Posted by Jay_Bravest_Face on February 21, 2008, at 19:09:12
I am continuing on a theme here, one built on (what appears to be) one of Bob's fav psychotherapists, Carl Rogers, concepts of Active and Passive Listening. This is a neat little story sent in by a fellow social worker to a social work listserv I belong to. It identifies both of the above concepts of "listening", and marks out quite clear what I think Bob is asking for in terms of 'civility'. One key point is to ask you to take 'you' out of yourself, and place it firmly in the other person. People seem confused and scared about the board, and I hope this helps with clarification. Enjoy! Jay
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Perhaps the most basic of all clinical social work tools is active listening. With clients, we nod and smile responsively. We affirm with hmmms, uh-huhs, and absolutelys. We paraphrase client statements, and more importantly, identify and validate the underlying emotions. This is the bread and butter of what social workers do.
When done right, active listening borders on a superpower. It instantly establishes a tone of respect and care that is lacking in most everyday human interactions. And almost everyone craves this simple, genuine attention. It feels good to listen actively, tookind of like the way it feels to give a compliment. You appreciate a person better with active attempts to understand him or her.
Empathy goes hand in hand with active listening. Occaisionally you run into a really terrible active listener, like the ones who just parrot back what they hear. These are the listeners who dont have empathy. They know listening is important. But they cannot actually get into the other persons shoes and reflect those feelings back. So they appear very earnest and strained and sound very wooden.
If empathy is the bedrock of great active listening, and active listening is the bedrock of clinical practice, why not ramp up the empathy skills?
All of my clients are making some sort of change. Some want to, some are forced to. For most, the change process has plenty of ups and downs. To develop my empathy, I have decided that I too will continually be engaged in a specific change that I want to make in my life. Ill be forced on a daily basis to feel a little bit of what they feelto practice active empathy.
Here is what I have learned (and felt) so far: change is not easy. I decided to make a lifestyle change to exercise more and eat healthier. Its obvious that this change will be good for me. I know about all the health benefits. I would be stupid not to make this change. None of this awareness helps at all.
It is a real pain to not live the way I have always lived, with relatively poor exercise and eating habits. I dont actually like many exercise forms, even though I love the way I look and feel when I do it. Healthy food does not taste as good as junk food. It all takes more time than eating nachos and sleeping in.
I have used all kinds of techniques so far. I have had accountability partners, rewards, charts, food journals, calorie entry systems, and the good old scale. So in addition to my cognitive awareness that this is what I want and need to do, Ive used all these techniques to keep me going in the right direction.
Happily, Ive had some success. Ive gone from no exercise to about 3-4 workouts per week. I have limits on the junk I eat. Im proud of myself, but it did not come easy at all. It was awful! I backslid and binged and took whole weeks off. I minimized my problems and over-dramatized the difficulty of changing, shifting back and forth from fat pants to skinny pants. Im still not exercising as much or eating as healthy as I want.
So, here I am: a well-educated, financially stable, emotionally secure individual with lots of supporters and a great deal of knowledge about human behavior. Yet I struggle tremendously to make very basic changes. How on earth can I expect my clients to make much more significant changes when they face so many more obstacles than I do? Its clear that awareness of the obvious benefit of a certain change is no where near sufficient motivation to ensure that anything gets done. Yes, obviously my clients need to stop abusing substances or yelling at their children. Easier said than done.
I think Im a better social worker now that I practice active empathy. Maybe the challenge now is maintaining hope. I can barely make changes. Im humbled and inspired by how often my clients have more impressive successes than I do. Im in a better position now to recognize their progress and support them through their setbacks.
poster:Jay_Bravest_Face
thread:813984
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20080204/msgs/813984.html