Drury Therapy

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Listening Skills

Listening is a skill. As a therapist you are taught to do it. Listening well means not just understanding the words or the information being communicated, but also understanding the emotions the speaker is trying to communicate.
Truely listening means trying to understand what the individual is trying to say in many forms, not just the content but what they say but how they say it; their tone, rate of speech and body language. Not to mention why they chose the specific words. Then the next level is how is this making them feel. Can you understand their emotional components?
Then finally what does this evoke for you? This maybe something that the individual is experiencing (if it is not and belongs to you, that's a whole new ball game!). Remember listening is a skill. So you can learn it!