Week 2 - Interpersonal Skills
Reflecting
Reflections can reflect feelings or content, and can be minimal, moderate, or summative.
Minimal Reflection
Minimal, reflections, reflect keywords or phrases to encourage further talk and demonstrate understanding.
Moderate Reflection (Paraphrasing)
Paraphrasing is a shortened version and clarification of what the client has just said.
Paraphrasing must include:
A sentence stem (It sounds like…, I'm hearing that…)
Keywords, preferably those used by the client
A brief essence of what the client has just said
A check for accuracy (is that right?)
Longer Reflection (Summarising)
A summary encompasses a longer period of conversation, possibly even a whole session.
The goal is to be fully with the client and consolidate mutual understanding
Usually includes the focus on emotions
Identifies key issues
Checks for accuracy at the end
Reflecting Feelings
Reflecting feelings facilitates some of the goals of emotion-based therapies by:
Increasing the client’s awareness of the emotional world and its impact on their thoughts and behaviour.
Helping clients to sort out the mixed feelings, thoughts and behaviours towards themselves or others
Helping to identify emotional strengths to improve resilience
Facilitating executive brain function through emotional regulation.
Steps in reflecting feelings:
Choose a sentence stem
Label the feeling accurately, or multiple feelings in the case of mixed emotions
Put the feeling into the relevant context
Use the appropriate tense in relation to the client’s story
Check for accuracy, just as you would when paraphrasing.