The Veteran Supported Education Service Treatment Manual: VetSEd

Minimal encouragement – Short phrases to keep a conversation going: ―Tell me
more,‖ ―I see,‖ ―Really?‖ ―Go on.‖
Infrequent questions – Using open-ended questions when possible to offer the
speaker an opportunity to share as much information as s/he desires: ―What
happened when you visited that school? ―
Attentive silence – Gives the speaker time to think
Reflecting skills helps the speaker to clarify his/her communication so that s/he can get
his/her meaning across. To practice reflective listening is to serve as a mirror for the
person speaking. You can do this by:
Paraphrasing – Restate what the speaker has said in your own words
Reflecting feelings – Listen for feeling words and infer feelings from the overall
content
Reflecting meanings – Use the ―You feel _________ because
formula to pair feelings with message content.
________‖
Summarizing – Occasionally summarize the flow of conversation by saying for
example: ―One theme you come back to is...‖ or ―Let's review the ground we've
covered so far,‖ or ―As I‘ve been listening, your main concerns seem to be…‖
Exercise 1
Active Listening 1. Get a partner and have a 2 minute discussion about going to school. 1
person is the listener and the other person is the speaker. During this discussion, the
listener should use attending, following, and reflecting skills from above. Have the
speaker repeat the discussion so that the listener tries out each of these active listening
techniques. Switch roles and repeat. The goal of this exercise is to practice using active
listening skills and see how it influences the flow of a discussion.
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