The Basics of Active Listening and Their Outcomes in a Health Center Setting - Term Paper Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2013 Introduction The best way to boost our positive effect on people is to cultivate empathy for them and understand them through listening effectively. While Rothwell (2010,Pp.159) argues that active listening is the tenet of an effective communication, this does not mean that one spend the entire time listening to what people have to say neither does it mean the popular notion of passive listening. As such, active listening implies applying sensitive listening to any information worth listening to. Sensitive listening is never inherent but it is a learnable skill that all individuals ought to acquire. Active listening calls for observation, understanding, analyzation and evaluation of the said information to realize the actual message content and act accordingly. It also means avoiding any form of distraction to listening (either personal or external). This paper therefore intends to explore the fundamentals of active listening and their consequences in a health centre setting. As argued by Greene et.al (2012), therapeutic and effective communication is basically a fundamental in patient-centered and patient-directed care. Such fundamentals of active listening as further argued by Klane (2012, Pp. 6) include attending, observing, questioning, paraphrasing and summarizing and reflection of feeling. Attending Giving attention to patient is vital. This requires maintaining good eye contact to note the different meaningful body movements that the patient exposes including body posture and facial expressions. Related to attention is the capability to asses the conversational tone through paying attention to vocal quality. This helps the practitioners understand the patient’s feelings through their words. Cassedy (2010, Pp. 94) cited that different conditions and feelings of the patient make them change their vocal qualities acting as a form of communication. Medical practitioners also through paying attention are able to verbal-track patients as they tend to be inconsistent in their talks while expressing their position. It requires a non-distracting environment for the care-giver to comprehend the body movements, vocal quality and inconsistency in talking. An attentive medical practitioner avoids communication barriers including assumptions. For instance, a psychotic patient exhibits many body movements, as well as inconsistency in talking while communicating (Rosa-Alcázar, et al, 2008, Pp. 1315). As such, the practitioner should not disregard them based on the notion that patients of particular conditions behave in a particular manner, but should instead understand each individual patient and know that they all behave differently to communicate (Cassedy, 2010, Pp. 85-105). Observation Objective observation is the basis of getting information from patients. According to Gherr & Eimer (2011, Pp.837) observation is the critical study of an object behaviour through observation where the patient is the case study while the practitioners are the observers. Naturally congruency in communication shows a state of assonance in mind whereas non-congruency in communication exhibits dissonance and therefore should be noted by the practitioner. This means that the patients may be hiding their true situations and they should be helped appreciate the reality. Non-congruent communications is always common in old-aged patients since they often get bored. Their emotions do not usually match their verbal confessions regarding their true conditions. Body postures, facial expressions may some times contrast with their verbal communication which should always raise alarm to the practitioners (Giesecke & McNeil, 2010). The appearance of this contradiction in communication also highlights the effect/impact of the services that the patient gets from the practitioners. This calls for the practitioner to persuade the patient to communicate the real information hence better attention applied. This can be a basis to asses the effectiveness of the practitioner’s skills leading to change for the better. (Gherr & Eimer, 201I, Pp. 832-844) Questioning Effective questioning is an art of effective listening aimed at getting extra information in case of miscommunication. Effective understanding of the message is very integral to effective functioning (Jagosh (2011, Pp. 370). For medical practitioners to get information from the patients, they need to be skilful questioners who start with open-ended questions allowing a wide scope of responses and thereafter closed-ended questions to confirm the said information (Jagosh, 2011, Pp. 372). The listener should not interrupt the patient while answering questions to acquire all the useful information. The practitioner should appear interested in knowing more from the patient. They should also respond while staying on target thus helping stimulate the patient to talk more and therefore having a better understanding of the genesis of the patient’s problem. To emphasize cooperation from the patient, the questioning should be patient-centered and he/she should be given all the attention required through maintaining eye contact, nodding, small facial expressions and occasionally echoing the words uttered to show approval. Listening requires efforts combined with real honest desire to understand. This helps the patient to gain confidence and trust, hence developing a healthy relationship crucial to general recovery of the patient. (Jagosh, 2011, Pp. 369-374) Paraphrasing and summarizing As argued by Huerta-Wong & Schoech (2010, Pp. 89), paraphrasing restates the patient’s information using different word versions and therefore usually done to confirm the patient’s information. Summarizing, on the other hand, involves reiteration of the major highlight of the patient’s discussion. Summarizing and paraphrasing helps practitioners review the overall progress of discussion between the patient and medical officers while also making sense of the said information through realizing the overall theme. In both techniques the patient’s problems are well understood and are ready for analyzation. It thus becomes a measure of testing whether one understood the real situation explained by the patient, as a way of verbal tracking. It is credible for the practitioner to ensure that the patient’s communication is the actual interpretation to create an environment where patients feel comfortable and free to express their concerns to some one who is really listening to them. Paraphrasing and summarizing further helps to prevent repetition while keeping patients on track. Always the practitioner should use a question or a phrase at the end in order to clarify patient’s information. For example, the practitioner can ask “am I hearing that correctly?” (Huerta-Wong & Schoech (2010, Pp 85-101) Reflection of feelings As an active listening tactic, Carl (2012) states that reflection is empathetic in nature and is used in helping the speaker deal with problems. The listener (the health officer) tries to clarify and restate what the person (patient) is actually saying. It has three-fold merit including increasing the listener’s understanding of the patient, helping the patient clarify their thoughts and reassuring the patient that someone is willing to attend to his/her point of view and offer the necessary support. To do this, reflective listening requires more listening than talking, responding to what is personal rather than impersonal, restating and clarifying the patients’ communication, not criticizing the patients’ responses and trying to understand the feeling coined in the words.Similarly,the practitioner should respond with acceptance and empathy ( Pachet ,2010, Pp.135). As cited by Carl (2012), developing empathy stimulates building up of the patients’ encouraging them to give all they have in mind hence initiating the healing process. Statements such as “wow, it is interesting! Can you tell me some more?”, act as encouragers.Therefore, reflective listening does not only help the listener get more information but also strengthens the relationship between the patient and the health officer (Carl 2012). Self assessment of active listening skills My active listening skills are good but not better. Usually I keep an open mind about a speaker’s point of view but I do not mentally analyze the speaker’s ideas. Usually people do not tell me when am not concentrating on what they are saying an I don’t evaluate what a person is saying until he or she is done speaking after which I give my opinion after evaluating the whole information. Usually when I meet a group conversing I don’t jump in and present my views but I rather wait and risk forgetting what I hard to say but first familiarize myself enough with the topic of discussions. While we are conversing with others I usually have a tendency of using communication encouragers like nodding and verbal persuasion so that I can hear more. On the other hand, I have several weaknesses which includes being fed up listening to those who are not humorous when they speak, also switching on to another idea at will if somebody delays in giving a response because I interpret the action as ignorance and also on a heated debate I normally finish up statements said by others. Conclusion Active listening generally entails building a rapport, understanding and trust among people. It is the gateway of good relationship in work places, social life and in the home setting. In schools it is the basis of learning and effective skills acquisition. As seen earlier sensitive listening requires efforts and time since it involves understanding the real meaning of what one has to say. The normal busy lives and multitasking that people involve in should not be done at the expense of active listening. No one is perfect in active listening therefore it calls for constant polishing and learning of the best active listening skills. Consequently, active listening has fundamental skills which include attention, questioning where necessary so as to understand, objective observation and maintaining eye contact. One should also embrace paraphrasing and summarizing as well as reflection of feeling. All the road blocks of active listening should be avoided. Bibliography Carl R, 2012, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. New York Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers Cassedy, Ps, 2010, First Steps in Clinical Supervision: A Guide for Healthcare Professionals. New York: McGraw-Hill International publishers; pp 84-105 Giesecke J., McNeil, B., 2010, Fundamentals of Library Supervision. New York: American Library Association publishers Gherr, E & Eimer,M. ,2011, Active Listening Impairs Visual Perception and Selectivity: An ERP Study of Auditory Dual-task Costs on Visual Attention, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Vol. 23, No. 4, Pages 832-844 Greene, S.M, Tuzzio, L & Cherkin, D, 2012, A Framework for Making Patient-Centered Care Front and Center, Permanente Journal, 16(3): 49–53. Huerta-Wong, J & Schoech, R, 2010, Environments: The Case of Active Listening Skills, Journal of Social Work Education Vol 46, (1), pp 85-101 Jagosh, J. et.al, 2011, The Importance of Physician Listening from the Patients’ Perspective: Enhancing Diagnosis, Healing, and the Doctor–patient Relationship, Journal of Patient Education and Counseling, Vol 85 (3) Pp.369–374. Klane, J, 2012, Passive vs. Active Communication, The Communicator, Vol. 4 No. (2), Pp.2-16 Pachet, P, 2010,The Future of Content is in Ourselves. The Future of Content is in Ourselves, IOS Press, Pp.133-158. Rosa-Alcázar, A. et al., 2008, Psychological Treatment of Obsessive–compulsive Disorder: A Meta-analysis, Clinical Psychology Review, Vol 28 (8) pp1310–1325 Rothwell, D, 2010, In the Company of Others: An Introduction to Communication. New York: Oxford University Press, Pp.157–166. Read More