Soul Care #24: Giving Helpful Feedback

Back to my promised completion project... In January I took a pastoral counseling class. I've been slowly processing through the notes, and in the latest note we finished addictions. Here's to finishing what I started!

Giving Helpful Feedback

All of us can grow in this skill-- not for counseling alone, but in life! How many of us have not given a concentrated look of concern while our thoughts are 1000 miles away? How many of us have felt that we SHOULD respond somehow, but really feel clueless what to say?

There are various levels of feedback:
1) Respond to others words with something unrelated.
2) Give quick advise to the content another shared, though without feeling.
3) Acknowledge both content and feeling behind it.
4) Acknowledges content and feeling, and seeks to understand what the person desires from you by sharing it.
5) Acknowledges content, feeling, goals, and able to give helpful direction.

-Part of becoming a better listener means you must understand how YOU receive feedback. What feedback are you most fearful of hearing? How do you respond to feedback you don't want to hear? What behaviors do you exhibit in order to avoid negative feedback? What would you do if you learned not to avoid but to receive?

-Do not ask closed questions "Did you go out to lunch today?" but open questions "What was lunch like for you today?"

-When you are lost and don't know what to say, go back to that person's story.

-Avoid asking "Why?" The natural response is "because" and leads to an excuse to justify a behavior. Rather you can say "Help me understand that."

Help a person see the patterns of their communication:

-Are they telling stoic stories without emotion?
-Are they minimizing something hard?
-Are they initiating a power struggle? You can say "sounds to me like its important for you to lead."
-Call out the unspoken: "Your eyes look sad."
-Listen for the hidden belief under their behavior.
-Remember the images and metaphors they use to characterize their life. These can be powerful to return to.

Stay tuned for Dr. C.'s 'top secret of being a good counselor' :)