How To Use Reflective Listening

• Reflective listening can improve your communication skills.
• Reflect feelings and you will quickly establish rapport.
• Use summaries to reflect a persons message.

Reflective listening (also called active listening) is a communication skill that involves listening to the words a person has said, in addition to the things they do not say. 

Reflective listening allows you to grasp the full content of a message, without becoming distracted by emotionally laded words.

So for example, if a person shouts at you saying they hate you, but their body language suggests otherwise, you can take what they have said with a pinch of salt because you know how they really feel.

Reflective listening is therefore a very important communication skill, because once you improve your listening skills you will be able to express yourself in a way that the other person wants to listen to.

So let’s now look at how you can improve your communication skills, by improving your listening skills.

Improving Your Reflective Listening Skills

One of the best ways to show someone you have listened to and understood what they said, is to reflect or paraphrase the content back to them.

This reflection should be short, simple and easily understood. If you reflect for too long, you may irritate the speaker or cause them to loose their train of thought.

An effective reflection will summarise what the person has said, cutting through the waffle and highlighting key points.

This is important to remember, as using your reflective listening skills does not simply mean parroting back to the person what they have just said.

When using your reflective listening skills for reflections, you can begin with phrases such as:

• So It sounds like…
• In other words…
• It looks like…
• So your saying…
• You mean…
• It seems that…

One key communication skill you can incorporate with these reflections, is to signal a sense of uncertainty in your voice when you reflect them back.

This should signal a sense of uncertainty as to whether your interpretation is correct, and a need for further clarification from the speaker.

This will encourage the speaker to continue talking, whilst at the same time making them feel as if you are listening to them and are interested in what they have said.

This technique can rapidly help to create rapport because it shows that you have good listening skills, and excellent overall communication skills since you are using multiple communication techniques at once.

Reflective Listening Skills Also Includes Feelings

The use of reflective listening as a communication skill involves not only reflecting words, but also reflecting feelings.

This is most applicable when someone talks to you in an emotional way. Such as when they are upset, happy, sad, angry etc…

Generally when people display these emotions, there is a subconscious desire for those emotions to be recognised and acknowledged by others.

So by reflecting those feelings back to them, such as by saying “you look in a good mood today” or “it seems that really upset you” you are acknowledging their feelings, and telling them you understand those feelings.

This is a slightly more advanced communication technique, and one that can rapidly help to create rapport between you.

Something which is especially true if a person is upset, because by acknowledging their feelings you are also comforting them, which can quickly create an emotional bond between you.

Overall, in order to improve your listening skills and communication skills in general, two of the best techniques you can use are to reflect the words someone says and the feelings they display.

If you are able make use of these communication skills in your life, you will experience many benefits as a result. Some of these benefits that come from improving your listening skills include:

Benefits Of Having Good Reflective Listening Skills

• Encourages the other person to keep talking
• Corrects misunderstandings, false assumptions and misinterpretations
• Reassures the speaker that you are listening
• Gives you a much deeper insight into the needs of a person
• Helps you remember what was said
• Builds rapport and mutual respect
• Shows that you have good listening skills
• Shows that you have good commmunication skills

Reflective Listening Skills: Summarising

A summary serves to refocus attention on a particular issue. This can be useful when your conversation has wandered too far from the main topic, and you want to get back on track. By summarising the main points made so far you can quickly do this.

In order for a summary to be effective, it must be relatively brief and well balanced to cover all viewpoints. If someone thinks your summary is inaccurate or biased, this may cause an argument or lead to disagreements about the points being made.

You will want to avoid this because disagreements and arguments both break rapport and make persuasion a lot more difficult.

Here are some of the most effective times to use summaries during a conversation:

When To Use Summaries

• Whenever emotion and argument are clouding the issue.
• When your views are not being properly recognised appreciated or understood.
• Whenever you feel its time to conclude a conversation/agreement.
• After reaching agreement to make sure your understanding of what has been agreed to is exactly the same as the other persons understanding.