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Date: | Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:46:44 +0800 |
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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
--
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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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