Experiments in Listening

Abstract

What does it mean to be an effective listener? What form(s) does our listening take? Do we listen differently in our academic lives from how we listen to a friend, a spouse, a child? Differently from how we listen to a client? How does the form of our listening affect our interlocutors? Affect ourselves? What helps us listen better? What gets in the way? What's the relationship between how we listen or are listened to and how we and others learn?

Since so much of our academic, professional, and personal lives consists in listening, we think these questions are worth exploring. In this piece we offer a variety of exercises designed to appeal to differing styles of learning, exercises we hope will help readers reflect on their extensive experience of listening and look with fresh eyes at how they might use those experiences to improve how they listen and are listened to.

We offer four modes for exploring those experiences, two retrospective and two prospective, and exercises for both individuals and groups. Our goal is to help each reader become more aware of how they listen, identify their unique concerns and goals for their listening, and to offer strategies for achieving those goals.

Keywords: clinincal education