INTERPERSONAL SKILL C HAPTER 3 Lecturer : Mpho Mlombo

C OMMUNICATION SKILLS  To be effective, helpers must use communication skills that enable them to hear verbal messages (cognitive content).  Helpers must be able to perceive non-verbal messages (affective and behavioural content).  To ensure that these skills become an integral part of your helping technique, you must practice them frequently.

P ERCEIVING NON - VERBAL MESSAGES  As an effective helper you should try to develop a conscious awareness of non-verbal messages and their various meanings.  Okun & Kantrowitz (2008) suggests that communication is more nonverbal than verbal.  Helpers usually look to see whether non-verbal behavior is consistent with the verbal behaviour and if they can pick up any clues that will help them identify the affective messages they hear.

H EARING VERBAL MESSAGES  Understanding verbal messages is not easy, understanding underlying affective content or non-verbal messages is even more difficult.  People tend to respond to cognitive content (comprise of actual facts and words of the messages) than affective content (non-verbal messages).  Receiving verbal messages involves understanding both cognitive and affective content and to differentiate between the two.  Cognitive content is usually easy to understand (it is stated) while affective content is often less apparent.  Your respond as a helper will influence the direction of the client’s next statement

V ERBAL C OGNITIVE M ESSAGES  They are easier to recognise than affective messages  It involves talking about things, people or events  Clients will talk about thoughts or behaviour than feelings  If helpers only respond to the clients cognitive concern, they never really get to the underlying feelings or see the inconsistency between cognitive and affective content

C OMMUNICATION SKILLS Verbal affective messages  They are communicated both verbally and non-verbally  This messages involve feelings: emotions that may be directly or indirectly expressed.  They are much more difficult to communicate than cognitive messages and much more difficult to perceive and hear.  Some helpers find it useful to group feelings into categories: anger, sadness, fear and happiness.  Helpers can use many different words to identify feelings in these 4 categories, and it is helpful to select vocabulary that is comfortable to the client.  Helpers need to select feeling words that convey the same intensity as the client’s statement.

R ESPONDING VERBALLY AND NON - VERBALLY  Developing an awareness of one’s own verbal and nonverbal cognitive and affective messages as well as those of helpees is an important step in learning how to be an effective helper.  Helpers must be skilled in responsive listening (attending and responding to the verbal and non-verbal messages, and the apparent and underlying thoughts and feelings of helpee.  Responsive listening implies that the helper is able to communicate his or her genuine understanding (empathy), acceptance and concern for the helpee.  Responsive listening helps clarify the helpee’s staments.  Helpers must be congruent in their verbal and nonverbal messages to prevent confusion for the helpee/client.  Helpers should try not to use “don’t worry” statement with helpee as this statement is not helpful, it does not help the helpee to increase their self understanding.

N ON - VERBAL RESPONDING  Nonverbal behaviour communicates warmth, understanding and attentiveness.  We must adapt our non-verbal behaviour to our clients‘/helpee’s level of comfort.

V ERBAL RESPONDING  When we respond verbally we attempt to:  Communicate to helpee that we are truly hearing and understanding them and their perspective.  We communicate our ability to help.  To increase the client/helpee’s self understanding and self exploration.  To be more effective in our response we need to learn about language and behaviours of our clients/helpee that are culture specific.  Responding verbally helps you develop the ability to generate additive facilitative responses. This form of responsive listening is in the 1 st stage of the helping relationship.  Responses that do not pertain at all to the client's message are subtractive or non-facilitative.

A DVANCED VERBAL RESPONSE SKILLS  After you have learned to recognise facilitative and non-facilitative responses, you begin to develop patterns of verbal responding that are congruent with the type of issues involved and the stages of the helping relationships. Ten of the most commonly used kinds of verbal response are the micro skill of : 1. Making minimal verbal response: “mmm”, “I see” 2. Paraphrasing: restate the clients’ words ( interchangeable response) 3. Reflecting: we can reflect stated or implied feelings, what we observed non-verbally or what we feel has been omitted or emphasised. 4. Using questions: the kind of questions you ask the client can vary, helpers can use open-ended or close- ended questions and reflective questions. However sometimes asking questions can be distancing. 5. Clarifying: this is an attempt to focus on or understand the basic nature of the helpee’s statement.

C OMMUNICATION SKILLS 1. Interpreting: this occurs when the helper adds something to the client’s statement or tries to help the client understand his or her underlying feelings. 2. Confronting: you provide the helpee with honest feedback about what is really going on. (Eg. feel you really don’t want to talk about, it seems to me…,on the other hand you s 3. Informing: share objective and factual information. 4. Summarizing: by summarising the helper synthesise what has been communicated during the helping session. Summary is also some form of clarification. 5. Processing the relationship: by commenting on what is happening here and now within the helping relationship.

T HE FOLLOWING ARE GUIDELINES WHEN USING VERBAL RESPONSES. 1. Phrase your responses in the same vocabulary helpee uses. 2. Speak slowly enough so that the helpee understand each word. 3. Use concise statements 4. Help the client stay focused on the relevant issue at hand 5. Talk directly to the client/ helpee 6. Reflect your own feelings to the client and allow the client to reject, accept or modify your messages. 7. Encourage the client to talk about his/her own feelings. 8. Time your own response so that you facilitate not block communication. 9. Be aware of cultural differences in the helpee preference for and response to helper intervention.

C OMMUNICATION SKILLS Silence  This is a powerful skill that most first time helpers often find difficult, uncomfortable and scary.  Saying nothing in response to helpee statements is a necessary and important technique for helpers. Here are some important points to keep in mind when using silence:  Remind yourself that what seem like hours is probably just a few seconds.  Be aware of and reduce anxiety in response to the silence so that you can focus on the helpee not feel inner pressure to break the silence.  Remind yourself that therapeutic work can be done during silence  Do not stare at your client during silence  Try to understand what your client is experiencing.

C ONCLUSION ON CHAPTER 3  Communication skills are the fundamental basis of the helping relationship and can be learned.  Communication skills can be practiced in many different formats.  Helpers need to develop their own style of non-verbal and verbal communication behaviours that are effective as well as conveying responsive listening skills.  Not only is responsive listening essential to establishing rapport and attending to the helpee's verbal and  nonverbal messages, but it is also helpful in identifying and clarifying the helpee’s underlying concerns.