From the author: On how to ask good questions in counseling and psychotherapy. In the process of teaching psychological counseling, I realized that the main question of students is always the same: “How to learn to ask questions?” It is indeed very important because it affects several aspects of the interaction between the psychologist and the client. Moreover, some of the things that interfere with a successful interview do not relate to communication skills at all, but rather to the position that the consultant takes in relation to the client. What do I mean? I'll try to explain clearly. You will probably agree that the real masters of questions are children. They have a flexible and open mind because everything they see around them is new. New things evoke a lot of emotions, awaken curiosity and natural interest. It would seem that a psychologist meeting a new person is contact with an individual who has encountered a unique problem in life, and his natural interest in people should encourage him to get to know them. But most specialists feel themselves not just people, but experts in people’s lives, and an expert is not the one who asks questions, but the one who already has ready-made answers. As a result, the psychologist, listening to the client, is not filled with questions, but builds a lot of hypotheses and recommendations, which he then tries to share. Needless to say, most of these hypotheses have only an approximate relationship to a person, not to mention recommendations. Thus, the first secret of the ability to ask good questions turns out to be, oddly enough, the consultant’s refusal to feel like an expert in the client’s life. This is very logical. I have known a person for a few hours, but he has lived his whole life with himself, so it is not me, but he who should tell me about himself. The specialist’s knowledge helps to find areas in the client’s self-disclosure that require special attention and ask about them in more detail. Moreover, normally, professional knowledge of the inner world only fuels curiosity. Nikolai Kuzansky called this position scientific ignorance (in Latin, docta ignorantia). The second secret is the personal participation of the consultant. Being an impartial and objective observer of someone's fate is an unenviable role. The client’s story somehow affects us, we try on his life. This requires a large amount of awareness, the psychologist’s understanding of his emotional responses, which can become excellent material for questions. A client's case can frighten and surprise you, anger and delight, worry and inspire. Based on your own internal experience, you can conduct an interview perfectly. I’ll give a couple of examples in which a specialist starts from his own emotional reactions: “I was very surprised by your story about the relationship between your parents. Tell me, how did you feel in such an atmosphere?” “When you talked about your work, my internal absurdity indicator went off scale. Meanwhile, you seem to have remained cool throughout the entire story. Can you tell me what helps you approach your work this way?” By the way, your attentiveness to the client’s experiences is also an excellent tool. Here it is only important to notice the actual facts - intonation, facial expressions, gestures, pace of speech, in order to be able to substantiate your observations. For example: “When you talked about your father’s death, your voice trembled. And it seems to me that along with grief, you also experienced a certain feeling of guilt. Is this so?” By the way, the form of the question in which you ask the client about the veracity of your impressions is also very successful. Instead of pushing your impressions, you invite the client to think about them. At a minimum, this is respect for his personality. As a maximum, this is an excellent start for switching the story about external events to his internal reality. If you notice, most of the examples contain one or another degree of self-disclosure of the consultant himself. Using self-disclosure is the third secret to asking good questions. Firstly, your description of the inner world turns out to be an example for the client of whathow you can be attentive to the subtlest movements of your own soul. Many people rarely pay attention to their inner life. This is worth learning in the process of working with a psychologist. Secondly, self-disclosure is a great way to move to a deeper level of communication. For example, a client talks about how much she fussed while preparing for a family holiday - running to the store, buying groceries and gifts, preparing dinner. Your reaction: “Amazing! You managed to do so much in such a short time. But, listening to you, I wondered where your husband was during all this time?” - can launch an episode of a discussion of the client’s relationship with her own husband, which, most likely, will be a deeper topic than fatigue from the hectic day. The fourth secret - Do not forget that a psychological interview is different from any other. It has a completely different accent. In ordinary life we ​​talk more about events, in counseling we talk more about experiences. It cannot be otherwise, because the psyche is a subjective reflection of what is happening in the external and internal world. Attention to subjectivity turns out to be the ability to consider what is not visible at first glance. And the client, feeling this attention, feels caring and acceptance of his personality. Events, of course, are also important, but not asking how they were experienced by the client is short-sighted. Subjectivity is the sister of humanity. Counseling does not exist in the world of objectivity because objectivity is inhumane to life's difficulties. There is too much black and white in it that there are simply no half-tones left that make it possible to consult, i.e. just being with someone who needs help and support. To be honest, most difficult situations have nothing to do with doing anything about it, rather, on the contrary, you need to learn to be with them. After all, we live in an imperfect world, populated by imperfect people, and no matter how much we want to change it, what we need right now is the ability not to be maximalists, but to open up to the imperfection that creates the diversity of the world. I believe you will remember a lot of cases when you needed from your interlocutor not the provision of working recommendations, but the ability to listen, hear and sincerely empathize. All the recommendations and solutions were already within you at that moment, you simply lacked human strength, which can only be obtained in a relationship with someone who is able to believe in you. Therefore, the fifth secret of a good question is the belief that the client already contains the answer on him. Otherwise why ask? Another thing is that sometimes an already existing answer is not yet realized by a person. He is hampered by habits of mind and confusion in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Perhaps he doesn’t even know that this is exactly the question that can be asked of himself, because in his life experience there was no one who knew how to look at the world from that very point of view that could become a fulcrum around which the whole world could be turned around. world. Feel free to ask the client what he asks you about, and he will find these answers in himself. It is important to remember that any truth is a process. Therefore, the discovery of truth in oneself requires consistent immersion in the problem. If a client asks what job he should go for, you can, of course, ask: “Which one would you like?” But other options are also possible: “What do you expect from your future work? What options did you consider? Can you say what is most preventing you from making a choice? Let's go from the other side, try to first describe the ideal working conditions, and only then we will discuss what could correspond to them. Fine?". You might even suggest, “I hear a hint of doubt in your question. Perhaps you know what you want, but you hesitate between different options for developing your life. Is it so? Tell me, what decision do you doubt?” If you noticed, most of the questions given as an example are verbose. They contain.