Listening Skills: Effective Hearing and Responding

This short workshop focuses on increasing students' listening skills so they can hear and respond in ways that improve the quality of conversation. We will discuss simple steps for identifying a speaker's meaning and reflecting a statement back in a way that deepens conversation and encourages further exploration. The goal is to heighten students' awareness of the meanings and emotions expressed by the person speaking.

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We will discuss listening skills as described by Robert Carkhuff, PhD, in his book The Art of Helping. Our instructor's goal is to help students recognize their current response styles and learn alternative approaches that may be more effective and lead to better conversations and relationships. Time will be reserved for questions and answers at the end of the workshop.

 

Bruce Chessen is a clinical psychologist in private practice who now lives in Seattle after 37 years in Montana. He has worked in inpatient and outpatient clinics with children, teens, and adults and is now mostly retired, although he continues to conduct mental health assessments for the court system. He and his wife have spent winters in San Miguel de Allende since 2024.