively hearing the message of a speaker is known as active listening.

Active listening is an essential skill counsellors can exploit to develop a positive and healthy interaction with a client.

b)Attending skill and use of body language;

Attending skill means that it's observing verbal and non verbal method used to assess the act or doing by client.

Use of body language the most prevalent form of communication since pre-historic times, body language can express subtel feelings of a client - particularly in instances without words to reveal.

The word “language” is often associated with spoken or written language. After all, it is this unique ability that separates humans from other primates.

c)Paraphrasing

The paraphrasing means that , the counsellor chooses the most important details of what the client has just said and reflects them back to the client.

Paraphrases can be just a few words or one or two brief sentences.

Paraphrasing is not a matter of simply repeating or parroting what the client has stated.

Rather it is capturing the essence of what the client is saying, through rephrasing.

When the counsellor has captured what the client is saying, often the client will say, “That’s right” or offer some other form of confirmation.

d) Reflecting feeling

meaning refers to the deeply held thoughts and meanings underlying life experiences.

e)Open Questions - Open questions are those that cannot be answered in a few words, they

encourage the client to speak and offer an opportunity for the counsellor to gather

information about the client and their concerns.

Typically open questions begin with: what, why, how or could.

For example:

1. What has brought today?

Closed Qiestions- answered with a minimal

response (often as little as “yes” or “no”).

They can help the counsellor to focus the client or gain specific information

Example.

1.Is that your coat?

f)Summarizing

Summarizing are the brief statements of longer excerpts from the counselling session.

In summarising, the counsellor attends to verbal and non-verbal comments from the client over a period of time, and then pulls together key parts of the extended

communication, restating them for the client as accurately as possible.

g)Reframing

This is the technique used by the counselors to shift the patient view of particular problem ,event, or person.

h)Exploring options

It means that is the process of learning more about your client and why they have to come for counsiling.

The expolattion is necessary in truly understanding clients thoughts and feelings.

l)Normalizing statement

It means that one way of normalize the clients problem

This can be done by making a general Or Normalizing statement about issue to take focus off the patient momentarily.