The Science of Active Listening
When you bottle up your feelings, regardless of the reason, it frequently leads to depression. It is necessary to communicate to feel ok. Communication requires two or more people: one talker and one listener. Surprisingly, between listening and talking, listening is certainly the more difficult of the two tasks.
Some people seem to be born natural listeners. Perhaps it is genetic, or they had good role models as children. Regardless, everyone can learn the necessary skills to be a top listener if they put their mind to it.
There are three communication skills that I frequently teach couples who come to me for marriage counseling. They are called mirror listening, intentional validation, and curious questions. When mastered and used effectively, these three skills are the primary tools of a good listener. Even though they are taught and can be practiced formally and seemingly artificially, they can ultimately be used as an integral part of the casual day-to-day conversation.
MIRROR LISTENING
Mirror listening is the single most important communication tool. It can turn a troubled relationship around in a very short time. Mirror listening can diffuse pent-up anger and generate positive emotional feelings.
- With your partner, select one person to be a talker and the other to be an active listener.
- When first learning how to do this, the talker should talk about neutral and simple subjects, like shopping, the weather, or friends. Later, after you are more skilled, you can move on to subjects that trigger stronger feelings like future hopes, past trauma, major disappointments, etc.
- The talker should begin a statement with “I” and talk only about themself. The statements should be simple and brief. For example, “I am tired of all the rain we have been getting. I really look forward to some sunny days.” When we use I and talk about ourselves, it allows the listener to listen without getting defensive.
- After hearing the message, the active listener attempts to repeat in their own words what they heard. The listener is not to agree, disagree, explain, or make any personal contribution to the statement that was heard. Just like a mirror that adds nothing to a reflection, the message should be accurately returned, even though it may be summarized. For example, the active listener responds, “What I heard you say was,” and summarizes what they heard. To be sure they got it, they can then say, “Is that it?” The talker acknowledges with a yes or positive nod that the message was returned accurately or, if not, repeats it until it comes back acceptable.
- After about 5 or 10 minutes, switch roles. Ensure with the talker that they are finished and ready to switch roles or stop. You can tackle more delicate and sensitive issues as you get good at this.
Here is a sample dialogue of mirror listening:
T (talker)- I am really upset with my boss.
AL (active listener)- Your boss is upsetting you.
T- Yes, he talks down to me like I am a child.
AL- He makes you feel like a child.
T- I get so frustrated.
AL- This makes you very frustrated.
INTENTIONAL VALIDATION
This skill builds trust and love. The talker feels the active listener is making a sincere effort to understand.
- After you and your partner have spent a few minutes using “mirror listening,” try this. After the talker has completed a topic of concern, the listener can make the following concluding summary, “After hearing what you have said, it makes sense.” This statement validates your partner, even though you may or may not agree. With this statement, you respect your partner’s right to have their own beliefs and feelings.
- The active listener can say, “After hearing all this, I imagine you must be feeling…” And the active listener takes an educated guess. Then the active listener says, “Is that right?” The talker either confirms the listener’s accuracy or provides the missing information about their feelings.
Here is a sample of intentional validation dialogue:
AL- What you are telling me about your boss makes sense. This must really make you frustrated and irritated.
T- Yes, and it also makes me angry.
AL- It also makes you angry.
CURIOUS QUESTIONS
Another important skill is being able to coax someone to open up and talk. Frequently, people are silent because they don’t know how to begin or feel their partner is not interested, even though they may be. People can be frozen silent because of years of not being heard. A simple technique to break the ice is what I call curious questions. This is a very deliberate technique to get words flowing again. Curious questions means simply asking questions. It may be simple, but it is not necessarily easy. Asking curious questions has two challenges: making sure it is really a question, not a statement or judgment disguised as a question, and continuing with another question, not a statement.
A curious question is just that, you want to learn something. However, questions can be indirect statements, judgments, and criticism. For example:
If a husband says to his wife, “Why did you buy another dress?” with an angry voice and a menacing facial expression, he certainly is not curious and desiring to learn something. He is saying that he is angry his wife bought a new dress.
Successfully getting someone to talk requires repeating gentle and sensitive questions. Only in this way will the future talker believe you are sincere and truly interested. Therefore, one must guard against positive or negative comments when your partner is answering. If not, they may then stop talking. Rather, just make summary remarks indicating you are listening as learned in mirror listening.
One way to avoid questions that are statements, judgments, and criticism is by limiting the use of the word why. Rather, use how, what, or when when starting a question. For example, “What made you decide to buy another dress?” rather than “Why did you buy another dress?” which could be interpreted in various ways, some negative.
For example, some curious questions might be:
AL- How was work?
T- OK
AL- What did you eat for lunch?
T- I went out to eat with a group of co-workers. I ate a burger and fries.
AL- Do you go out very often to eat?
T- We go out together every Tuesday. The boss picks up the tab. It’s great to get out of the office and socialize occasionally.
The most important thing concerning relationships is not the content of the dialogue but the process. Content is the conveying of information. Content is important when teaching. Information must be passed from the teacher to the student. Building and maintaining a warm and loving relationship is not how much or how brilliant or correct the information you give your spouse is but how you do it. The process creates feelings. The feelings that communication generates will make or break a relationship.
In general, your wife likes to be heard and validated. She wants to know that her feelings are acceptable to her partner. Frequently, this is the sole goal of their conversing. Your husband, on the other hand, tends to like to fix and solve things. If there is a problem, then let’s fix it. Therefore, he tends to give well-intended advice. She frequently doesn’t appreciate this advice because it feels like she is being accused of incompetence.
Frequently, your husband likes to mull things over by himself, trying to figure out what to do. They don’t appreciate their wife, who tries to help by getting him to talk about it. He can experience this as being insensitive and emotionally overwhelming.
Both husband and wife need to be mindful of who they are talking to.
However, male and female tendencies are only generalizations. Frequently, these stereotypes are off the mark. Some men just want to share their feelings, and some women like to solve things. Certainly, all people have both needs depending on their mood and the circumstances.
We enhance our relationships with our spouses, children, friends, or extended family by using active listening. In turn, we positively benefit from our efforts.
In the Jewish classical text of ethics, Perkei Avos, advises that you should always strive to be the first to greet another person. One of the reasons people need to be told to greet first is the natural tendency toward arrogance, which precludes acknowledging someone else’s importance. Therefore, you are instructed to exercise humility and greet first despite this. To greet someone is not limited to being the first to say good morning. Greeting first is also understood as a lesson that teaches the importance of acknowledging another person’s worth and their right to have ideas and feelings, i.e., to be a person in the fullest sense. This can only be accomplished by skilled listening. You call it active listening or something else.
