According to various critics and the scholar, the root of reflective listening lies in psychology and counselling and is often regarded as the “therapist’s hypothesis”. Listener here listens to the speakers in order to know how they perceive themselves in the situation they belong to. Four important components of effective listening, are; empathy, acceptance, concreteness and congruence. As a result, some of the important listening styles that could be identified here are:
Empathy: Having a non-judgmental and unbiased view to what the speaker is saying. Speaker should feel that the listener is supporting his/her viewpoints. It allows the listener to listen deeply and accurately to the words of the other person who is there (Rautalinko, 2013).
Acceptance: It is closer to the concept of empathy and to the concept of politeness that I have learned in this course. It does not refer to either agreement or disagreement on any matter spoken by the speaker. It just refers to having a positive attitude to what the speaker is saying and giving him/her the chance to express them fully.
Congruence: It is closer to one of the characteristics of non-judgmental and critical listeners, and that is open mindedness. It allows the listener to be open-minded, genuine and frank (Arnold, 2014).
Concreteness: It is gaining the appropriate answer rather than vague and general lines from the speaker. I believe that one of important learning styles that should be considered in this case includes asking questions, a part of active listening. Often the speakers try to avoid painful incidents through general and vague lines, but when the speaker is asked questions, then he/she has to explore their Self to the listener (Rautalinko, 2013).
I believe that I have the strength of the listener because I am a learner listener. Hence, since I am also in the process of learning thus, I avoid having pre-conceptions and biasness about certain things. As a result, it makes me a good listener with empathy to listen to what the speaker has to say.