Counselling Microskills: Reflecting Meaning I

The counselling microskill of reflecting meaning requires the counsellor to draw on their own words to point out potential underlying meanings or inferences in what the client said (i.e., "You have lost touch with your more confident self"). When reflecting meaning, the counsellor adds a new twist or expands on what the client has said but also stays close enough to the client intended meaning that the statement serves the purposes of communicating deeper understanding of client meaning, offering a slightly different lens or perspective on meaning, and actively contributing to shared meaning-making. This video was created as part of the ebook, Fostering Responsive Therapeutic Relationships: Repositioning Microskills and Techniques in Service of Just Conversations responsiverela....
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Sandra Collins, PhD
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© Gina Ko and Sandra Collins, 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License - creativecommon...

[@corrina9417]

Thank you for the video. I found it helpful to have the pause where the microskill is identified. Also I really appreciate you making the book available to read for free.

[@SandraCollinsDr]

Glad it was helpful! I try to create as much open-source material as I can to increase accessibility for all. Sandra

[@lienphan6446]

Thank you very much. This is very helpful for me in improving my therapy skills. Much appreciated.

[@SandraCollinsDr]

Delighted it was useful. Sandra

[@jessieloz]

Thank you for this video! It in very helpful 😊

[@bangal9885]

Thx for the video, its pretty understandable, but maybe need some improve at section borders, cause its little confusing when suddenly we change to another section, maybe because language barriers (?) since english not my primary language.... Anyway thx alot

[@SandraCollinsDr]

Good point. I will attend to that in future videos. Sandra

[@AaronHalliday]

I'm not sure that I agree. This is incorrectly labelling paraphrasing and reflecting feelings as "reflecting meaning".

[@SandraCollinsDr]

Thank for the query. There are different ways of defining microskills - language choices and specific parameters. In the framework that we are using, a counsellor statement could include a feeling word like "torn," but if the focus is on the reason why the client is feeling this way, as in this case of a values tension or dilemma, we interpret this as a statement related to meaning-making (i.e., why are they feeling torn versus what are they feeling?). A reflection of feeling would be simpler and shorter: "You are feeling torn." If you are interested the specific framework we are using to define these microskills, check out our ebook at: pressbooks.pub/responsiverelationships/. Sandra