Developing therapeutic listening

Abstract

We present an experience-near account of the development of therapeutic listening in first year counselling students. A phenomenological approach was employed to articulate the trainees' lived experiences of their learning. Six students who had just completed a one-year postgraduate certificate in counselling skills were interviewed and the transcripts analysed using the method of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Developing therapeutic reflexivity emerged as a strong recurrent theme. Four subthemes captured the characteristics of this reflexivity: (1) Learning to hear the self; (2) Listening as relationship; (3) Revelation of otherness; and (4) Thereness. These findings foreground the development of therapeutic openness, bracketing and reflexivity in learning to listen therapeutically, and help to make sense of the complex transition experienced by students during their first year of counselling education.

Keywords:

• listening
• bracketing
• reflexivity
• counselling training
• phenomenology

Acknowledgements

We thank the volunteer research assistants for their insights and assistance with the coding, the staff on the counselling training programme who arranged access, and finally the students who participated in the research and spoke openly of their experience.