Reflection Of Good Listening Skills

Listening is an active and basic process that involves not only taking the content of the person speaking by looking at their body language and listening to their words, but also by being perceptive. Good listening skills are shown by attending behavior that is practiced by establishing eye contact, maintain a relaxed posture and sending appropriate messages to the patient through gestures. Reflective listening works well in that it encourages the patient to verbalize their feelings and ideas freely. During reflecting, the nurse paraphrases the words of the patient in fewer words to make sure that the nurse understood what the patient wants. Confronting is another important part of communicating because it exposes and clarifies any mixed or double messages sent when the patient fails to make a direct statement. The third part of listening is making sure there are no obstacles. When you have obstacles surrounding the patient, words can get miscommunicated and lost in the noise.

Reflecting the patients' feelings brings those feelings into clear awareness from the vague expressions that they were. Helping the patients to own their feelings is done by identifying both the obvious and subtle feelings that are hidden behind words. In reflecting experience, the nurse broadly observes the patient's verbalized feelings and their nonverbal feelings. Like paraphrasing, reflecting content involved repeating the essential ideas of the patient in fewer and fresher words. When the patient is having difficulty in expressing an idea, reflecting content helps the nurse to clarify those ideas. During communication, reflecting helps the patient to recognize and express their feelings