Lesson 3: Attending Behavior Attention Our clients should never have to work THIS hard to get our attention! Think of this as well...many times "GETTING ATTENTION" is the identified cause of student disruption in elementary school...or so the teachers sometimes say...well, if that is true, why do the students need to go to such heroic measures to get attention? Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:
Teaching Paying Attention Have you ever tried having a conversation with someone who was not attending to you? They were distracted, not making eye contact? How did you know they were not attending? What did you do? In our busy lives we can sometimes fail to attend to what is going on around us...add to this the alure of technology and our ability to remain "connected"...but what are we connected to? What is the effect of all this technology around us on our ability to attend to what is going on? As counselors we develop a comfortable "vigilance" as to the behavior of our client. It does not read as clearly as words, but they are taken into consideration when we work with clients. We attend to:
Under certain circumstances we need to pay very special attention to behavior:
Becoming a Samurai As we develop these skills we become like Samurai, focused and attentive to the moment. This has a profound impact on the way our clients respond to us. This is PLANNED...this is what we want.
As we develop our skills:
What do we attend to? Careful about this one...we can lead clients by attending only to things that WE think are relevant. While this is part of our training, we need to recognize that clients are motivated to please us and when we give subtle cues that it is OK to talk about some things and less OK to talk about others, we may miss things. Empathy Carl Rogers is the one who brought empathy to the forefront of our awareness.
Empathy is like Rewards and Punishments - it is assessed by it's effects. If a client is "resistant" maybe YOU are not being empathetic enough? Assessment Lesson 3 Quiz For this quiz I want you to engage a significant other in a discussion. The topic can be about anything you wish to talk about. In this conversation I want you to be very attentive as to the body cues you are receiving from the person. At some time during the conversation, when they are trying to tell you something, make an effort to be distracted and "not listen". (Be sure to continue attending to body cues.) After a short time the individual may become irritated so be ready to stop the experiment and tell them what you are doing! Ask them how it felt to be "not listened to."
Lesson 3 Discussion For this discussion you are going to record yourself providing reflection of feeling making observations. In this particular video you are going to conduct a session, but you are going to interrupt the process to point out things that you are observing. You need to have a willing "client" who can play the role well while you do this! This particular assignment might be best to do face-to-face with someone...the iPad can be looking at the two of you, but then you can turn to the camera every once in a while to identify things that you are noticing. The final product will be quite disrupted by your frequent comments! Post a link to your video in the discussion board and explain what happened. Comment on each others' postings. You should note the following things as they occur:
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