Lesson 7: Reflection of Feeling


Attention

Helping our clients get in touch with, and understand their emotions is a primary function of the counseling process!

In preparation for this Lesson, read Chapter 7 in your textbook


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Contrast Paraphrasing and Reflecting Feeling
  • Demonstrate the ability to identify the emotions a person may be experiencing
  • Describe why an exploration of feelings is important in the counseling process

Teaching

Reading

Chapter 7: Observing and Reflecting Feeling

Feelings...

It seems to be the catch term in counseling..."How do you feel about that?"

Why such the emphasis on "feelings"? I'll give you a hint...consider the word "Emotion"...look at the roots of the word..."Motion", "Motive", "Motivation"...so what makes us MOVE???

Getting to Feelings

We want to assist our clients in getting to know their emotional world. By understanding their emotional world they can understand the forces that motivate them and unmotivate them to take action to bring about change.

Often emotions are conflicted as well...they might be feeling more than one feeling at the same time about the same thing!! This can feel "crazy" and scary.

Approaching Feelings

We approach feelings with the same tentative care that we approached Paraphrasing...we want to be sure that we are on the same page as our clients so when we attempt to identify the feelings we want to check to see if we are right.

If we see, for instance, a discrepancy between what someone is SAYING that they feel, and their ACTIONS or EXPRESSIONS we want to explore this carefully.

Why we DON'T want to explore Feelings

It is scary to open these "cans of worms". Sometimes we want to steer away from the expressions not to suppress them but to ensure that the person has enough supports should all these feelings come tumbling out! It is irresponsible to open up all these wounds and them simply walk away...session done!

So we are careful...like a rhino in a china store with boxing gloves on...go slow, carefully, and try not to break anything!


Assessment

Lesson 7 Discussion

Talking about feelings is often confused with talking about what someone "thinks" about something. Feelings are raw and volatile (meaning subject to change). We tend to stay in the "head" and not make it down to the "heart". Describe 2 different situations in which you might be reluctant to actually talk about the feelings that someone is having. Is it hard for you to talk about fear, or dread, or depression...what about anger?