Looking for a little advice about your relationship? Perhaps you have questions about parenting in Europe? Ask Andrea! Our social worker, Andrea Liss will pick one question a month and answer it in our mid-month bulletin. You can submit your questions anonymously to her at https://bit.ly/MFSEAndreaSFME.
Dear Community Members.
I hope the fall is treating you all well. Newcomers will still very much be in transition, while those who have made it to the middle phase of their OUTCAN experience will be seeing time pass slowly or quickly depending on how the adjustment to ex-pat life is going. Those who plan on transitioning to life back in the Great White North in 2023 are looking ahead at reintegrating into a life that will be both familiar and different. Always in flux, always in flow, OUTCAN is a unique, one-of-a-kind time. Each of us will have different experiences and needs depending on where we are on our OUTCAN path but the one thing that we all have in common is our need for each other and to connect and converse. Keeping that in mind, the last few Ask Andrea columns have focused on communication skills, this column is the last in a series of three columns dedicated to this skill. Special note to the OUTCAN mom who asked me about parenting when differing parenting values emerge- your great question will be addressed in January 2023!
The October Super Communication Tip # 1 focused on rethinking our use of the question “Why”. Replacing the question “Why” with “How” will reduce defensiveness and help you to understand that there is much more complexity that goes on behind why people do what they do. You will find the link for October’s Ask Andrea column at the end of this column. Then, in November we learned about another Super Communication Tip. Tip #2 addressed the importance of replacing the word “But” with the word “And” because “But” tends to negate what has come before it, which can sometimes leave people feeling misunderstood. You can check out column #2 if you missed it via the link below. This month’s Super Communication Tip # 3 is on the art of listening. I am going to give you some secret Social Work tips and also share a great link to a quick TED talk on listening that I use when teaching.
Some years ago, I came across a set of interesting numbers related to the ideal ratio of therapist vs client talk time. The optimal therapist vs client talk time is about 35-40% for the therapist and 60-65% for the client. For best therapy outcomes, therapists are to speak less than their clients. I believe I may have come across this figure in a communication protocol which is known as Motivational Interviewing (MI). MI is an evidence-based communication approach used by health care providers and was designed to help the health care provider increase the likelihood of success for those clients planning or engaging in behaviour change. Today, MI is taught to various health care providers who work with patients who have an interest in starting a new health-benefiting behaviour (such as using dental floss or working out) or stopping a health-interfering behaviour (such as smoking or drinking). If you have been a patient in such situations, you’ll recognize the skills of MI which include having the patient, and not the health care provider, tell you why change is needed and the very personal reasons for this. Patients who are able to freely share the pros and cons of changing are more apt to change.
Because people need space to explain themselves and their very good reasons for change, they need the time and space to do so. Personal trainers who are able to listen to client's complaints about why they can’t find the time to work out and who then ‘roll with the client’s resistance’ instead of counter it (this is actually an MI skill!) and refrain from telling clients what to do, end up having better client outcomes. “So what does this have to do with me and how I communicate”? you might be asking. It all comes down to listening. What would your conversations look like if you used the MI approach and listened more than you spoke?
Our capacity to listen, whether we are a health care provider, parent, spouse, or teacher creates the atmosphere required for people to more accurately share their thought processes. Listening more than speaking will help the speaker feel understood. This is more important than you might realize. When teenagers yell out “You don’t understand me!” they are really pointing out that you have not listened to them or validated their position. “You don’t understand me!” is code for “Be quiet for just a bit longer and agree a little with why I hold this opinion. Once you do that I will calm down and eventually be apt to listen to what you have to say, even if I don’t like it!”
One of my mentors used to remind me “Just sit there and do nothing” as a lesson in needing to address my need to “do” something with clients. All of us can become distressed by someone else’s distress and wish to rescue them. In order to make our rumbling feelings disappear, we jump into action, which usually involves telling people what to do, giving advice, or problem-solving. The problem with our ‘jump into action to make it better approach’ is that the interaction can then become about our need to reduce our distress. Our distress can trump the listener’s need to be heard. When listeners are not heard, they tend to feel invalidated and can become deflated, or, can up the ante in an effort to be heard, which can lead to speaking more loudly, more quickly or with more force which then puts the listener on the defensive, and thus a conflict begins.
For more information about listening Here is that TED Talk I mentioned earlier on listening- https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headlee_10_ways_to_have_a_better_conversation?language=en
Here are the links for the last two Ask Andrea’s on communication skills:
Good luck listening and remember “Just sit there and do nothing”!
Happy Holidays to you all and see you in January!
If you would like to pose a question for the Ask Andrea column, please send your anonymous question to https://bit.ly/MFSEAndreaSFME and Andrea will do her best to share some of her ideas.
Andrea has a master’s degree in Social Work and is a Registered Social Worker and Registered Psychotherapist (Ontario) with over 20 years of experience. She maintains a faculty appointment at McMaster University where she teaches in the Masters of Science in Psychotherapy program.