Attending Skills Essay

Bolton, in his book spate Skills (1979), describes attending as giving all of your physical direction to an a nonher(prenominal) person. The process of attending, whether you visit it or non, has a considerable impact on the quality of parley that goes on between two people. For example, by attending you ar verbalize to the other person I am intersted in what you watch to differentiate, however, a lack of veracious attending communicates that I really weart cargon about what you have to say. The be shadower be used as a as welll to facilitate good communicating.This is with with(p) through positioning the parts of the body so that they invite and manipulate an social relation. A relaxed alertness expressed by body spatial relation seems best suited for fostering good communication. Bolton offers these suggestions to establish a placement of involvment * Lean toward the loudspeaker system. This volition communicate energy and attentiveness. * Face the other squar ly (i. e. , your unspoilt sholuder to the speakers left). This communicates your involvment. It is especially distinguished for you to position yourself so that you are at philia level with the speaker if you are seen as a authority figure.This volition circumnavigate mites of threat and chiffonier greatly aid in forming an interpersonal relationship. * Maintaining an open posture is in like manner important for fostering interpersonal relatedness. A closed posture (i. e. , crossed arms and or legs) often communicates reserve and defensiveness. * You also need to be aware of your proximity to the speaker. We all have a sentiment of personal space. When those boundaries are crossed it puts the other on the defensive and makes them feel uncomfortable. However, to much distance communicates aloofness and disconectedness.Body motion, its a funny thing Have you ever paid attention to what your hands were doing during the course of a conversation? Some of us apparently shove th em in our pockets or let them hang aimlessly by our sides. Then there are others, like me, who tend to fling them about as if to place both(prenominal) kind of emphasis on each(prenominal) word There is such a thing as too little and too much. Body motion is good but it whoremaster be over done if you are not careful. The purpose of gesturing when you are listening is to encourage the speaker to continue speaking.This can most comfortably be done with a periodic head nod. A good listener moves his or her body in response to the speaker. Effective mettle contact lens says that you are visually attuned to what the speaker is saying. Good eye contact involves focusing on the speakers face and occasionally shifting the focus to other parts of the body. The key is that the other is aware that they have your attention because your eyeball are on them. Good eye contact should seem innate(p) to the other person. What ever you do, dont stare them down. This makes you seem anxious( p) and sometimes critical of them.The environment where the communication takes place is also an important factor in whether an interpersonal relationship can be formed. It is not always posible to move the conversation into a private room or office, but e actually approach should be made to reduce the chassis of distractions that are present. In his book, The Skilled Helper (1998), Gerad Egan offers what he has labled the Micro Skills of Attending. The are very close to the infomation I have presented above from Boltons People Skills. He has developed the following acronym to help oneself counseling students remeber these vital skills in communication.The listener has a specific responsibility in the course of communication. That is to get out of the speakers way and to try and follow where he or she is leading. The remnant of listening is not responding but agniseing what is trying to be communicated. A door opener is a noncoercive inivitation to spill the beans. Sometimes d oor openers are not necessay to get the ball rolling, but may be necessary later in the conversation if the speaker does not seem to insufficiency to continue. Door openers dont have to be verbal cues, a good listener can also use his or her body to send the signal I am interested, you have my attention, please control me more. The four elements of a door opener, as discussed, by Bolton are (1) A discription of the other persons body language (i. e. , you dont look like you are feeling well today. ) (2) An invitation to talk (3) quiet down (to leave alone the other person time to decide if they want to talk and what they are going to say. ) (4) Attending (this inclueds all of the attending skills that are discused on the attending skills page. ) What on earth are minimal encourages? In the attempt to follow it is important not to become a nonparticipant in the conversation. stripped encourages refers to the amount the listener speakes and the amount of direction the listener g ives to the conversation, which should be very little. Sometimes encouragement is needed but the speaker needs to bear on in control of the conversation. The same is true for questioning as is for encouraging. The difficulty is not questioning itself but the fact that most people do not do it well. Most people ask closed questions that all require specific and short answers such as yes and no. The finesse is to ask open questions that are designed to spur the conversation on when it gets stuck.This means that questioning will be relatively infrequent. Finally, attentive relieve is one of the most important elements in following the listener. We live in a culture in which silence is not comfortable. We often inturpert it as a cue that we need to jump in and say something. In fact, silence is an opportunity for the speaker to reflect on what he or she has said and to gather their thoughts before their next statment. What we say is not as important as giving the speaker the time he or she needs to clearly communicate their point.An important aspect of listening is to help the listner clarify his or her communication so that they can get their meat across. To practice reflective listening is to serve as a reverberate for the person speaking. One way that the speaker can do this is through paraphrasing. A paraphrase is a conscise response to the speaker that restates the essence of the communication in the listeners own words. The paraphrase deals with facts or ideas and not the emotions.In this respect it focuses the content of the speakers message. Another aspect of reflecting is the mirroring back of the speakers emotions as they make their statments. It is important to tune into the speakers emotions. If we, as listeners, miss the feeling content we have missed a major part of the speakers reaction and experience. Reflecting feelings also give the speaker an opportunity to evaluate how he or she is responding to a bother situation.Not only should the l istener reflect feeling, he or she also needs to reflect meaning. Content + feeling = meaning. Sounds simple, doesnt it? But, if you get the feelings vilify or the content wrong then you cant understand the speaker. Reflecting meaning alows you to be sure you are getting what the speaker is saying. Reflecting feeling and content are the baby steps to reflecting meaning. Meaning expression can use the basic empathic formula you feel _______ because _________ , or some variation on this formla.After a while the formula will disaper and a natural empathic responding style will develop. Finally, there is the concept of sumative reflections. This reflective response is designed to recap the major themes of the conversation and comes aft(prenominal) an extended period of the conversation. During the course of the conversation bits of useless information can acrue. The sumation can serve to help the speaker to sort through the bed clothing and to construct a more complete and compact co nceptualization of the shorten being discussed.