Technical Aspects of Asking Questions in Cybercounselling



Technical Aspects of Asking Questions in Cybercounselling

and Getting Them Answered

Lawrence J. Murphy, revised July 2016

One of the critical skills in engaging clients in cybercounselling and moving the process forward is asking questions well. In a face to face session one can take a simple Rogerian approach of reflecting back the client’s statements and waiting for a further reply. In cybercounselling simply empathising with the client may end up with the client having nothing to say in reply. Imagine the following face to face:

Client: I am so sick of my mother harping on me all the time get a job.

Counsellor: I think that I’m hearing a lot of anger at your mother.

And then the counsellor sits quietly staring at the client. One would be hard pressed to imagine a client that sat there for the rest of the session saying nothing more.

But now, go back and read the brief interchange and imagine it is written down. How likely is it that a client reading this comment from their counsellor would decide not to say anything in reply? In our text-based modality it is very likely.

So. If you want information from a client you have to ask. In this brief paper we will review some of the important technical aspects of asking questions and getting them answered. Having read this we believe that you will be better prepared to engage in the interactive exercise that is part of this module.

Is it really a question?

Perhaps because we tend to be gentle and caring people many of us are in the habit of asking gentle questions. For example, in a face to face session we might say “I am wondering if you are tired of the way your boss treats you in front of others”. This is not actually a question. It is a statement. But face to face most clients will understand that a reply is required (if only because we stop talking and stare at them).

Online, however, clients typically read that you are wondering something. They don’t see a question. So they don’t answer the question. What you have to do is ask: “It sounds like you are tired of the way your boss treats you in front of others. How accurate would you say that is?” or “Is it fair to say that you are tired of the way your boss treats you in front of others?” Clear, direct and specific.

Another thing we sometimes do (again, I think to be gentle) is to ask rhetorical sounding questions. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense?

It is important that you review your questions and make sure you haven’t asked questions that sound rhetorical. Even clients who are keen to get help and to change will take the opportunity NOT to answer a question if it doesn’t seem clear direct and specific.

Finally, remember long ago when you learned about open and closed questions? You’ll note, if you go back to the two examples of the alternatives to the “wondering” statement, that one question is open and one is closed. Let’s review this concept.

An open question cannot be answered appropriately with a yes or no. Examples would be “how accurate is that” or “what do you think”. A closed question can be answered yes or no. Asking “is this accurate” or “would you agree” can both be answered with a simple yes or no. And although there will be occasions where this is all you want, you will find these incidents are rare. “Yes” and “no” do not do a good job of moving the process of counselling forward, they invite no exploration or discovery from the client and they give you no additional information. Open questions do.

This is not to say that a closed question is never appropriate. It is simply to suggest that you must be conscious of the type of question you are asking and why.

Technical elements of getting your questions answered

There are a host of errors that first time clinicians make when doing cybercounselling. A big one is question placement. Consider the following paragraph:

LM: I can hear the pain in your voice very clearly Robert [frowning and nodding in sympathy]. It is so hard to finally say goodbye. What do you think you can do to help yourself cope? I know that things may seem bleak now [said with caring and compassion] but I also know your strength has seen you through difficulties in the past.

As a counsellor you probably see the question and if you were the client you would likely seek to respond to it. But clients usually won’t. The key is simply to put the question at the end of the section. So...

LM: I can hear the pain in your voice very clearly Robert [frowning and nodding in sympathy]. It is so hard to finally say goodbye. I know that things may seem bleak now [said with caring and compassion] but I also know your strength has seen you through difficulties in the past. What do you think you can do to help yourself cope?

It is also important to remember how visual this medium is. Clients are looking at their screens and they are of course taking in the words you are using. But they are also taking in the shape and structure of the message. In order to make it more likely that your client will answer, provide them with space below the question. After you type the question, hit the enter key a few times so that there is a visual gap. Even an individual who is scanning the page will notice something amiss.

Finally, it is important (at least early on in the process) to let clients know that a question is coming and what you them to do. Again, if we think back to the face to face process, in most cases clients “know” what to do. And even if they don’t they say things like “I’m sorry, did you want me to say something else?”

In the text-based asynchronous work once you send the client your therap-e-mail it is gone. There is no back and forth. Because of this it is important that you provide the client with guidance about what is expected of them. Here’s an example of what you might say in the introduction to your first (and possibly second) therap-e-mail:

LM: Sometimes I am going to ask you questions Teresa. It’s important that you take your time on these and really tell me what’s in your heart. For the first couple of sessions I’ll note when I’m going to ask a question. And then I’ll leave space for you to answer. Just put your cursor in the space, type your initials, and then reply.

Here’s an example of what you might say at the point where you’re asking a question:

LM: I can hear the sadness in your voice Teresa [pausing to take in how important what you’ve just said is...]. Teresa, I think this is a place where I am going to ask you a question. As I said at the start of the session, it’s important that you take your time and really tell me what’s in your heart. I’ll leave you space to start your reply. Okay. Here’s the question.

And then you ask your question. And then you hit Enter a few times so there’s space to reply AND space that says “something belongs here”.

The process and meaning of questions

An important part of asking questions is asking the right questions. And this means knowing what you want to know. Face to face if you ask a question that’s not particularly helpful or relevant you have an almost immediate opportunity to say “sorry. What I really should have asked is...”. And although a week or two later you can send your client another therap-e-mail saying the same thing, it delays the process.

So when you are going over your therap-e-mail before sending take a moment to ask yourself “do I really need to know his mother’s age” or whatever. And of course this means using your therapeutic judgement throughout to decide on the direction that the counselling needs to take and the areas of exploration that are most germane to the client getting what he or she wants out of the counselling process.

Asking good questions and asking them well is only half of what’s important. The other half is getting good answers. One final technique you can use to make it more likely that your question will be answered well is to be transparent.

From time to time clients have the experience that their counsellor does not really get them. That the counsellor seems to be going down a road unrelated to what the client wants. In most cases this is not because the counsellor is actually doing this.

As a professional reviewing the material it will often be clear why certain questions were asked and, as a counselling professional, one can plainly see the relevance, for example, of asking a client about her relationship with her father in context of her complaints about her boyfriend’s bouts of anger and jealousy. But this does not mean that the client understands this.

It is very important to keep at the top of your mind the fact that normal people do not talk think and behave the way we do. Most normal humans don’t know what a Family of Origin is, or what empathy really means. And most are unaware of all but the most pop psychology understandings of intergenerational trauma, transference or projection.

So. In situations where you are going to be asking questions that originate from a particular framework or understanding of human relationships, you will almost always get a better and more thoughtful answer from your client if you tell them why you’re asking.

In the example referred to above I might say:

LM: Marion, one of the things we know is that the kinds of people we choose for our closest relationships are not random. We are attracted to our friends and lovers for reasons of one sort or another. And one of the things we know from research is that we can often learn a lot about our choices in the present from our relationships in our past. So I am going to ask you now about your relationship with your father. I believe that this will give us some clues about what’s going on with your boyfriend. And that will help me help you make some of the decisions you’ve been saying you need to make.

Here I am doing at least three important things. First, I am treating Marion like an intelligent human being. I am showing her respect. I am showing confidence that she is smart enough to understand the theoretical constructs that form the basis of my work with her. Second, I am bringing her into the process as a collaborator rather than as my patient with me as the expert. Third, I am providing her with a framework for understanding her experience. Recent research (Davis & Piercy, 2007a; Davis & Piercy, 2007b) suggests that providing clients with a model of reality to help them understand their experience is one of the things that helps change happen.

A note on the number of questions

As you might imagine, too few questions allows clients to fly through your therap-e-mail in minutes, getting little or nothing out of all of the hard work you have done. On the other hand, having 20 or 30 questions in a single therap-e-mail will overwhelm even the most committed client.

In addition, having a long series of questions in one place can also overwhelm a client. Here are a few ideas.

1. If you are going to ask three or four questions in a row about something a client has said, let them know it’s coming. Acknowledge that 4 questions is a lot and give them some explanation of WHY you need to ask them so many questions all at once.

2. Treat each question like a question on its own. Provide space after each one. If you simply type 3 questions in a row chances are the client will give a single answer that addresses the overall “flavour” of your line of questioning.

3. Consider numbering the questions.

In conclusion

Asking questions well and getting useful answers from your clients is critical. This material combined with your own therapeutic judgement will lead to higher levels of success in the cybercounselling that you do.

References

Davis, S., Piercy, F. (2007a). What clients of couple therapy model developers and their former students say about change, Part I: Model-dependent common factors across three models. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. Vol. 33, No. 3, 318-343.

Davis, S., Piercy, F. (2007b). What clients of couple therapy model developers and their former students say about change, Part II: Model-independent common factors and an integrative framework. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Vol. 33, No. 3, 344-363.

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