Attending Behaviors
What we communicate through hand gestures, leaning in, facing our clients, and maintaining a relaxed and approachable stance.
What is body positioning?
Keep talking, tell me more. hand gestures, nodding
What are furthering responses?
Give the social worker an opportunity to match the client's verbal style.
What are lead-in responses?
Allows the social worker to identify more fully what a client is thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
What is clarification?
Used as a way of encouraging the client to be reflective and sit with his or her thoughts and feelings.
What is silence?
Sitting three to four feet apart.
What is spatial consideration?
Mirror back to the client an awareness of his or her emotional state.
What is facial expressions?
Focuses on the content of the client's message.
What is paraphrasing?
Should not be used excessively as to avoid conveying the impression that the social worker is mimicking what the client is saying.
What is paraphrase?
Should reinforce the verbal communication.
What is facial expressions?
Powerful way of communicating that I care, I'm listening, and I'm concerned.
What is touch?
Can demonstrate a readiness to delve into the problem situation.
What is eye contact?
Restate and explore the client's affective (feeling) statements.
What is reflection of feelings?
Use to understand how a client responds emotionally to life.
What is reflection of feeling?
Adds richness to the message.
What is tone of voice?
Not just spoken words, but the way the words are delivered.
What is tone of voice?
Nonverbal feedback that encourages or discourages the client from further discussion.
What is head movements?
Gives the client the opportunity to discuss important aspects of the problem in more depth.
What is an open-ended question?
Questions can take the form of who, what, when, why, and where.
What are open-ended questions?
What I am hearing you say......
What is a lead-in response?
When used appropriately, I can be a very effective way to communicate with clients.
What is silence?
Verbally and non-verbally responding to clients.
What are attending behaviors?
Enables the social worker to check details of the client's narrative for accuracy.
What is a closed-ended question?
Can be used to scale the severity, intensity, and/or frequency of a problem.
What are close-ended questions?
Should be used when the client is discussing a situation that the social worker does not fully understand.
What is clarification?