We respond first to the most obvious part of the helpees’ expressions—the content. We respond to content in order to clarify the critical ingredients of the helpees’ experiences. Having an accurate content data base enables us to establish our responsive base in helping: responding to feeling and meaning. In turn, this responsive base will enable us to personalize understanding and initiate acting.
The ingredients of content emphasize the basic interrogatives, which may be summarized as 5WH: who, what, why, when, where, and how.
A good response rephrases the helpees’ expressions in a fresh way. It does not simply “parrot” back the helpees’ own words. A good format for responding to content is
“You’re saying ________.”
or
“In other words, ________.”
RESPONDING TO CONTENT
The basic interrogatives provide us with a format for testing the completeness of the helpees’ expressions of their experiences. In other words, they enable us to determine whether the helpees have included everything we need to know. The interrogatives may be formulated as follows:
Who and what was involved?
What did they do?
Why and how did they do it?
When and where did they do it?
For example, we may examine the following expression for the interrogatives:
“I thought I had things together with my teacher.” (WHO)
“But now I flunked the exam.” (WHAT)
“I guess we were on different wavelengths. I sure didn’t expect questions that hard.” (WHY)
“I guess I didn’t study enough (HOW) at home before the test.” (WHEN and WHERE)
RECALL 5WH
The 5WH helps us to organize details and know if the helpee is leaving out information. The response formulated by the helper, however, need not repeat the details. Rather, the helper, using his or her own words, will paraphrase the helpee’s content by summarizing. A paraphrased response to content, in the form of a brief statement, will capture the main points communicated by the helpee.
PARAPHRASE CONTENT
Responding to the content facilitates the process by which the helpees continue exploration and provide missing information. If any of the 5WH interrogative information is not explored by the helpee, we will naturally want to probe the helpees to get a more complete picture of their experiences. To encourage helpee exploration, however, we must continue to respond and refrain from our initial reflex to ask a series of questions. For now, our focus is upon responding to what the helpees are saying, not what we want them to talk about. Later, we may find it expedient to ask some questions to fill certain gaps in our understanding. When we ask a question, it is best to follow it with a response. Indeed, the skilled helper will sandwich questions between two responses.
To respond to content, listen for the 5WH. These essential ingredients will enable us to later diagnose the helpees’ deficits. We respond to content by organizing it and then communicating our understanding of it to the helpees.
We may wish to practice responding to content by doing so in real-life situations or through the use of recorded expressions. The case studies in this book may be helpful material for practicing formulating content responses.
FACILITATING EXPLORING OF CONTENT