How to Coach Yourself and Others Empowering Coaching And Crisis Interventions | Page 50

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! Examples of Reflective Listening (specific)  “It sounds like you recently became concerned about your [insert risky/problem behavior].”  “It sounds like your [insert risky/problem behavior] has been one way for you to [insert whatever advantage they receive].”  “I get the sense that you are wanting to change, and you have concerns about [insert topic or behavior].”  “What I hear you saying is that your [insert risky/problem behavior] is really not much of a problem right now. What you do think it might take for you to change in the future?”  “I get the feeling there is a lot of pressure on you to change, and you are not sure you can do it because of difficulties you had when you tried in the past.” NORMALIZING Rationale: Normalizing is intended to communicate to clients that having difficulties while changing is not uncommon, that they are not alone in their experience, or in their ambivalence about changing. Normalizing is not intended to make clients feel comfortable with not changing; rather it is to help them understand that many people experience difficulty changing. Examples of Normalizing  “A lot of people are concerned about changing their [insert risky/problem behavior].”  “Most people report both good and less good things about their [insert risky/problem behavior].”  “Many people report feeling like you do. They want to change their [insert risky/problem behavior], but find it difficult.”  “That is not unusual, many people report having made several previous quit attempts.”  “A lot of people are concerned about gaining weight when quitting.” DECISIONAL BALANCING Rationale: Decisional balancing strategies can be used anytime throughout treatment. A good strategy is to give clients a written Decisional Balance (DB) exercise at the assessment session and ask them to bring the completed exercise to their first session. A sample of a completed exercise is shown in Appendix 4.10b. The DB exercise asks clients to evaluate their current behaviors by simultaneously looking at the good and less good things about their actions. The goal for clients is two fold: To realize that (a) they get some benefits from their risky/problem behavior, and (b) there will be some costs if they decide to change their behavior. Talking with clients about the good and less good things they have written down on their DB can be used to help them understand their ambivalence about changing and to move them further toward wanting to change. Lastly, therapists can do a DB exercise with clients by simply asking them in an open ended fashion about the good and less good things regarding their risky/problem behavior and what it would take to change their behavior. For [email protected] Property of Bookemon, do NOT distribute 50