(90) The Basics of Active/Mindful Listening: Bringing in our Values

Abstract: This presentation will focus on mindful/active listening as a vital skill for all clinicians to help cultivate client well-being. With increased awareness of chosen and defined values, clinicians can enhance the connection they make with clients and families while engaging in active listening opportunities. Empathetic listening, the psychology behind listening, and some neurological finders about active listening will be discussed. Practical and functional strategies for therapists to engage in listening in order to create effective communication between clients, families, and SLPs will be shown. Finally, vignettes will be presented and discussed to illustrate motivations and biases while listening.

Summary of Presentation : One of the skills that every SLP needs to be an effective service provider for clients and families with communication disorders is active/mindful listening. This skill can be practiced to enhance a client's well-being.

The first step to developing active/mindful listening skills is being aware of what values you, as the clinician, brings to the therapy room. Values can be seen “how we want to behave; how we want to treat ourselves, other people, and the world around us (Harris, 2019, p. 213). To provide service to individuals and families we need to explore what components within each of us create a value. Harris (2019) helps us with the following three components: 1) values are how we want to behave overtly and covertly on a continuous basis, 2) are global in nature, which means values can unite different actions related to a specific hobby or occupation, 3) values are desired, which means they are “how you want to behave” (214). Speech-Language Pathologists can identify these chosen values with a values checklist, which includes but not limited to: adventure, caring, fairness, fun and humor, honesty, respect, and trust.

One of the greatest values we can use with active/mindful listening is empathy. Empathetic listening “is the feeling the other person’s feelings. It’s like going onto their island and experiencing their reality, rather than staying on your home turf and filtering what they say through your reality” (Treasures, p. 152).

Luterman (2017) showed the importance of listening to clients when he wrote, “All we need to do is listen deeply to our clients; we validate their experience through our nonjudgmental listening” (p. 8). The basic principles of mindfulness are examining the present moment on purpose and without judgment (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). By becoming mindful with our listening skills, we can impact not only the well-being of clients and families, but we can add “to the richness of your reality and enhancing your well-being, effectiveness and happiness” (Treasures, 2017, p.134).
Treasures (2017) wrote that active listening “involves intention, focus, reflection and summarizing” (p. 150). Treasures further discussed Conscious Listening with FOUR Cs (p. 161 - 162): commitment, consciousness, compassion (or care), and curiosity. Others, like Maliszewski (2017), defined active listening as “suspending our own beliefs and what we think we know, and immersing ourselves in the others' story.” Yates (2004) further wrote that active listening can help us “gain more information, improve your understanding of other points of view, and work cooperatively” (p.1).
Kemper (1992) suggested that listening is a psychological and sensory experience where a person’s entire body gets involved. Treasures wrote perceptions of listening “happens between our ears” (p.111), referring to brain functioning, which Maliszewski said “activates the brain’s mirror neuron system.” Activating mirrors is “linked with our ability to be empathetic, understand others actions, and learn.” Further neurological studies by Kawamachi, et al. (2015) posited that actively listening activates reward centers in the brain which suggests that if SLPs practice active and mindful listening a client’s brain might perceive the experiences as a reward.

Pickering (1986) created a list of Empathic Listening behaviors:
1. Attending, acknowledging. Providing verbal or non-verbal awareness of the other, i.e., eye contact.
2. Restating, paraphrasing. Responding to a person's basic verbal message.
3. Reflecting. Reflecting feelings, experiences, or content that has been heard or perceived through cues.
4. Interpreting. Offering a tentative interpretation about the other's feelings, desires, or meanings.
5. Summarizing, synthesizing. Bringing together in some way feelings and experiences; providing a focus.
6. Probing. Questioning in a supportive way that requests more information or that attempts to clear up confusions.
7. Giving feedback. Sharing perceptions of the other's ideas or feelings; disclosing relevant personal information.
8. Supporting. Showing warmth and caring in one's own individual way.
9. Checking perceptions. Finding out if interpretations and perceptions are valid and accurate.
10. Being quiet. Giving the other time to think as well as to talk.

Procedures
This session will be partially experiential in nature in order to provide critical content and go through a few exercises to develop awareness of chosen values and help clinicians better understand listening skills. Individual and small group activities will be followed by large group debriefings/discussions, so that participants can ask questions and learn from each other. Presenters will also include examples to demonstrate perspectives of listening to enhance learning content presented. At the end, presenters will discuss some ways to practice active-mindful listening skills to deepen a clinician’s ability to connect and thus service an individual with a communication disorder.

References
Harris, R. (2019). ACT Made Simple: A quick to ACT basics and beyond (2nd Edition). New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003) Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144-156.

Kawamachi, H., Yoshihara, K., Sasaki, A., Sugawara, S., Tanabe, H., Shinohara, R., Sugasama, Y., Tokutake, K., Mochizuki, Y., Anme, T., & Sadato, N. (2015). Perceiving Active listening activates the reward system and improves the impression of relevant experiences. Social Neuroscience, 10(1), 16-26.

Kemper, B. (1992). Therapeutic listening: Developing the concept. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 30 (7), 21-23.

Luterman, D. (2017). Counseling Persons with communication disorders and their families (6th Ed.) Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Maliszewski, J. (2017, October). The art and science of listening. A blog on Vault Associates, retrieved from https://vaultassociates.com/2017/10/the-art-and-science-of-listening/

Pickering, M. (1986). Communication in EXPLORATIONS. Journal of Research of the University of Maine, 3 (1), pp 16-19.

Treasures, J. (2017). How to be heard: Secrets for powerful speaking and listening. Coral Gables, FL: Mango Publishing.

Yates, J. MIT Sloan Communication program; Teaching notes. Retrieved 3/20/2019 http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/55898/15-281Spring2004/NR/rdonlyres/Sloan-School-of-Management/15-281Spring2004/369F673A-374C-42F8-8C42-F917567010C1/0/yates_listen.pdf