>Another lesson from social work school. When probing (gently) for
>more info. don't ask "why". It's a question that is often impossible
>to answer.
> Naomi Bar-Yam

Naomi, thanks for mentioning this. I would just like to add that
'why' questions also do not belong in counselling by voluntary
counsellors or lactation consultants or other health professionals
for that matter (eg hospital staff), as they are *threatening*
questions.

It can often be tempting to use the 'why' question when a mother
calls and says she wants to hire an electric breast pump, and you
want to know why so as to help her select the best pump, see if she
really needs one, whether a hand-operated one would suit better, etc.
But if you just ask her why, she is likely to get defensive and feel
you are not being helpful. Similarly, if she asks about weaning.

It is useful to think beforehand about our responses and questions we
will use when presented with these sorts of calls, so we are not
tempted to use the 'why' questions as an automatic response, eg for
the breast pump one, 'How much expressing are you needing to do?', or
the weaning one, 'What's happening with your baby that has led you to
consider weaning?'

They are often a lot longer questions than 'why...?', but seem to be
much better at building a rapport with the mother.

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

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html