love LIFE/uncut: Listen Up! Enrich Your Relationships Through Active Listening

By Jennifer L. Huget

You probably think you're a pretty good listener. But unless you've studied the tenets of a process known as "active listening," you might be missing a lot.

Active listening calls for the listener to devote his full attention to the speaker, to genuinely care what the other person's saying and to encourage the speaker to keep talking.

It's the polar opposite of what most of us do every day, according to Virginia-based psychologist Elliott Jaffa, Ph.D.
"Active listening is like learning another language," explains Jaffa, who says most people are far more interested in what they themselves have to say rather than what others are saying to them.

"The opposite of listening," he explains, "is waiting." Instead of listening carefully, many people subconsciously send the message "I want you to hurry up and shut up so I can talk."

And while waiting for their turn to speak, people often don't pay attention to what others are saying. "They're too busy organizing what they're going to say," Jaffa explains.

Proponents of active listening say it can improve all sorts of relationships. Husbands and wives, parents and children, students and teachers, doctors and patients, and employees and bosses (and fellow employees) all can benefit from paying closer attention to what each other says as well as from using active listening as a means of showing respect to one another.

Why listening isn't always easy

Learning to listen well can be challenging, says Judi Brownell, Ph.D., former president of the River Falls, Wisc.-based International Listening Association and the author of two books on listening: Listening: Attitudes, Principles, and Skills (Allyn & Bacon, 3rd edition, 2005) and Building Active Listening Skills (Prentice Hall, 1986).

"The listener may struggle at first because so many of us have spent years focusing on getting our own messages across rather than on fully understanding someone else," she says. Active listening also "requires that the individual do something with what he or she hears."

"It begins with focused attention to the speaker and extends to comprehension, interpretation and evaluation of the message," says Brownell. "Remembering what is heard and responding appropriately are also included in the active listening process."

Active listening basics

In most instances, active listening consists of a few deceptively simple techniques:

Offering encouragement by nodding or saying "uh-huh" or "I see"
Restating the basic ideas, using terms such as "If I understand you correctly, ..." or "So what you're saying is ..."
Reflecting on the feelings that the speaker is trying to convey: "Seems like that bothered you a lot ..."
Summarizing the speaker's key ideas

Brownell says such a structured approach serves several purposes. "It allows the speaker to hear the message as interpreted by the listener and to adjust it if it has been misunderstood or is incomplete. It also prevents the listener from becoming judgmental, so that the speaker is free to express him/herself without becoming defensive," she says.

"The active listening response encourages the speaker to continue speaking," Brownell adds. "This type of listening is empowering because the speaker's thoughts and feelings are reflected and reaffirmed, providing a safe and supportive context."

At first, active listening techniques can seem stilted and artificial. But with practice, experts agree that you can learn to incorporate active listening skills seamlessly into your everyday conversations.
"Active listening is a learned behavior, but it's something anyone can learn," Jaffa says.

More tips

Jaffa offers these additional tips for becoming a proactive listener:

Shut up. Stop talking.
Cheat. Pick up a pencil and paper and take notes.
Sit down with the person. Say, "Let's sit down and talk." This shows that what the person is saying is important.
Be aware of your body language and facial expressions. If you keep looking over the speaker's shoulder to see who else is in the room, the speaker won't think that you're listening.
Ask open-ended questions — and ask questions that will elicit the information you want to know.
Ask for clarification. It's OK to say you're not sure what the speaker has said and to ask him to repeat himself.
Paraphrase. Repeat the main ideas back to the speaker. But don't interrupt — wait until the speaker's finished their thought.