Skip to main content Skip to bottom nav
ZM
1,258
L Novice 4
5 star rating
Rating
Number of ratings3 Number of reviews2 Listens toOver 18 LanguagesEnglish Listener sinceOct 30, 2015 Last activeover 6 months ago GenderMale PathStep 12 People helped7 Chats15 Group support chats0 Listener group chats0 Forum posts27 Forum upvotes33
Bio

Z.M

Hope you're doing okay :)

Has experience in working with Youth and Adolescents, Relationship Issues, Depression, and Domestic Abuse.
 

Recent forum posts
ZM profile picture
Why People Gives Advice Instead of Using Active Listening.
Newbie Hub / by ZM
Last post
 July 4th, 2019
...See more 1. People don't fully understand their role as a listener, and they haven't had time to reflect upon their intentionality. 2. People are limited to basic micro-skills (active listening) To start off, some of the arguments that i've heard here as to why people give advice is because... 1. This isn't therapy 2. It's faster and more effective, listenees actually thank me for my advices. 3. I get confused and don't know im giving advices. So let's clear out the misconceptions first. "This isn't therapy" Actually, this website guises itself as "therapy", hence why they're teaching you how to use active listening. Active Listening is a skill that stems from Person Centred Approach (PCA) and you might even hear this modality referred to as "Client Centred Approach". So yes, this website is considered "informal" and unprofessional counselling, unless you've decided to see an "online therapist" from this website, then thats going to move into "Professional Counselling". It's faster and more effective, listenees actually thank me for my advices. Well that's great and all that but when you give advices, what works for you may not necessary work for your client (listenee). So at the start they might say "thanks so much for the advice! It was super helpful" but they actually haven't tried that out yet. Remember, change happens outside of therapy, not in it. Your role as a listener is to LISTEN and to help facilate change (if you're skilled enough for it - this is where my point of why people begin to give advices instead of listening lies). When you give advices, you are not actually helping your listenee. You're keeping them in their exact same position. Please look up "Karpman's Drama Triangle" Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_XSeUYa0-8 To quickly summarise, Karpman suggests that when it comes to "helping" people, the listener and the listenee falls into either one of the following roles, in which the listenee is always the victim. As a listener, you're either a prosecutor or a rescuer(enabler). When you give advices instead of helping your client (listenee) you're actually keeping them in the "victim" role, in which in the end they're going to become helpless and reiiant on other people for direction. But if you listen to them, you're actually promoting self-efficacy and growth. You're helping them identify their own strengths and weaknesses, and to come up with a solution that works for them. I get confused and don't know im giving advices. This brings back to my second point as to why people give advices. Because they don't know any other skills other than basic active listening/micro-skills. This segues in to our next point. One of the biggest criticisms of PCT (which Active Listening is derrived from) is it's lack of structure and it's lack of evidence based research. PCT is a highly humanistic approach to therapy and therefore, it relies a lot on your rapport with the client (listenee) and in this regards, we call it "Therapeutic Alliance", so if you start giving advices, you actually begin to lose that therapeutic alliance. So this is why generally speaking, a lot of PCT practicioners generally utilise other counselling modalities to go along with their PCT skills, more commonly Narrative Therapy as it is structured and can easily be integrated with PCT. This is also a common theme in Therapy. One of my lecturers said that... "Counselling modalities are a bit like religion in which they share a lot of the same beliefs but they practice it in a different manner" Going back on to the topic, this is why a lot of people begin to resort to giving advices as "active listening" is actually a very basic skill that does indeed seem limiting. However, that does not mean that you should break away from the "active listening" and begin to give advices, what this actually means is for 'Listeners' to start venturing out and learning/understanding new skill sets. One of my supervirose also said that "Once you start thinking you know everything, or that you begun to become dogmatic about your practice. It's a good clue that you're losing your edge and that you need to expand your horizons" And this is another common theme that I have seen from "experienced listeners" here. Some people become dogmatic with their very basic active listening and fail to see whats beyond their skills so when they see other modalities being utilised along with the "active listening" they start feeling lost or think that it is "bad practice" when in reality, they don't understand what is happening. This is also why in the world of professional counselling, we constantly seek supervision and that regulating bodies requires practicioners to have a minimum set of hours of personal development. I suppose what I am suggesting is, if you feel 'experienced' enough with your basic micro-skills, i think it's time to start learning 'advanced' micro-skills, and start reflecting about your own limitations as well.
Search more from @ZM
Feedback & Reviews
I came in feeling rather stressed and am leaving feeling better. Lots to think about, but in a good way:)
Very helpful so far. Most experienced listener I've ever talked to on here
Categories
Depression
Managing Emotions
Work Stress
Panic Attacks
Parenting
Self-Harm
Sleeping Well
Breakups
Family Stress
Forgiveness
Grief
Social Anxiety
Getting Unstuck
Loneliness
Student Life
Relationship Stress
Self-Esteem
General Mental Health
Badges & Awards
14 total badges
Affirmative Reflection Chat & Text Listening Ace Active Listening Loyal Friend Tick Tock Steadfast Soul I First Chat First Post Five Steps High 5 Hang 10 Open Door
Report an issue