The art of active listening
I have previously written about the art of active listening. When a friend, a colleague, or someone else we care about is emotionally upset we want to be helpful. This may be particularly true when that person is talking as if they might do something which we know is potentially harmful to themselves or someone else. Our natural tendency is to attempt to make or help them see how illogical they are being or thinking so that they will not do anything which they will later regret or, worse still, something which results in their injury or death.
I am often faced with this situation when I am working with/for someone who is struggling with early recovery from active addiction or who is in the midst of a bipolar delusional/paranoid episodes. Kevin Hines, one of the few people to survive a suicidal jump from the Golden Gate Bridge spoke at a conference I attended last week. One of the lessons he wanted members of the audience to most hear was that when someone is in the midst of a life threatening mental illness episode, the person needs to know that someone cares enough to listen. Whether that person is a family member, a colleague, a mental health professional or even a stranger does not matter as long as the ill person feels or believes that the person cares about his/her hurt. If it feels as if the person is actively listening they will normally feel cared for/about.
The act of actively listening is simple, but is also incredibly difficult for most of us. Active listening requires that we offer no opinions, advice, judgments or “facts”. The goal is for the person to be heard. It may be very important for the listener to repeat back to the person what they heard and then wait for the person to either confirm that the listener heard or correct the listener. Sometimes the speaker may be so upset that they get even more upset because they think that the person was not listening. The listener then merely confirms that they were wrong and did not hear as well as thought that they did. They may even need to apologize. If the listener is not clear about or with their role as listener they might get upset with the person talking. They might expect the talker to be logical; to be talking as a person who is not ill or upset.
The listener is not concerned with the content of what the person is saying unless, of course, the person is clearly about to do something immediately dangerous to themselves or someone else.
In general, but not always, females are much better at active listening than we males. Often we males want to fix the upset or troubled person. Many females partnered with males get very frustrated with we males because when they “just” need us to listen we offer advice, attempt to fix, tell them “it is okay” when it is clearly not okay (although they know that they will be okay). I am not convinced that this is an unchangable genetic trait of males. Generally by the time we are adults we have practiced fixing or advising for a very long time. We have “learned” that it our job as males to take care of the female. While in any important relationship each person has particular skills, very few of those skills are gender specific. Listening is not, I believe, a genetic gender specific skill. It is a learned behavior. Learned behaviors can be unlearned/changed – not easily but we males can change. Obviously, some females are also more comfortable in the fixer/advise role and some males are more comfortable in the active listener role.
On must not underestimate the value of the active listener. Although it may not feel as if one is doing anything important folks such as Kevin Hines report that is often an enormously helpful action.
I urge all of us to practice active listening. Then we need to practice some more.
Written June 11, 2018
I have previously written about the art of active listening. When a friend, a colleague, or someone else we care about is emotionally upset we want to be helpful. This may be particularly true when that person is talking as if they might do something which we know is potentially harmful to themselves or someone else. Our natural tendency is to attempt to make or help them see how illogical they are being or thinking so that they will not do anything which they will later regret or, worse still, something which results in their injury or death.
I am often faced with this situation when I am working with/for someone who is struggling with early recovery from active addiction or who is in the midst of a bipolar delusional/paranoid episodes. Kevin Hines, one of the few people to survive a suicidal jump from the Golden Gate Bridge spoke at a conference I attended last week. One of the lessons he wanted members of the audience to most hear was that when someone is in the midst of a life threatening mental illness episode, the person needs to know that someone cares enough to listen. Whether that person is a family member, a colleague, a mental health professional or even a stranger does not matter as long as the ill person feels or believes that the person cares about his/her hurt. If it feels as if the person is actively listening they will normally feel cared for/about.
The act of actively listening is simple, but is also incredibly difficult for most of us. Active listening requires that we offer no opinions, advice, judgments or “facts”. The goal is for the person to be heard. It may be very important for the listener to repeat back to the person what they heard and then wait for the person to either confirm that the listener heard or correct the listener. Sometimes the speaker may be so upset that they get even more upset because they think that the person was not listening. The listener then merely confirms that they were wrong and did not hear as well as thought that they did. They may even need to apologize. If the listener is not clear about or with their role as listener they might get upset with the person talking. They might expect the talker to be logical; to be talking as a person who is not ill or upset.
The listener is not concerned with the content of what the person is saying unless, of course, the person is clearly about to do something immediately dangerous to themselves or someone else.
In general, but not always, females are much better at active listening than we males. Often we males want to fix the upset or troubled person. Many females partnered with males get very frustrated with we males because when they “just” need us to listen we offer advice, attempt to fix, tell them “it is okay” when it is clearly not okay (although they know that they will be okay). I am not convinced that this is an unchangable genetic trait of males. Generally by the time we are adults we have practiced fixing or advising for a very long time. We have “learned” that it our job as males to take care of the female. While in any important relationship each person has particular skills, very few of those skills are gender specific. Listening is not, I believe, a genetic gender specific skill. It is a learned behavior. Learned behaviors can be unlearned/changed – not easily but we males can change. Obviously, some females are also more comfortable in the fixer/advise role and some males are more comfortable in the active listener role.
On must not underestimate the value of the active listener. Although it may not feel as if one is doing anything important folks such as Kevin Hines report that is often an enormously helpful action.
I urge all of us to practice active listening. Then we need to practice some more.
Written June 11, 2018
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