12 Responding Skills

Mutum Silpa Devi

1. INTRODUCTION

Counselling is more than often described as helping the process in a professional way which requires certain specific skills to be mastered for it to be effective. These are attending skills, listening skills and responding skills. In this session, we will be discussing responding skills. Counselling as we understand is a process where the counsellor helps the client to help themselves by gaining insight into their own problems. Counselling relationship is therapeutic in nature where the counsellor’s task is to heal the client sometimes, to remedy often but to comfort them always. And effective communication is the key to a successful counselling. In the process of counselling it is essential that the counselor attends to understand the client by observing and listening. But it is more important that the client knows he is being heard, understood and accepted. Responding skill is the ability to let the client know you can understand his perspective and to communicate those understanding to him in an effective manner.

2.LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson you will be able to

understand the basic principles and techniques of responding skills
practice and exercise on strategies of responding skills

3.CONCEPT OF RESPONDING SKILLS

Responding skills is an ability to facilitate the client’s exploration of where they are in relation to their world. By responding, we begin to communicate our understanding of the client’s world. Another term for this kind of understanding and responding is “empathy-empathic understanding” and the communication of such understanding is known as “empathic responding.” So before attempting to understand the nature responding skill, it is important to get an insight into the role of empathy in counseling.

Many of the contributors in the field of counselling identified and agreed upon that ‘empathy’ is one of the essential qualities a facilitative helper should possess. This quality when defined and factor analyzed to formulate the distinct helper skills – ‘responding’ was identified as the skill that could communicate accurate empathy. Empathy is an innate quality and not a skill that one possesses at varying degree. It is the ability to feel or understand by entering into one’s personality until some state of identification is achieved. It is the fundamental process of identifying one’s self with the other person. Through this process, we see how the client sees his world through his point of view. Thus the counsellor concentrates on understanding the counselee’s frame of mind and her context, and how she feels and why.

4. IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY IN COUNSELLING

It helps us to enter into the counsellee’s frame of reference to accurately understand how she experiences the world, her needs, her personal reserves etc.
Empathy communicates the counsellor’s understanding of the client and this fact alone might increase the client’s self-esteem since the counselor is willing to struggle to understand the client (which let the client feel “I am understandable”, “I am important enough for this person to struggle to understand me”).
It allows us to integrate the messages from non-verbal and verbal communication as to make meaning
It allows us to check the accuracy of our perception
It allows the counselee to know that we understand her inner feelings
It stimulates growth in the relationship. Empathy may dissolve alienation, for it is almost impossible to maintain an alienated position in the face of someone who is showing you profound understanding at a very personal level.
Responding to feelings invades client’s psychic wounds. The process of empathy helps to focus on the client’s surface and underlying feelings and help the client aware of these feelings.
It helps to organize the inner world and understand. Becoming aware of feelings which are earlier denied by the client is the first step in taking responsibility for them and their implications.
It stimulates further and deeper exploration on the part of the client. When the counsellor shows that she understands the feelings and thought being expressed by the client, a natural step for the client seems to be to unfold ever-deepening levels of his awareness.

5. TYPE OF RESPONSES AND THEIR NATURE IN HELPING SITUATION

There are five types of responses we used in our day- to- day interactions to communicate our understanding with others based on the underlying intentions. They are:

1. Evaluative (E)

2. Interpretative (I)

3. Supportive (S)

4. Probing (P)

5. Understanding (U)

Each of these alternative ways of responding which is abbreviated as ‘EISPU’ are helpful in counselling at one time or another with varying degree.

5.1. Evaluative response:

It is the type of response intended to convey the responder’s judgment as to the relative goodness, rightness or appropriateness about what the person has done or ought to do. These are the most common responses people usually make when trying to help others.

For example: ‘You should not have done that’, ‘I don’t approve of what you are doing’, ‘It is better you change that’ …………..etc.

These responses communicate an evaluative, corrective and suggestive intention to solve any problem. Though sometimes it is relevant and helpful most often it retards the development of understanding. And being evaluative can be threatening too many and make them defensive. When people become defensive they tend to close-off their mind, reject ideas and advice, resist the influences and stop exploring the problems. Moreover giving advice and passing judgment often communicate that the helper is assuming that her judgment is superior to the client.

In counseling, this type of responding is not likely very helpful, especially during early stage when exploration of the problem is very much essential. However evaluative/ judgmental response can be given empathically.

For example, instead of “You resent her criticism” (evaluative/ judgmental) as “If I understand you correctly, you feel pretty resentful toward her criticism. Is that right?”

5.2. Interpretive response:

Interpretive responses are mostly used with the intention of teaching. Respondent intends to impart some psychological knowledge on using, interpreting responses by telling what the problem means, and how the speaker is feeling about the situation. Interpreting response attempts to point out some hidden reasons for their behavior and feelings.

For example: ‘the reason you are upset is because ……..’.

It is mostly used with the intention to provide some additional insight through an explanation. However, this type of responses often makes people defensive. It discourages to reveal more thoughts and feelings for the fear of being more analyzed. Most people react negatively when someone implies that they know more about us than we do. So it is better to let the person think and try to reason out the problem themselves instead of we figuring it out for them.

5.3. Supportive response:

The supportive response is intended to encourage, reassure or minimize the intensity of feelings.

For example: ‘don’t be upset’, ‘everything will be better’

We often used supportive responses when we try to help others and such responses are generally intended for understanding. But frequently these responses end up communicating the lack of interest and understanding. While rushing up with these kind of responses, the responder sends an unintended message of saying that the person should not feel as the way he/she do.

5.4. Probing response:

Probing by asking the question is response with the intention of getting more information and further involved to help others. Probing is a very useful response in helping others explore themselves if utilized correctly. Usually, it is advisable to use open questions rather than closed ones.

For example: ‘What do you feel about your work?’ instead of ‘do you like your job?’

The counsellor should ask open quentions, let the client explore more about their thoughts and feelings and encourage to share it. However asking judging questions is not helpful (such as ‘why did you do that?’) because it indicates disapproval or criticism which make the person defensive. Instead of demanding justification it is more helpful to used 5WH questions, the questions of who, what, where, when, why and how.

For example: ‘what happened?’, ‘who were there?’, ‘ why and how did it happen?’, ‘when did it happen? ‘where?

These types of questioning make people be more specific, precise and revealing. It also communicates the responder’s genuine interest in helping.

5.5. Understanding response:

The understanding response indicates the intention of understanding the thoughts and feelings of the person. It is reflected in the helper’s responses. It assures the helper’s genuine interest in trying to understand his perspective. It is similar with paraphrasing response. There are three situations in which understanding response is useful. They are –

i.When helper wants to clarify his understanding of the client’s thoughts and feelings

ii.When helper wants the client to hear what he just said

iii.When helper needs to assure that he is trying to understand the client.

Understanding response is perhaps the most useful type of response in counselling process since this is the form of response which can communicate empathy accurately. However, all the types of responses have a useful place in counselling. A counsellor should be able to use them all depending on the needs with flexible selectivity. In the rapport building phase of counselling, it is essential to use mostly understanding responses. In confrontational phase, the evaluative response can be used without sounding too judgmental. In crisis counselling, the supportive response is needed. Throughout the counselling process, the understanding response is the most important and is used dominantly by counsellors along with probing.

6. STRATEGIES/ TECHNIQUES OF RESPONDING SKILLS

A skilful counsellor responds to the

1. content,

2. feeling and

3. meaning.

Counsellor responds to the content in order to bring the clarity in the client’s experiences. Responding to the feelings is to clarify the effect attached to the experience. And responding to meaning is to clarify the reason for the feelings.

6.1. Responding to content:

As ‘content’ refers to the client’s experience, counsellor respond to understand the important elements of the client’s experiences. This element of content highlights the probing of 5WH: who, what, why, when, where and how. Who and what was involved? What did they do? Why and how did they do it? When and where did they do it? After understanding these elements, counsellor responds by rephrasing the client’s expressions.

Example:

Client- I thought things were good with my friend (WHO). But we fought (WHAT) over this silly thing frequently (WHEN). I already apologized. I am sure I didn’t forget his birthday on purpose (WHY). I was just very busy that day (HOW) at home (WHERE).

RESPONSE: In other words, you thought your friend would understand your absence and forgive easily.

A good format for responding to content is:

You are saying …….

In other words ……..

Responding to content facilitates the exploration process and provides missing information. If any element is missing in the client’s expressions (counter check with 5 WH), the counsellor should probe to get a complete picture of their experiences. To encourage client exploration, however, the counsellor must continue to respond and refrain from initial reflex to ask a series of questions. During the exploration stage, the focus should be on responding to what the client is saying, not what we want them to say. The counsellor may use questions to fill in certain gaps later.

6.2. Responding to Feelings

The feeling of a client is their affective experience in relation to their world. People express their feelings differently. Some may express verbally and directly those feelings that dominate them, or others may express their feelings indirectly, through their tone of voice or by describing the situation in which they find themselves in. By responding to the feelings client expresses, the counsellor shows his understanding of the client’s frame of reference. It is important to note that it provides an opportunity for the client to check the counselor’s effectiveness as helpers. Therefore, it is important to use the skill accurately.

6.2.1. How does counsellor respond to feelings?

To respond to feelings, counsellor must observe client’s behaviours, the tone of their voice, posture and facial expressions. Next is to listen carefully to the client’s words. Counsellor should ask this question himself in order to understand the client’s world, “If I was this person and if I were to be in this situation what the client is describing, how would I feel?”. Then the counsellor must summarize what he have seen and heard with a response that indicates the client’s feelings. In order to respond, first identify the general feelings (i.e., happy, angry, sad, confused, scared, fear) and the intensity of the feelings (i.e. high, medium, low), then choose a ‘feeling word’ to respond that fits the feeling category and level of intensity.

Identification of right feeling which fits the correct level of intensity is quite difficult. In order to get accurate ‘feeling word’, categories of feelings with levels of intensity given by Carkhuff can be the reference.

6.2.2.Categories of Feelings (Carkhuff)

General feelings: happy, sad, angry, scared, confused, strong, weak

Levels of Intensity: High

Excited, hopeless, furious, fearful, bewildered, potent, overwhelmed, elated, depressed, seething, afraid, trapped, super, impotent, overjoyed, devastated, enraged, threatened, troubled, powerful, vulnerable,

Levels of Intensity: Medium

Cheerful, upset, agitated, edgy, disorganized, energetic, incapable, up, distressed, frustrated, insecure, mixed-up, confident, helpless, good, sorry, irritated, uneasy, awkward, capable, insecure

Levels of Intensity: Low

Glad, down, uptight, timid, bothered, sure, shaky, content, low, dismayed, unsure, uncomfortable, secure, unsure, satisfied, bad, annoyed, nervous, undecided, solid, bored

6.2.3. Example of responding to feelings:

Ravi -“Things are not going so well for me. Not with the study. Not with my friends. I am struggling. I fake it every day, but inside I’m really tired because I’m not sure of what I want to do and where I want to go.”

The key point to his feelings is – he feels down, about his study, about his relationship with his friends, he is also struggling to pretend that he is fine. What would you feel if you were Ravi? – I would feel sad because the intensity of the feeling down for various reasons is quite intense. So you can respond as:

“You feel upset/ sad, you feel unsure.”

6.3. Responding to Meaning

Meaning here refers to the combination of client’s feelings and content. Content is used to make the feeling meaningful with intellectual meaning to the client’s expressions of their experiences. Likewise, feeling gives emotional meaning to the client’s expressions of their experiences. So, ‘responding to meaning’ emphasizes making interchangeable responses that capture both the feeling and content of the expressions.

6.3.1. How does a counsellor respond to meaning?

Counsellor has to note that the response to meaning must be enriched by combining the feeling together with the content for clients. In order to get it right, counsellor must understand every feeling is prompted by some cause (i.e., reference to cause and effect). Regardless of the apparent nature of the causes (irrational or rational) of a particular client’s feelings, each of these feelings will always have sufficient reason for the client to feel it. Feelings are about content (Such as happy about being awarded, angry with the teacher for giving a low grade). Therefore a response to meaning is not complete until it communicates both feeling and content.

Examples: let us continue with Ravi’s expression quoted earlier i.e., (“Things are not going so well for me. Not with the study. Not with my friends. I am struggling. I fake it every day, but inside I’m really tired because I’m not sure of what I want to do where I want to go.”)

Your respond to meaning would be –

“You’re saying that you feel upset (feeling) because nothing seems to be working out for you (content).” Or “Nothing seems to be working out for you now (content) and you feel sad (feeling)”

Both the responses capture the meaning of the feeling and content of Ravi’s expression. A counsellor can use either response interchangeably to communicate his understanding with the client.

Likewise “You feel unsure (feeling) of what you can do about it (content)”, or you don’t know what to do (content) and you are confused (feeling)” are another example of responding to meaning.

Counsellor may also respond with a question to stimulate the client for deeper exploration. To respond with a question, the counsellor simply responds first either to content alone or to the feeling and content; and then formulates a related question about the situation using one of the six basic interrogatives.

For example: “You are saying that your relationship with your friend is not going well. How long has this been going on?” followed by “Did anything happen at that time?”

To sum it up, counsellor has to reflect back to the counselee in paraphrased form of what the counsellor hear, particularly the person’s dominant feelings. By responding the counsellor begin to communicate his understanding of the counselee’s experience. Counsellor has to respond to both content and feeling. Counsellor must communicate his understanding to the counselee of a specific feeling experience and the reason for that.

CONCLUSION

This module has given you an insight of responding skills and its unique characteristics. Responding skill is one the most important skill which helps client in the process of exploration if used effectively. In order to use responding skills accurately counsellor has to pay special attention to the following things in the process of responding:

Attend physically, observe and listen carefully
Give yourself time to think and integrate what you have seen with what you have heard.
Identify the appropriate feeling word that fits the level of intensity of client’s feeling
Confirm the feeling word with your observation of the counselee to see if it fits his condition.
Find the reason for the feeling in the content expressed by the counselee (the reason is the meaning the content has for the counselee)
Summarize and reflect back in paraphrased form, do not parrot’. Use short sentences.
First, respond to content and then to feelings. Note that a response is not complete until it communicates both feeling and content. Attend to all major feelings and content.

Always remember essential element in responding is to communicate correct understanding to the client.

you can view video on Responding Skills

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