Practice Exercise 1: Attending, Observing, and Listening
Exercise Objectives- To practice communicating to a client your readiness to listen, willingness to focus on work with the client, and overall involvement with the process. These behaviors say to the client: “I am fully present and ready to be with you.”
- To heighten your awareness of the nonverbal ways clients communicate.
- To practice listening to what the client is trying to communicate.
Step 1: Preparation
Form groups of three people. Each person will have the opportunity to play the roles of client, practitioner, and peer supervisor. Each meeting will last about 5 minutes.
Client Role
- Think about a problem that involves some reasonably strong feelings that you feel comfortable talking about for a few minutes.
Practitioner Role
- Review the behaviors involved in attending and important things to observe in the client in order to use them in the interview. (See evaluation form.)
- Look over the evaluation form to review the behaviors involved in attending in order to evaluate the practitioner’s use of these behaviors during the interview.
- Prepare to record verbal and nonverbal responses of the client and to keep track of the time.
Step 2: The Client Meeting
Client Role
- Tell your story for 5 minutes.
- Use the attending behaviors to communicate involvement and concentrate on observing all aspects of the client’s communication.
- Listen, remaining silent except for expressing minimal encouragement.
- On the evaluation form in the practitioner’s book, put a check mark after each type of attending behavior used by the practitioner. Each check is mark is worth one point. Write brief notes about what you observe in the client.
- Keep track of the time and tell the practitioner and client when the 5 minutes are completed.
Step 3: Feedback
Client Role
- Share how you experienced the practitioner attending and listening to you.
- Evaluate your use of the behaviors that communicate attending.
- Give feedback to the practitioner on the use of attending behaviors.
- Record the feedback in the practitioner’s textbook for future reference.
- Ask the practitioner about observations of the client related to facial expression, eye movement and eye contact, body posture and movement, breathing patterns, muscle tone, gestures, and skin tone changes. Ask for description rather than evaluation.
- Give the practitioner a check mark for each area that s/he was able to describe.
- Ask the practitioner to summarize what s/he heard the client say. Examples of possible questions are given below:
- Did you notice any shifts in the conversation?
- Did you hear any changes in the volume and speed of the client’s speech?
- How would you describe the client’s speaking style? For example, the practitioner might say, “The client had a clear, direct, logical way of speaking. His volume was rather quiet, but he tended to talk louder when discussing his son. He spoke rather slowly and deliberately.”
- Did you forget to listen at any time? If so, when? Any ideas about why you stopped listening?
- Did anything happen that made it hard for you to listen?
- Using the evaluation form provided, evaluate the accuracy of the practitioner’s summary of what the client said and description of the client’s speaking style, volume of speaking, and speed of delivery.
Evaluation Form: Attending, Observing, and Listening
Name of Practitioner ______
Name of Peer Supervisor ______
Directions: Under each category (in italics) is a list of behaviors or skills. Give one check mark, worth one point, for each skill used by the practitioner.
Building Relationships
Attending Give one point for each behavior used by the practitioner.
1.Open and accessible body posture
2.Congruent facial expression
3.Slightly inclined toward the client
4. Regular eye contact unless inappropriate
5. No distracting behavior
6. Minimal encouragement
Observing: Give one point for each item accurately described by the practitioner.
1.Facial expression
2.Eye movement and eye contact
3. Body position and movement
4. Breathing patterns
5. Muscle tone
6. Gestures
7. Skin tone changes __
Active Listening Skills Content and Process:Using the following listening scale evaluate the accuracy, evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the practitioner’s ability to summarize what the client said and to describe the client’s way of speaking including such things as speaking style, vocal tone and volume, and speed of delivery. On the following line write the score, from 1 to 5, for listening. ___
Level 1: The practitioner did not summarize any of the major elements of content or describe anything about the client’s way of speaking.
Level 3: The practitioner summarized four elements of content but did not describe anything about the client’s way of speaking.
Level 5:The practitioner summarized all the major elements of content and accurately and fully described the client’s way of speaking, including communication style, volume, and speed of delivery.
The peer supervisor will record the total score in the practitioner’s book.