Name of Strategy/Intervention
Listening in Couple and Family Therapy
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Introduction
Carl Rogers once described active listening as being “sensitive, empathetic, concentrated listening” (Rogers 1969). This type of listening is a cornerstone skill in client-centered therapy that involves nonverbal and verbal communication and is an important skill for therapists, as well as between clients (Miller and Rollnick 2013). Active listening is a basic therapeutic skill which when taught as a foundational competence increases therapist effectiveness and sense of efficacy (Baker et al. 1990; Levitt 2002). In comparison to other types of responses such as giving advice or acknowledgment, individuals who receive active listening report higher levels of satisfaction with the interaction and greater levels of feeling understood (Wagner et al. 2014).
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References
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Smith, A.D., Seiter, N., Quirk, K. (2018). Listening in Couple and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_190-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_190-1
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