Poor Quality Listening

Authentic Counselling Training

Poor Quality Listening

[Under construction: 23 August 2004]

These documents have taken me years of my own, unpaid time to perfect. Please feel free to make use of them for solely personal purposes. However, should you wish to use them for teaching, training, commercial or other purposes, you are required to ask me first.

Common Listening Errors

In British society, a number of different styles of poor quality listening are considered acceptable and are normal. The most usual is paying little or no attention.

In addition to the complete or partial absence of attention, there are a number of interventions which listeners may find themselves using, but which do not encourage the speaker. In each of the following, try to identify whose frame of reference is being addressed.

Hijacking - "It's funny you should mention that, exactly the same thing happened when ..."
Judgmental (absolute) - "I cannot imagine what made you do that. It was a really stupid thing to do."
Judgmental (comparative) - "You feel upset, but just think how your wife must feel."
Minimising (reassurance) - "Everything is going to be OK. Just you wait and see."
Minimising (avoidance) - "Please don't be upset. I can't bear it when you cry."
Inappropriate probing - "Why exactly do you feel this way?"

The Non-Attender

The non-attender has little intention of entering or of pretending to enter your frame of reference. Neither do they want to draw you into their frame of reference. They may fidget, twiddle, tap or doodle. More disconcertingly, they may tie their shoe laces, play with their hair or pick strands of lint from their clothing. Some non-attenders will have a body posture which is totally closed. Others will stretch, yawn or even fall asleep. If the non-attender makes a response (which is far from guaranteed) then it might be inappropriate, giving wrong answers, or ask you what you are talking about. It is bad enough when the non-attender hums to his/herself while you are talking, but it is worse when they are talking to someone else in the room or on the telephone. Least helpful is when they get up and leave.

The Hijacker

The hijacker will always try to draw you into their frame of reference, and your frame of reference is of interest only as a prompt. At the least, they will tell you about what happened to them when they experienced what happened to you, typified by the introduction: "It's funny you should say that ...." The more competent hijacker will turn their disclosure into whatever they want to talk about, changing the subject entirely. The hijacker is likely to feel more comfortable if they can share in the talking, and may believe that this is also what you want.

The Judge

The judge remains within the frame of reference of the content of your disclosure, but will attempt to draw you into their evaluation of your disclosure. They may appear surprised, shocked at what you have disclosed, and may be disapproving. The judge wants to be able to place blame, possibly on you: "You brought this on yourself. It was a stupid thing to do. You should not have been doing it in the first place." The judge may believe that your disclosure challenges their value system.

The Minimiser

The minimiser stays within the frame of reference of the content of your disclosure, but cannot cope with the emotional impact. They will say things which appear to reduce the significance, magnitude or intensity of your experience. Often the minimiser, while failing to acknowledge how it is for you now, will project forwards to some point in the future when the feelings will be less intense. "There, there. Everything will be okay, you'll see. Time heals everything. You'll cope - you always do. There's more fish in the sea."

To the minimiser, the intensity of feelings associated with the disclosure may be too much to cope with, and they are unlikely to be aware of what they are doing. Sometimes the minimiser will be judgmental, believing that were they in the position of the discloser they would not feel so intensely. Some minimisers believe that the upper lip should remain stiff at all times.

The Sunday Sport Reporter

Whilst the Sunday Sport reporter wants to address your frame of reference, a filter process is used to select the juiciest titbits and ignore the rest. They will display interest in some parts of your disclosure and appear dismissive of other parts. They will prompt with 'moving on' questions: "What did the vicar do next?", and with probing questions: "How many times did the bishop go to see the actress?" Initially this style of not listening is attractive, and gives the impression of listening. However, as the interview progresses it becomes clear that the person disclosing is being seen merely as a resource to benefit the poor quality listener.

The pages in this document are:

Counselling_sitemap

Peter Hughes: introduction

p.g.h@btinternet.com