I would like to make a small comment on Anne Andrianos' excellent 
post about counselling skills and perhaps talking a mother out of 
weaning.

My contribution here is to ask helpers of all sorts to reconsider the 
use of the word 'why'.

Anne describes getting a good rapport with the mother first, and I 
agree that this is an excellent strategy, but she then asks the 
mother:
"by the way, can you tell me why you are weaning your baby now?"

This is a particularly gentle use of the word 'why', but in my 
experience using this word can be potentially fraught with problems 
for a counsellor. It is so easy for it to cause the mother to go onto 
the defensive, despite the counsellor not intending this at all. Anne 
is obviously a experienced counsellor and doesn't let that happen, 
but someone with less experience may not recognise the trap.

When training counsellors, I feel that it is safer to help them think 
of questions where the word 'why' is completely avoided. Classic 
example and one that Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellors 
get frequently, is about a mother needing a breast pump. The 
counsellor needs to know the mother's situation and how much 
expressing she needs to do in order to give her the best information 
about the type of pump that would suit, but instead of asking 'Why do 
you need a pump?', it is much better to ask 'How much expressing will 
you be needing to do?' Not nearly as confrontational from the 
mother's point of view.

Same with 'Why do you need to wean your baby now?' One could consider 
a range of alternatives - perhaps a good exercise for a counselling 
skills class. Maybe, 'Has something happened that has meant that you 
need to wean now?' or 'How rapidly do you need to wean?' or even a 
really open question like, 'Please can you tell me more about your 
situation?'

This is another part of 'watching our language' and to be very 
careful with the word 'why'. ;-)

Joy
-- 
******************************************************************
Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC
Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellor
Perth, Western Australia.   mailto:[log in to unmask]
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