Nondirective Feeling re, Nondirective re

Spontaneous rambling about distant family relations is often a sign that your client is avoiding more important personal issues. If so, do not use a clari?cation response, or any listening response, because to do so might reinforce this avoidance pattern.

Second, if the information your client is discussing seems important but is not being articulated clearly, you have two choices: Wait brie?y to see if the client can independently express himself or herself more clearly, or immediately use a clari?cation. For example, a client may state: “I don’t know, she was different. She looked at me differently than other women.

Others were missing . . . something, you know, the eyes, usually you can tell by the way a woman looks at you, can’t you? Then again, maybe it was something else, something about me that I’ll understand someday.” An appropriate interviewer clari?cation might be: “She seemed different; it may have been how she looked at you, or something about yourself you don’t totally understand.

Is that what you’re saying?” Nondirective Re?ection of Feeling The primary purpose of nondirective re?ection of feeling is to let clients know, through an emotionally oriented paraphrase, that you are tuned in to their emotional state.

Nondirective feeling re?ections also encourage further emotional expression. Consider the following example of a 15 year old male talking with an interviewer about his teacher: Client: “That teacher pissed me off big time when she accused me of stealing her watch. I wanted to punch her lights out.” Interviewer: “So you were pretty pissed off.” Client: “Damn right.” In this example, the interviewer’s feeling re?ection focuses only on what the client clearly articulated. This is the basic rule for nondirective feeling re?ections: Restate or re?ect only what you clearly hear the client say. Do not probe, interpret, or speculate.