International interviewing and counseling 9th ivey chapter 04

Intentional Interviewing and
Counseling:
Facilitating Client Development in a
Multicultural Society
9th Edition

Allen E. Ivey

Mary Bradford Ivey

Carlos P. Zalaquett

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Chapter 4

Observation
Skills

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Chapter Goals and Competency
Objectives (slide 1 of 2)
Awareness and Knowledge
▲ Understand nonverbal behavior. How do you and your clients
behave nonverbally?
▲ Note verbal behavior. How do you and your clients use language?
▲ Recognize discrepancies and conflict. Much of counseling and
psychotherapy is about working through conflict and coping with the

inevitable stressful incongruities we all face.
▲ Learn about abstract versus concrete language. Where is the client
on the “abstraction ladder”?
▲ Understand varying individual and cultural ways of verbal and
nonverbal expression.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Chapter Goals and Competency
Objectives (slide 2 of 2)
Skills and Action
▲See, hear, and feel the client’s world.
▲Flex intentionally when working with diverse
clients, and avoid stereotyping your
observations.
▲Observe your impact on the client: How does
what you say change or relate to the client’s
behavior?
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Introduction: Are You a Good
Observer? (slide 1 of 2)
▲Observation is the act of watching carefully and
intentionally with the purpose of understanding
behavior.
▲Mastering this skill takes time and practice.
▲Helps to get to know clients and what is
conveyed by their verbal and nonverbal behavior.
▲Facilitates establishment of a working

relationship.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Introduction: Are You a Good
Observer? (slide 2 of 2)
Observation Skills: Observe your
Anticipated Client Response:
own and the client’s verbal and
Observations provide specific
nonverbal behavior. Anticipate
data validating or invalidating
individual and multicultural
what is happening in the session.
differences in nonverbal and
Also, they provide guidance for
verbal behavior. Carefully and
the use of various microskills and
selectively feed back some herestrategies. The smoothly flowing
and-now observations to the
session will often demonstrate
client as topics for exploration.
movement symmetry or
complementarity. Movement
dyssnchrony provides a clear clue
that you are not “in tune” with the
client.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills:
Principles for Observation
A good place to start is by noticing your own way of being.
▲ Take a brief inventory of your own nonverbal style.
 You might begin by thinking back to your natural style of
attending, but expand those self-observations.
 Make a video of you talking with someone about a topic on
which you agree.

▲ What is your interpersonal style? What do you notice
and how might it affect your relationships with others?
▲ Write your observations and then compare what you find
with later examination of your own videos and feedback
that you obtain from others.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Nonverbal Behavior (slide 1 of 6)
▲ Nonverbal behavior is often the first clue to what clients
are feeling underneath the language they use.
▲ While listening to a client’s story, we need to be
constantly aware of how he or she reacts to what we say
—both verbally and nonverbally.
▲ Your ability to observe will help you anticipate and
understand what is happening with your client.
 Be careful to watch for individual and cultural differences.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Nonverbal Behavior (slide 2 of 6)
Facial Expressions
▲ Smiling is a good indicator of warmth and caring.
 Important for developing relationships

▲ A client’s nonverbals give you important clues to what he
or she is experiencing and may include
 Brow furrowing; lips tightening or loosening; flushing; smiling at
inappropriate times; subtle color changes in the face as blood flow
reflects emotional reactions; breathing temporarily speeding up or
stopping; lips swelling; and pupils dilating or contracting.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Nonverbal Behavior (slide 3 of 6)
▲ Each culture has a different style of nonverbal
communication.
 Smiling is a sign of warmth in most cultures, but in some
situations, it may indicate discomfort. Patterns of eye contact
also vary by culture.

▲ Be careful not to assign to your clients your own ideas
about what is “standard” and appropriate nonverbal
communication.
▲ Study nonverbal communication patterns and their
variations.
▲ In a session, changes in style may be just as important as
or more important than finding specific meanings in

communication style.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Nonverbal Behavior (slide 4 of 6)
Body Language
People who are communicating well often “mirror” each other’s
body language. This is known as movement synchrony.
 Unconscious body movement synchrony has been discovered in neural
correlates and connectivity among and within specific brain regions.

▲ Movement complementarity refers to paired movements that
may not be identical but are still harmonious.
▲ Some experts deliberately “mirror” their clients.
▲ Matching body language, breathing rates, and key words of the client can
enhance the counselor’s understanding of how the client perceives and
experiences the world.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Nonverbal Behavior (slide 5 of 6)
Body Language
▲ Particularly important are discrepancies in nonverbal
behavior, or movement dyssynchrony.
▲ Watch for times when clients suddenly change posture.
▲ Lack of harmony in movement is common between
people who disagree markedly, even between those who
may not be aware they have subtle conflicts.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Nonverbal Behavior (slide 6 of 6)
Acculturation Issues in Nonverbal Behavior: Avoid
Stereotyping
▲ Acculturation is the degree to which an individual has
adapted to the norms or standard way of behaving in a
given culture.
▲ No two people will be acculturated to general standards
in the same way.
▲ Consider biculturality and multiculturality. Many of your
clients will have more than one significant community
cultural experience.
Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Verbal Behavior (slide 1 of 6)
▲ Counseling and psychotherapy theory and practice
have an almost infinite array of verbal frameworks
within which to examine the session.
▲ Three dimensions useful for direct verbal observation in
the session:
1. Key words
2. Concreteness versus abstractions
3. “I” statements versus “other” statements

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Verbal Behavior (slide 2 of 6)

Key Words
▲ Note clients’ key words and help them explore the facts,
feelings, and meanings underlying those words.
▲ Key descriptive words are often the constructs by which
a client organizes the world; these words may reveal
underlying meanings.
▲ Joining clients by using their key words facilitates your
understanding and communication with them.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Verbal Behavior (slide 3 of 6)
Concreteness Versus Abstraction

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Verbal Behavior (slide 4 of 6)
Concreteness Versus Abstraction
▲ Match client’s style and join client where he or she is.
▲ Help abstract clients become more concrete.
 “Could you give me an example?”

▲ Help concrete clients become more abstract and pattern
oriented.
 Best effected by a conscious effort to listen to their sometimes
lengthy stories very carefully.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Verbal Behavior (slide 5 of 6)
“I” Statements and “Other” Statements
▲ Clients’ ownership of and responsibility for issues will
often be shown in their “I” and “other” statements.
▲ May be predominately positive or negative.
▲ Need to achieve a balance between internal and external
responsibility for life issues.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Verbal Behavior (slide 6 of 6)
“I” and “Other” Statements
▲ Consider multicultural differences in the use of the word
“I.”
 English is one of the few languages in which “I” is
capitalized.
 Vietnamese has no reference to “I”.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Discrepancies, Mixed Messages,
and Conflict (slide 1 of 4)
Examples of Conflict Internal to the Client
▲ Discrepancies in Verbal Statements. In a single
sentence, a client may express two contradictory ideas.
Aid the client in understanding his or her ambivalence.

▲ Discrepancies Between Statements and Nonverbal
Behavior. Discrepancies between what one says and
what one does are very important.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Discrepancies, Mixed Messages,
and Conflict (slide 2 of 4)
Examples of Conflicts Between the Client and the
External World
▲ Discrepancies and Conflict Between People. “I cannot
tolerate my neighbors.” Noting interpersonal conflict is a
key task of the counselor or psychotherapist.
▲ Discrepancies Between a Client and a Situation. In
such situations, the client’s ideal world is often
incongruent with reality. Discrimination, heterosexism,
sexism, and ableism represent situational discrepancies.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Discrepancies, Mixed Messages,
and Conflict (slide 3 of 4)
Discrepancies in Goals
▲ Goal setting is an important part of the empathic
relationship-story and strengths-goals-restory-action
model.
▲ You will often find that a client seeks incompatible goals.

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Discrepancies, Mixed Messages,
and Conflict (slide 4 of 4)
Discrepancies Between You and the Client
 Be aware when your perspective conflicts with that of your client.

Discrepancies between:
▲ Verbal and nonverbal messages
▲ Ethnic/cultural experiences
▲ Gender/age differences
▲ Learning/personality styles and approaches

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Action: Key Points and Practice of
Observation Skills
▲ Importance of Observation
▲ Nonverbal Behavior
▲ Verbal Behavior
▲ Discrepancies
▲ Multicultural Issues
▲ Mirroring
▲ Concreteness Versus Abstraction

Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.