Counseling Process Communication Skills

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Counseling Process (Communication Skills)
USNSCC
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(Communication Skills)

• Introduction to Communication and the Skill of
  Visibly Tuning in to CADETS (ATTENDING)
•   a. The Importance of Dialogue in Helping
• Conversations between Staff and Cadets should be
  a therapeutic or helping dialogue.

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(Communication Skills)

• The Importance of Dialogue in Helping
• There are four requirements of true dialogue
• Turn taking
• Connecting
• Mutual influencing
• Co-creating outcomes

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(Communication Skills)

• b. Visibly Tuning In To Cadets The Importance
  of Empathic Presence
• At some of the more dramatic moments in life,
  simply being with another person is extremely
  important
• Most people appreciate it when other pay
  attention to them.  By the same token, being
  ignored is often painful
• Attending, or visibly tuning in to others,
  contributes to empathic presence
• Visibly tuning in as an expression of empathy
  tells Cadets you are with them and puts you in a
  position to listen carefully

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(Communication Skills)

• b. Visibly Tuning In To Cadets The Importance
  of Empathic Presence
• (1) Nonverbal Behavior as a Channel of
  Communication
• Body behavior (posture, body movements and
  gestures)
• Eye behavior (eye contact, staring and eye
  movement)
• Facial expressions (smiles, frowns, raised
  eyebrows, twisted lips)

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(Communication Skills)

• b. Visibly Tuning In To Cadets The Importance
  of Empathic Presence
• Voice-related behavior (tone of voice, pitch,
  volume, intensity, inflection, spacing of words,
  emphases, pauses, silences, fluency)
• Observable autonomic physiological responses
  (quickened breathing, blushing, paleness and
  pupil dilation)
• Physical characteristics (fitness, height, weight
  and complexion)

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(Communication Skills)

• b. Visibly Tuning In To Cadets The Importance
  of Empathic Presence
• Space (how close a person chooses to be during
  conversation)
• General appearance (grooming and dress)

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(Communication Skills)

• (2) Staffs Nonverbal Behavior
• Before you begin interpreting the nonverbal
  behavior of your Cadets, take a look at yourself.
• At times your nonverbal behavior is as important
  than your words.
• Your nonverbal behavior influences Cadet for
  better or worse.
• In your nonverbal behavior, Cadets read cues that
  indicate the quality of your presence them.

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(Communication Skills)

• (2) Staffs Nonverbal Behavior
• Attentive presence can invite or encourage them
  to trust you, open up, and explore the
  significant dimensions of their problem
  situations.
• Half-hearted presence can promote distrust and
  lead to Cadets reluctance to reveal themselves to
  you.
• Part of listening is being sensitive of to
  Cadets reactions to your nonverbal behavior.
• Effective Staff are mindful of the stream of
  nonverbal messages they send to Cadets.

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(Communication Skills)

• (3) The Skill of Visibly Tuning in to Cadets
• You can use certain key nonverbal skills to
  visibly tune into clients.
• These skills can be summarized in the acronym
  SOLER.

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(Communication Skills)

• (3) The Skill of Visibly Tuning in to Cadets
  (Cont)
• S Face the client Squarely.
• O Adopt an Open posture.
• L Lean toward the other.
• E Maintain good Eye contact.
• R Try to be Relaxed.

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(Communication Skills)

• 3. Active Listening The Foundation of
  Understanding
• a. Inadequate Listening
• Non-listening
• Partial listening
• Tape-recorder listening
• Rehearsing

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(Communication Skills)

• Empathic Listening
• Empathic listening centers on the kind of
  attending, observing, and listening the kind of
  being with needed to develop an understanding
  of Cadets and their worlds.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Words Cadets stories, points of
  view, decisions, and intentions or proposals
• (1) Listening to stories
• Stories tend to be mixtures of clients
• Experiences
• Behaviors
• Affect Feelings, emotions, and moods

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Words Cadets stories, points of
  view, decisions, and intentions or proposals
• (2) Listening to points of view
• As Cadets tell their stories, explore
  possibilities for a better future, set goals,
  make plans, and review obstacles to
  accomplishing these plans, they often share
  their points of view.
• Cadets may share their points of view
  about everything under the sun. The ones that
  are relevant to their problem situation or
  undeveloped opportunities need to be
  listened to and understood.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Words Cadets stories, points of
  view, decisions, and intentions or proposals
• (3) Listening to decisions
• Decisions usually have implications for
  the decision maker and for others. Sharing
  a decision fully means spelling out the
  decision itself, the reasons for the
  decision, the implications for self and
  others, and some indication as to whether the
  decision or any part of it is open to review.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Words Cadets stories, points of
  view, decisions, and intentions or proposals
• (4) Listening to intentions or proposals
• Cadets state intentions, offer proposals,
  or make a case for certain courses of action.
  A case often includes what they want to
  do, the reasons for doing it and the
  implications for themselves or others.
  When clients talk about their concerns they mix
  all these forms of discourse together.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Words Cadets stories, points of
  view, decisions, and intentions or proposals
• (5) Hearing opportunities and resources
• If you listen only for problems, you will
  end up talking mainly about problems, and
  in doing so you will short change your
  clients. Every cadet has something going
  for him or her. Your job is to spot Cadets
  resources and help them invest these into
  managing problem situations and opportunities.
  If people generally use only a fraction of
  their potential, then there is much to be
  tapped.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Cadets nonverbal messages and
  modifiers
• Cadets send messages through their nonverbal
  behavior. The ability of people to read these
  messages can contribute to their relationship
  well being. Staffs need to learn how to read
  these messages without distorting or over
  interpreting them.

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to Cadets nonverbal messages and
  modifiers
• All kinds of nonverbal behavior can punctuate
  or modify verbal communications in the following
  ways
• Confirming or repeating
• Denying or confusing
• Strengthening or emphasizing
• Adding intensity
• Controlling or regulating

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(Communication Skills)

• Processing what you hear The thoughtful search
  for meaning
• Thoughtful processing includes
• Identify key messages and feelings
• Understand clients through context
• Hear the slant or spin (Tough-minded listening
  and processing)

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(Communication Skills)

• Listening to oneself The Staff Cadet/Officer
  internal conversation
• The conversation Cadets have with themselves
  during helping sessions is the internal
  conversation. To be an effective helper, you
  need to listen not only to the Cadet but also to
  yourself.
• Staff can use this second channel to listen
  to what they are saying to themselves, their
  nonverbal behavior, and their feeling and
  emotions.

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(Communication Skills)

• The shadow side of listening to Cadets
• (1) Forms of Distorted listening
• Filtered listening
• Evaluative listening
• Stereotype-based listening
• Fact-centered rather than person-centered
  listening
• Sympathetic listening
• Interrupting

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(Communication Skills)

• Sharing Empathic Highlights
• Communicating and Checking Understanding
• a. Responding skills
• Staffs respond to Cadets in a variety of
  ways. They share their understanding, they check
  to make sure they got things right, they ask
  questions, they probe for clarity, and they
  challenge clients in a variety of ways. When
  Staffs communicate accurate understandings to
  Cadets, they help their Cadets understand
  themselves more fully.

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(Communication Skills)

• b. The three dimensions of responding skills
  Perceptiveness, know how, and assertiveness
• The communication skills involved in responding
  to Cadets have three dimensions
• Perceptiveness
• Know-how
• Assertiveness

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(Communication Skills)

•   c. Sharing empathic highlights
• Communicating understanding to Cadets
• If visibly tuning in and listening are the
  skills that enable Staffs to get in touch with
  the world of the Cadet, then sharing highlights
  is the skill that enables them both to
  communicate their understanding of that world and
  to check the accuracy of that understanding.

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(Communication Skills)

• The key building blocks of empathic highlights
• (1) The Basic Formula
•   Basic empathic understanding can be
  expressed in the following stylized formula
• You feelname the correct emotion expressed by
  the Cadet
• Becauseindicate the correct experiences and
  behaviors that give rise to the feelings.

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(Communication Skills)

• The key building blocks of empathic highlights
• (2) Respond Accurately to Cadets Feelings,
  Emotions, and Moods
• Staffs need to respond to Cadets emotions
  in such a way as to move the helping
  process forward. This means identifying key
  emotions the Cadet either expresses or
  discusses (Staff perceptiveness) and
  weaving them into the dialogue (Staff know-
  how) even when they are sensitive or part of a
  messy situation (Staff courage or
  assertiveness).

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(Communication Skills)

• The key building blocks of empathic highlights
• (2) Respond Accurately to Cadets Feelings,
  Emotions, and Moods
• Use the right family of emotions and the right
  intensity.
• Distinguish between expressed or discussed
  feelings.
• Read and respond to feelings and emotions
  embedded in clients nonverbal behavior.
• Be sensitive in naming emotions.
• Use different ways to share highlights about
  feeling or emotions
• Neither overemphasize nor underemphasize
  feelings, emotions, and moods.

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(Communication Skills)

• The key building blocks of empathic highlights
• (3) Respond Accurately to the Key Experiences
  and Behaviors in Cadets Stories
• Key experiences and behaviors give rise to
  Cadets feelings, emotions, and moods. The
  because in the empathic highlight formula
  is to be followed by an indication of the
  experiences and behaviors that underlie the
  Cadets feelings.

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(Communication Skills)

• The key building blocks of empathic highlights
• (4) Respond with Highlights to Cadets Points of
  View, Decisions, and Proposals
• By sharing highlights, you communicate to
  Cadets that you are working hard at
  understanding them to foster constructive
  change. This means not only understanding the
  key elements of the stories they tell but
  also the key elements of anything they
  share with you.
• It goes without saying that points of
  view, decisions, and proposals are, like
  stories, permeated to one degree or another
  with feeling and emotions.

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(Communication Skills)

• Principles of sharing highlights
• These guidelines are principles, not formulas to
  be followed slavishly.
• Use empathic highlights at every stage and step
  of the helping process.
• Respond selectively to Cadets core messages
• Respond to the context, not just the words
• Use highlights as a mild social-influence process
• Use highlights to stimulate movement in the
  helping process.
• Recover from inaccurate understandings
• Use empathic highlights to bridge diversity gaps

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(Communication Skills)

• f. Tactics for communicating highlights
• Give yourself time to think
• Use short responses
• Gear your responses to the Cadet but remain
  yourself

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(Communication Skills)

• A Caution The importance of empathic
  Relationships
• In day-to-day conversation, sharing empathic
  highlights is a tool of civility. Making an
  effort to get in touch with your conversational
  partners frame of reference sends a message of
  respect. Therefore, sharing highlights plays an
  important part in building relationship.
  However, the communication skills as practiced in
  helping settings dont automatically transfer to
  ordinary social settings of everyday life.

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(Communication Skills)

• The shadow side of sharing empathic highlights
• Some things that should be avoided
• No response
• Distracting questions
• Clichés
• Interpretations
• Advice
• Parroting
• Sympathy and agreement
• Faking it

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(Communication Skills)

• 5. The art of probing and summarizing
• Prompts and probes are
• Verbal and sometimes non-verbal tactics for
  helping clients talk more freely and concretely
  about themselves.

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(Communication Skills)

• a. Nonverbal and verbal prompts
• Nonverbal prompts
•   You can use various behaviors
  bodily movements, gestures, nods,
  eye movement, and the like as nonverbal
  prompts
• Vocal and verbal prompts
•   You can use responses um,
  uh-huh, sure, yes, I see, ah,
  okay, and oh as prompts, provided you use
  them intentionally and they are not simply a
  sign that your attention is flagging, you
  dont know what else to do, or you are on
  automatic pilot.

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(Communication Skills)

• b. Different forms of probes
•  
• Probes used judiciously, help Cadets
  name, take notice of, explore, clarify, or
  further define any issue. Designed to provide
  clarity and move things forward, probes can take
  different forms
• Statements
• Requests
• Questions
• Words or phrases that are, in effect, Questions
  or requests

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(Communication Skills)

• c. Using questions effectively
• Novices and inept counselors, tend to ask
  too many questions. When in doubt about what
  to say or do, they ask questions that add no
  value. It is as if gathering information were
  the goal of the helping interview. Social
  intelligence calls for restraint. However,
  questions can be an important part of your
  interactions with clients. Two guidelines to
  follow
• Ask a limited number of questions
• Ask open ended questions

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(Communication Skills)

• d. Principles in the use of probes
•   Use probes to
• Help Cadets engage as fully as possible in the
  therapeutic dialogue.
• Help Cadets achieve concreteness and clarity.
• Help Cadets complete the picture.
• Help Cadets get a balanced view of problem
  situations and opportunities.
• Challenge Cadets and help them challenge
  themselves.

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(Communication Skills)

• f. The art of summarizing providing focus and
  direction
• There are certain times when summaries
  prove particularly useful
• At the beginning of a new session
• During a session that is going nowhere
• When a Cadet gets stuck
• When a Cadet needs a new perspective

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(Communication Skills)

• g. How to become proficient in using
  communication skills
• Understanding communication skills and how
  they fit into the counseling process is one
  thing. Becoming proficient in their use is
  another. Some trainees think that they can learn
  these soft skills easily and fail to put
  in the kind of hard work and practice needed
  to become fluent in them.

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(Communication Skills)

• h. Shadow-side realities of communication
  skills
• Being good at communication skills is not
  the same as being good at helping. Moreover,
  an overemphasis on communication skills
  can turn helping into a great deal of talk
  with very little action, and few outcomes.

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(Communication Skills)

• Summary and Review