Week 3-Active Listening & Non- Verbal Communication

Five Stages of Listening

• Stage 1 – Receiving where you are hearing what is said and observing the speaker

• Stage 2 - Understanding the messages expressed, the tone of voice (emotion) the message is delivered, the body language

• Stage 3 – Remembering the message you received

• Stage 4 – Evaluating the message to ensure full understanding of the speaker’s message, ask for clarification

• Stage 5 – Responding while the speaker is talking or after the speaker stops talking

Listening more actively with patient/family requires the following

• Look – observe body language and hear the message

• Interest – Show genuine interest and concentrate on what is said.

• Silence – Do interrupt, stop talking

• Territory – Lean forward/move closer to the person but maintain distance

• Eye Contact – Maintain eye contact

• Nod – affirming non-verbal, ask questions for clarification

Active Listening Promotes

• Learning

  • willingness to consider different ideas

  • collaborative ideas, thinking broadly and a

    team approach to providing patient care

  • a lifelong commitment and is important for

    continuous growth in the health care industry

  • Best Practice:

    • One can learn from colleagues new ideas, different and better ways to do a procedure.

• Openness

  • By being open and candid, encourages colleagues to do the same

  • demonstrates

    • Trust in others and willingness to take risk

    • Reveals more about ourselves and overcomes our fears of asking

      questions or seeking help and being honest about things we do

      not know

    • Best Practice

      • Acknowledge you made a mistake, do not know all the answers, comfortable to ask questions and share information with other professional colleagues

Passive/Inactive Listening

• natural process of hearing

• In healthcare, the listener must focus on the patient and what is being said listener must not allow themselves to make judgments but ask for clarification

• Paraphrase what the patient has communicated to ensure correct understanding of what is being said

Listening Barriers/Impediments (by CMLTO)

• Need to Control: Control the outcome of the conversation

• Completing: Finish a person’s sentence

• Judging: Prejudge before we hear the entire conversation (tune out)

• Distraction: Distracted by emotions of speaker or by noise or with our own thoughts

• Lagging: Fail to keep up with what is communicated

• Fixation: Focus on grammatical errors, physical appearance or speaking style

• Selection/Insulation: Avoid messages or topics that are not of interest to us

Use of Non-Verbal Communication

• is used in combination/integraded with verbal communication.

• Emphasize your verbal communication

• Complement or convey a thought that is not verbally communicated

• Contradict your verbal message with non-verbal body language

• Repeat or restate the verbal message

• Substitute

  • use non-verbal to substitute or to replace your verbal communication

examples

• Gestures – Hands and fingers

• Touch – Some cultures are touchy and feely while others keep a distance

• Facial expressions

• eye movements

  • grimacing, smirking, frowning

• raising eyebrows

• Silence

Proxemics

Study of spatial communication

• the distance between people.

• Space is important in non-verbal communication

Personal Distance

Between 1-4 feet (friends, family and performing a procedure on a patient)

Social Distance

4-12 feet talking to colleagues

Public Distance

12 -25 feet

Territory

relates the possession of space, objects/things

Three types

• Primary Territory

  • Space you call your own or “home field advantage”

• Secondary Territory

  • Space that does not belong to you but you have

    occupied

• Public space

  • is open to everyone but the space is owned by an organization

Markers

People place markers to indicate ownership of primary and secondary territories.

Three types of markers

• Central Markers

  • Items you place in your territory indicating that the space is yours or that you have reserved the space

• Boundary Markers

  • Items used to separate or delineate your territory from others

• Ear markers

  • identifying marks that indicate your possession of the object or space

Touch Communication

• used with babies and young children,

• however touch changes with age, relationships and cultures

Five important meanings of touch:

• Communicates positive emotions

• Communicates playfulness

• Communicates control or directs behavior

• Communicates rituals such as greetings, departures

• Task related when performing a procedure on a patient or when working with colleagues to perform a procedure(Cardiac Arrest)

Touch Avoidance:

With gender and age, there is a tendency to avoid touching or being touched

Paralanguage

• is how you say something rather than what you say.

• Emphasizing a word or phrase, voice/vocal changes (speaking loudly or softly) or rate or rate of speech

• Often a person is judged based on paralanguage

• Speech rate is an important component of paralanguage.

  • speak slightly faster than normal are perceived to be more persuasive

Silence

• is a form of communication

• it allows the listener time to think, formulate and organize their message/thoughts

• can be used as a weapon to hurt others

  • refusal to acknowledge a person’s presence or what the person says

• People use silence because of personal anxiety or shyness especially when meeting new people or in new surroundings

• communicates emotional response

• communicates uncooperativeness or defiance