The practice of caring is also the practice of communicating. A vital aspect of caring is to listen so we can learn more about the circumstances of our friend. It is often referred to as being part of a person’s ‘journey’. People exist in a context. They have come from somewhere, they are in a particular ‘place’ when you talk with them, and they are going somewhere afterwards - hence the concept of a journey. Helping to learn about your friend's journey is one of the aims of the carer.

Attending

To learn about a person’s journey we need to ‘attend’ to him or her. There are three important initial elements of attending: observing, positioning and listening.

Observing – This comes first because it is what we should do as soon as we see the person we are talking with. What do you think are some of the things we should look for?

Positioning - Once we have made a quick but thorough ‘look around’ (without appearing to be prying), we should place ourselves in a good position to carry out a conversation. What do you think is important in positioning?

Active listening and further observation - Now our presence starts getting complicated because we are going to gain as much information as we can from the person so that we can help them appropriately. We emphasise active listening because we should be concentrating on learning as much as we can from them about their situation. This means that we use our eyes and ears to learn more. The ears will help us understand what the person is saying and the eyes will convey to us the person’s body language. Carers generally refer to this as the verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication.

Verbal – we listen for the content: feelings, experiences, actions and thoughts.

What is one statement that a person might make in each of the above verbal categories?

Non-verbal – posture, facial expressions, focus, movement, reactions.

What is one example of each of the non-verbal categories that you might observe in a person?

Listening is the skill of perceiving what people mean by the words they use and the way they speak them. The delivery of the words provides primary clues for understanding the person’s meanings, and non-verbal espressions are especially helpful in highlighting emotionally relevant information.’ (The larger the 'Queen conch shell', the more we can absorb! Photo above.)

What kind of listening?

There are quite a few models that describe good listening practices. We have used Active Listening above. This implies that listening involves us in ‘doing’ something. We all know about the ‘inactive listener’ – the person who sits in front of us with a glazed, far away look. (‘I wish I wasn’t here!’) Active listening implies that we are being attentive and trying to understand.

A more explicit model is known as LACE:

1.    LISTEN to what is being said

2.    ACKNOWLEDGE by replaying the message

3.    CHECK for understanding

4.    EXPLORE the person's idea / statement

This is very practical and reflects the active listening proposed in PFP. Firstly, we listen attentively. We then acknowledge what has been said by paraphrasing (included in the next topic). At the same time this helps us to determine that we have heard the person correctly (check), and we can go on further from there with additional paraphrase and questions to explore the additional facts and feelings conveyed by the person speaking.

Other models frequently used are reflective listening – where, as friends, we reflect on – think about – what has been said, and compassionate listening – where we try to identify and understand the feelings of the person.

Of course, they are all correct and useful. The advantage of LACE is that it spells out the process in a little more detail.