Good Listeners Provide Valuable Service

Many individuals have experienced the relief found in talking to someone else when they are troubled.

It is interesting to consider the different reasons why talking things out makes us feel better. In fact, this phenomenon is one of the most important factors in human relationships.

Clergymen, mental health professionals and close trusted friends become listeners for the troubled ones.

Almost everyone at some point benefits from having a good listener to whom they can pour out their troubles:

Some of the elements of this exchange between two people are as follows:

• Simply having someone to talk to who genuinely cares is an essential element of this process. An active listener who exhibits care and concern in an unconditional manner makes the troubled person feel important.

A good listener often does nothing more than listen. But trust and confidentiality are needed to make this exchange of information successful.

On the other hand, a listener who is distracted and compromised by biases of their own detracts from the quality of being a good listener.

Genuine concern and empathy come from someone who is unbridled by their own feelings and agendas. Often a professional trained in counseling skills is needed.

• Talking with someone else about our cares and concerns frequently enables us to crystallize our thoughts and define the parameters of the problem.

After talking to a good listener, many individuals feel they can see many of the solutions to their own problems because they have clearly defined them.

In highly stressful situations many individuals become confused and disoriented, impairing their ability to think clearly, logically, or rationally. This “sounding board” effect often serves the troubled individual by providing a mechanism for which they can sort out their thoughts and look at things more objectively.

A good listener may provide little feedback in these situations. Instead, he will simply encourage the one seeking help to verbalize, clarify, even reframe and finally seek options for a solution.

• In other situations, the listener may serve the role of a “confessor.”

Simply getting something off the chest, as the old saying goes, is all that is needed. It provides the individual the ability to confront feelings and emotions they have been unable to do in the past.

This spilling of one’s feelings and thoughts often has a purging and cathartic quality giving the concerned individual the ability to evaluate his or her own behavior and perhaps resolve to make changes.

• For some individuals with more complex and serious problems, psychotherapy with emphasis on listening has been referred to by some as the “talking cure.”

Effective listening is a wonderful skill to possess and can be a great gift to those in need of assistance.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright © 1992