Open-Ended Reflection Paper

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This week I asked my friend recent events that have upset him/her and I helped, utilizing the empathic process and open-ended questions. For this activity, I had a little more trouble utilizing the skills at first but felt as the conversation went on it became more and more natural. Thus, I was able to see the areas that I am strong in and those areas which I need to work a little harder on, which gave me insight to improve. These skills I have begun to learn made this task interesting and showed me the benefits of having these skills in everyday life. By using these skills I can see the importance and purpose of implementing them in talk therapy. Overall, continuing to practice these tactics can give us a better understanding of how people…show more content…
Specifically, by trying to use open-ended questions you ensure the client has a difficult time only saying a few things in therapy. By ensuring their answer is not just a one worded response you can let them go in more depth and get a better picture of what is troubling them. This will also put more of an emphasis on the client instead of just continuously asking new questions to get more information. Also, by avoiding close-ended questions you ensure that you are not creating questions to get a specific response. These types of questions can be a problem because they can make a client feel you are being judgmental. In contrast an open-ended question gives them room to say what they actually feel while still answering your prediction. Empathy is also really important for psychotherapy because by guessing it shows the client that you are trying to help them. Furthermore, it will allow them to feel that you are seeing their point of view and will create a closer bond. However, even guessing their response wrong can be beneficial because by continuously trying it can show them that at the very least you care. Also it can show them that they may not be explaining their point of view in the best way. This is useful for them because if they are not explaining it well in therapy chances are they may have difficulties explaining it to other people in their life. Therefore, by explaining their side more clearly in therapy it can give them the tools to do the same in their other

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