Reflection responses
One way of responding to a difficult story, such as the freedom writer clip we watch is through reflective responding. Lets talk about what each of these are:
There are two basic types of of reflection:
- Reflection of Content: emphasize the cognitive aspects of client messages, such as situations, ideas, objects, or persons (Hackney & Cormier, 2005).
- Reflection of Affect: focus attention on the affective part of the communication (Cormier, Nurius, & Osborn, 2009). In reflections of affect, social workers relate with responses that accurately capture clients’ affect and help them reflect on and sort through their feelings
Sometimes you see things such as paraphrasing, parroting, etc.
Reflection can take the form of the following forms:
- Simple reflections, which identify the emotions expressed by the client, are carried over from nondirective, client-centered counseling
Showing up at school that first day sounds like you were very anxious.
- Complex reflections go beyond what the client has directly stated or implied, adding substantial meaning or emphasis to convey a more complex picture
Showing up at school that first day it sounds like you were very anxious, but that you had a lot of determination to go regardless.
- Reframing: is another form of adding content. Here, the social worker puts the client’s response in a different light beyond what the client had considered (Moyers et al., 2003)
When you connected people in your support system, it sounds like it helped you feel more comfortable.
The text also talks about
- Double-sided reflection
- Reflections with a twist
and I don’t want to focus on those today.
