
What we say and how we say it has a profound impact on outcomes.
Allowing clients to tell their story in their own words, asking open ended and clarifying questions, summarizing, paraphrasing and reframing-these are all essential skills that enable a picture of the conflict to be created to open the way forward and provide motivation for resolution.
The free narrative from the client provides an opportunity to gather information and assess capacity. What the client chooses to tell you indicates what is important to them and how they view their goals, the nature of the conflict and what they require to be taken into account to achieve an outcome they can live with. This is akin to allowing them the freedom to splash colour across the canvas to provide the backdrop and sketch in rough outline the journey from now to the future.
The way this story is presented tells you such a great deal about underlying feelings, inner struggles and ability to negotiate. The order that details unfold, the choice of words, tone of voice, body language-all say so much about emotions, the stage in the separation process and ability to be rational and problem solve. These may convey happy, bright and positive images, focused on the future with a sense of hope and excitement. They may convey images that are grey, bleak and dismal, stuck in the negativity of the past, and unable to see beyond the here and now.
Initially our task is to encourage the confidence and freedom to say what is important, to work together for the emergence of a common picture, to set the scene for meaning and understanding. This promotes a framework for discussion, a structure and backdrop for potential problem solving. For some, it could be a carefully constructed painting that they have been working and reworking, over and over in their heads for weeks or months, to explain and justify their position. For others, it could be a continually changing stream of consciousness, that indicates the overwhelming strong emotions and the impact of this on their ability to stand back and look in a more reasoned way at their circumstances and where they are headed. We need to understand the picture they have created and the impact of this on their decision making ability.
We facilitate the development of this backdrop by asking clarifying and open ended questions. We seek to fill in the gaps and bring aspects of the unfolding scene into focus. Summarising and paraphrasing this emerging picture, working on this process together, develops rapport and a good working relationship. Linking the sections to expand the picture, unpacking the meaning and exploring the underlying needs, interests and concerns, allows richness and detail to be introduced and results in depth of understanding and perspective – a foreground, a middle ground, and a sense of what at this stage is on the horizon.
Reframing is altering the frame of the picture to look at the same painting from another angle. This changes the perspective and can allow a completely different picture to emerge. Perhaps we zoom into the foreground to focus on the immediate situation and how this will look in more detail, or zoom out to clearly see the greater image, and where the journey is to lead and the direction that must be travelled. The choice of frame provides a different colour scheme that transforms the picture dramatically. By zooming out, we may see past the grey dismal foreground and to the more positive colours of hope and positivity on the horizon! Knowing that this is the ultimate goal, may facilitate focus on the journey to get there, and the steps that may be possible to move in that direction.