JMDpsych on Communication Skills

JMDpsych on Communication Skills Individual Therapy Couples Counselling Divorce/Separation Counselling Child Therapy Career Guidance & Psychometric Testing Leadership Coaching & Life Coaching Organisational Consulting Teenage Therapy ADD / ADHD Therapy HOME PAGE Contact Us Our qualifications Articles Books & DVDs What it costs Contact & Bookings Self-disclosure When you self-disclose, you reveal to the listener some aspect of how you are feeling, especially that which you might have been trying to
conceal.  You also share with the listener what it is that you really need, without engaging in bargaining ploys to manipulate the listeneR.

Explaining When you explain, you provide the listener with information about aspects of the situation that you are most concerned about.  Both self
disclosure and explaining must be done without using language that is blaming or disrespectful of the other person.

Active listening When you actively listen, you turn your full attention to the overall message of the speaker, as well as the details, rather than focusing on your
own concerns or on counter-arguments.  You also provide feedback to the speaker in order to ensure that you understood the message.  The
feedback may involve paraphrasing what you think the speaker said, and asking questions to clarify.  It should not include an evaluation of, or a
counterargument to, what the other person said; rather, it should be an attempt to understand the other person’s needs and concerns as
he/she sees them.

Perspective taking Perspective taking is largely an internal process in which you try to understand how it might feel to be the other person in the situation.  It is
fostered by active listening.  In other words, perspective taking is trying to understand the other person’s needs, concerns, difficulties, and pain
in this situation.  It is often referred to as “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.”  Perspective taking and active listening can help move
the situation from an adversarial one in which your needs are pitted against the other person’s, to a collaborative one in which you are working
with the other person to satisfy both sets of needs.

Re-framing Re-framing proceeds from active listening and involves moving further away from an adversarial ‘‘me against you’’ situation toward seeing the
situation as a mutual problem to be solved collaboratively.  It can be initiated by such statements as ‘‘what can we do so that you get what you
need which is … and I get what I need which is…?’

Brainstorming Brain-storming comes after active listening and re-framing, and involves coming up with as many solutions as possible for the problem,
without critiquing them at first, and then narrowing them down to come up with the solution or set of solutions that best fits everyone’s needs.  
Generating many solutions, quickly and without evaluation, can help with creativity, and lead to unexpected resolutions.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS The skills that promote good communication and constructive resolution of conflict are, among others:
self-disclosure, explaining, active listening, perspective taking, reframing, and brainstorming.  Tests of these
skills, particularly active listening and perspective taking, show that is is helpful when at least one person in
a conflict makes an attempt to listen fully and understand the point of the view of the other person.
JMDpsych

Skriv et svar