Written for 7 Cups of Tea
As a layperson there is a sense in which I feel unqualified to write about these issues of providing emotional support, publicly. I am unqualified by my nearly total lack of formal training, experience and association in Active Listening. I can say that this lack is only nearly total because of the rudimentary training I’ve received on our site, itself. A further shortcoming is my inability to offer practical steps to apply the principles mentioned in the third section. Yet, my objective lack of qualifications aside, as a member too, I feel that I ought to try and share about these points which I consider to be useful to our efforts, here.
I know something of what it feels like to receive care, in time: and vice versa.
From the outset of writing this paper, I’ve felt that my personal quandary of bona fides reflects our jointly borne challenge to cultivate ever-better means of offering emotional support, worldwide.
I want to share why Active Listening matters, to me. Whether someone is professionally engaged, or domestically, young or old, or viewed in any other demographic terms, active listening can be applied to augment interpersonal bonds, and open communication.
Not only can all people benefit from active listening, but all people can contribute meaningfully to the dialogue, as well. My grandmother has told me more than once: God gave you one mouth, but two ears, so act like it! The quip, though not itself an example of active listening, still functions as an instructive bridge toward prioritizing the process of listening, in its own pedantic charm.
I am of the opinion that we too should feel encouraged to share our understandings about active listening, if for no other reason than the fact that we actively practice this method of care. Each person has hard-won insights, and by sharing with other listeners, our listening culture becomes more robust.
I started to write this after a series of nights when the power went out and, like so many others, I had no one to listen to or share with. Growth seems the only safe option when loneliness becomes the norm.
Sections at a Glance
I. Levels of Listening
“Attentive listening is central to supportive communication. A list is presented of levels of attentiveness. Special attention is given to empathic listening, and its unique, therapeutic potential.”
II. Inherited Assumptions of Best Practice
“Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, may see beyond themselves: Culling data from contemporary scientists to grandmother wisdom, active listening advice is shared, and a few caveats, noted.”
III. The Non-Professional Listener
“Charity starts at home. Many of us are new to Active Listening. Training is necessary but not sufficient; we also need tolerance in our shortfalls. These dynamics, taken together, comprise the working culture needed to sustain our growth in the role of providing worldwide emotional support.
I. Levels of Listening
When others speak, we listen at one of five levels: ignoring, pretend listening, selective listening, attentive listening, or empathic listening. When we listen at the first four levels, we often pursue personal motives. By practicing the fifth level of listening, empathic listening, we try to discover what the other person really means and feels from their own point of view.
1. Ignoring Making no effort to listen.
2. Pretend Listening Making believe or giving the appearance that we are listening.
3. Selective Listening Hearing only the parts of the conversation that interest us.
4. Attentive Listening Paying attention and focusing on what the speaker says, and comparing that to our own experiences.
5. Empathic Listening Listening and responding with both the heart and mind to understand the speaker’s words, intent, and feelings.
Seeing as the first four levels of listening are usually familiar by high school, and information about these has been discussed well and at length, by numerous experts, the fifth level alone will be expanded on here. It is there where things can get, complicated. It’s also where emotional support thrives.
Empathic Listening Principles and Paradigms
Two principles:
• diagnosis must precede prescription
• understanding comes through listening
Two key paradigms:
• “I assume I don’t fully understand, and I need to listen”
• “If I listen first to understand, then I will be better understood”
Four Reflective Listening Responses
The basic skill of Empathic Listening is helping the speaker feel understood. It is
essential that the listener have a suitable attitude, as well as simply applying the
techniques. The following responses represent different levels of expertise in one
basic empathic response, namely reflection of content and feeling:
1. Repeat verbatim the content of the communication - words only, not feelings.
2. Rephrase content - summarize their meaning in your own words.
3. Reflect feelings - look more deeply and be able to capture feelings in your own words. Look beyond words to body language and tone that indicate feelings.
4. Paraphrase content and reflect feelings—express both their words and their feelings in your own words.
It is also important that we discern when empathy is not necessary or appropriate. All the five types of listening are appropriate under certain circumstances.
Helpful Phrases to Acknowledge Understanding
As I get it, you felt that ... You place a high value on ...
I’m picking up that you ... As I hear it, you ...
So, as you see it ... Your feeling now is that ...
What I guess I’m hearing is ... You must have felt ...
I’m not sure I’m with you, but ... Your message seems to be, “I ...”
Four responses that are not empathic listening:
· Advising: “You should eat less”
· Probing: “What was your relationship with your mother like?”
· Interpreting: “That means you have low self-esteem.”
· Evaluation: “That’s awful!”
II. Inherited Assumptions of Best Practice
The discipline of Active Listening Education, a young field academically, has two main focuses, which we can label, “How tos?” and “Why tos?”. The first represents an effort to understand how to apply active listening in day to day situations. The other current attempts to justify active listening when faced with unfamiliarity or polemic debate over its legitimacy.
As our site is committed to providing exactly the emotional support active listening entails, we can focus on the first of these two.
Three Principles of Successful Active Listening
· “Perceived Understanding” (Helping the member feel that they are understood.)
· “Social Attractiveness” (Creating a sense of listener likability)
· “Communication Satisfaction” (The member feeling better after the experience.)
Empathic listening, discussed in section I. related to the goal of helping a member feel understood. Let’s now take a look at how we can facilitate our members’ interest to share, through being perceived as likable listeners, as well as offering members the satisfaction that can result from emotional support.
Paraphrasing: A Watchword for Social Attractiveness
By repeating back what a member says, he or she is more likely to find us interesting to share with. This is due to the feeling of likability. We tend to like those who like us, and paraphrasing is a way to show that we, as listeners, care.
One may ask, “Why should we care if we’re likable?” Likability plays a role in who people feel they can trust. Imagine how much you’d be willing to share with a listener you feel is not trustworthy. We can only support a member to the extent they are willing to share, to trust.
Paraphrasing may be analogous to mimicry. When we like someone, we imitate gestures and other things they say or do, consciously or otherwise. It helps us feel connected. By paraphrasing, it gives members a cue to reciprocate that interest by opening up to share more.
Social attractiveness, while productive of trust and sharing for members, can be a challenge as well, for the listeners. In this connection, we can remember that as listeners, self-care is also an investment in members’ well-being.
“What’s In It For Members?”
The more members share, being offered active listening as feedback, the more they can face their situation, realistically. That may be painful, even frightening. It takes courage to face painful situations and feelings. The exercise of that courage, with the support of a safe non-judgmental listener, gives the member a sense of their own personal strength.
The biggest factors in communication satisfaction are nonverbal: signs of care like a concerned look, a smile, a laugh, leaning in a bit, and nodding the head. Conveying these may pose a challenge in the online medium, it takes some deliberation. Each person will respond differently to our attempts at nonverbal communication of concern even in face to face encounters, to say nothing of the digital analogue. More questions are raised here than are answered, to be sure.
Some use similes, or even type out gestures such as “Nodding my head”, “Applause” etc. Somehow or other, if we can convey these non-verbal cues, it provides something of the human touch needed for the members to feel that “This is worth it!”. Teleconferencing has potential in this connection also, and I believe we would do well to explore options to employ it, with due consideration of certain privacy and safety issues.
III. The Non-Professional Listener
Perhaps I’m not alone in that I came to our site looking for someone to listen. I experienced such support that I was inspired, the same day to become a listener myself. I remember facing the uneasy feeling that if I make a mistake, the wrong comment, being too fast or slow in my response, that a member may feel unsupported. They may blame me, rightly even. What if there’s nothing I can do to offer them the support they need?
These concerns are legitimate, representing vulnerabilities that come with making ourselves available in a member’s time of need. This pressure is a natural consequence of our choice to practice active listening. Yet, there are other pressures, some tacit, others more obvious, which aren’t really necessary at all.
We are trained to listen non-judgmentally, with compassion and above all, to do no harm. The point is that our listeners need this same kindness extended to them. In my opinion, banning a listener for their mistake sends the wrong message, both to the mistaken listener, and to the site at large. The message is, “Those who err, are lost.” Even with professionals, revoking the right to practice is rare, and since we are depending on non-professionals to participate in this effort, we are in not in a position to turn anyone away.
“What if the listener has perpetrated harm on a member, or another listener?”
The harm, and the pain are real. They are caused by mistakes, or misunderstandings on the part of a listener. But if the listener owns their mistake, and takes responsibility to reform, then in our commitment to do no harm, it is incumbent on us to give them a second chance and a third, etc.
By turning away a listener, we turn away a member as well.
Mistakes are frightening to face because we make them too. But the grace shown by reintegrating and possibly retraining is inspiring, for the same reason. We can use that inspiration in turn, to support our members. Emotional support for the internet is more than any of us alone can provide; we need each other. In that sense, we are a family.
#caring#activelistening