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Effects of Empathic Paraphrasing – Extrinsic Emotion Regulation in Social Conflict

Maria seehausen.

1 Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion,” Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany

2 Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany

3 Department of Psychiatry, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany

Philipp Kazzer

Malek bajbouj, kristin prehn.

In the present study, we investigated the effects of empathic paraphrasing as an extrinsic emotion regulation technique in social conflict. We hypothesized that negative emotions elicited by social conflict can be regulated extrinsically in a conversation by a listener following the narrator’s perspective and verbally expressing cognitive empathy. Twenty participants were interviewed on an ongoing or recently self-experienced social conflict. The interviewer utilized 10 standardized open questions inviting participants to describe their perception of the conflict. After each of the 10 descriptions, the interviewer responded by either paraphrasing or taking notes (control condition). Valence ratings pertaining to the current emotional state were assessed during the interview along with psychophysiological and voice recordings. Participants reported feeling less negative after hearing the interviewer paraphrase what they had said. In addition, we found a lower sound intensity of participants’ voices when answering to questions following a paraphrase. At the physiological level, skin conductance response, as well as heart rate, were higher during paraphrasing than during taking notes, while blood volume pulse amplitude was lower during paraphrasing, indicating higher autonomic arousal. The results show that demonstrating cognitive empathy through paraphrasing can extrinsically regulate negative emotion on a short-term basis. Paraphrasing led to enhanced autonomic activation in recipients, while at the same time influencing emotional valence in the direction of feeling better. A possible explanation for these results is that being treated in an empathic manner may stimulate a more intense emotion processing helping to transform and resolve the conflict.

Introduction

Emotion regulation research to date has mainly focused on an individualistic point of view emphasizing control mechanisms in the individual, such as attention deployment, cognitive reappraisal, or the willful suppression of emotional expressions (Gross and Thompson, 2007 ; Butler and Gross, 2009 ; Rime, 2009 ). Compared to the abundance and sophistication of the research pertaining to classification schemes on such intrinsic regulation, systematic analysis of extrinsic emotion regulation and especially of controlled interpersonal affect regulation (i.e., the process of deliberately influencing the emotional state of another person, as opposed to non-conscious affect spreading) is still relatively sparse. Rime ( 2009 ), however, points out that an emotional experience is virtually indivisible of a social response, which in turn is bound to shape and modify the original emotion, so that emotion has to be regarded as a fundamentally interdependent process.

Niven et al. ( 2009 ) propose a classification system for controlled interpersonal affect regulation strategies, derived from Totterdell and Parkinson’s ( 1999 ) classification of strategies to deliberately improve one’s affect. Their final classification distinguishes between strategies used to improve versus strategies used to worsen others’ affect, and between strategies that engage the target in a situation or affective state versus relationship-oriented strategies. The technique of empathic paraphrasing, which is investigated in the present study, can be categorized as aiming at affect improvement and engagement within this classification framework. However, it also contains a relationship-oriented component, as empathic paraphrasing communicates interest and commitment in understanding the other’s perspective, thereby implying that their feelings are valid and worth listening to.

Empathy has been conceptualized in many different ways, usually involving a cognitive and an emotional component (Preston and de Waal, 2002 ; Lamm et al., 2007 ; Decety and Meyer, 2008 ). Cognitive empathy means the ability to take the perspective of another person and infer their mental state, while emotional empathy refers to the observer’s affective response to another person’s emotional state (Dziobek et al., 2008 ).

Paraphrasing or active listening (coined by Carl R. Rogers in Client-Centered-Therapy) is a form of responding empathically to the emotions of another person by repeating in other words what this person said while focusing on the essence of what they feel and what is important to them. In this way, the listener actively demonstrates that he or she can understand the speaker’s perspective (cognitive empathy). Rogers described empathy as the ability to sense the client’s private world as if it were one’s own, but without losing the “as if” quality (Rogers, 1951 ). Empathy is communicated through active listening, which in the Client-Centered approach aspires to evoke personal growth and transformation through providing a space of unconditional acceptance for the client. Rogers considered empathy, positive regard, and congruence both necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic change (Rogers, 1942 , 1951 ).

This early notion on the importance of empathy for facilitating therapeutic change has gained ample empirical support over the last decades of research. How empathic a therapist is perceived to be has been identified as a critical factor for positive therapy outcome for both psychodynamically oriented and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies (Bohart et al., 2002 ; Duan and Kivlighan, 2002 ; Orlinsky et al., 2004 ; Marci et al., 2007 ; Elliott et al., 2011 ; Norcross and Wampold, 2011 ). Based on a review of several studies Marci et al. ( 2007 ) describe a significant influence of perceived empathy on mood and general clinical improvement, even when controlling for other factors. Along this line, a meta-analysis conducted by Bohart et al. ( 2002 ) confirms a modest but consistent importance of empathy during psychotherapy. Zuroff et al. ( 2010 ) specifically examined the relationship between patient-reported measures of the three Rogerian conditions (positive regard, empathy, and genuineness) and therapeutic outcome, and found that patients whose therapists provided high average levels of the Rogerian conditions across all patients in their caseloads experienced more rapid reductions in both overall maladjustment and depressive vulnerability (self-critical perfectionism). Farber and Doolin ( 2011 ) conducted a meta-analysis on 18 studies also focusing on the effects of positive regard as defined by Rogers on treatment outcome, and found an aggregate effect size of 0.26, confirming a moderate influence of this factor.

The effectiveness of showing empathy on treatment success has also been assured within the field of medical care. Medical researchers have coined the term clinical empathy , which Mercer and Reynolds ( 2002 ) define as (1) understanding the patient’s situation, perspective and feelings (and their attached meanings), (2) communicating that understanding and checking its accuracy, and (3) acting on that understanding with the patient in a helpful (therapeutic) way. Hence, within the clinical setting empathy entails not only cognitive and affective components but also a behavioral component to communicate understanding to the patient, i.e., through active listening (Davis, 2009 ). Accordingly, the active demonstration of empathy has already been recognized as a crucial component of promoting cooperation in challenging situations within the field of clinical care. Halpern ( 2007 ) stresses that physicians who learn to empathize with patients during emotionally charged interactions can thereby increase their therapeutic impact. By the same token, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that empathic communication effectively helps patients through challenging and fearful situations, ranging from painful dental treatments over psychological problems to pandemic crisis (Cape, 2000 ; Reynolds and Quinn Crouse, 2008 ; Bernson et al., 2011 ). Neumann et al. ( 2009 ) reviewed prior empirical studies on clinical empathy and conclude that clinical empathy is a fundamental determinant of successful medical care, because “ it enables the clinician to fulfill key medical tasks more accurately, thereby achieving enhanced health outcomes ” (Neumann et al., 2009 , p. 344).

In sum, the effectiveness of empathic communication as an extrinsic emotion regulation technique has already gained solid empirical support from psychotherapy and medical research. For the present study, social conflict was chosen as the context to examine the effects of empathic paraphrasing on emotion, for two reasons. Firstly, social conflict is often accompanied by intense emotions such as anger and hurt, and therefore lends itself easily to the investigation of extrinsic emotion regulation, without requiring artificial emotion induction in the laboratory. The setting of real-life social conflict renders it possible to work with “real” emotion, while at the same time concentrating on a non-clinical population. Secondly, empathic paraphrasing is used with vast prevalence within the field of conflict resolution. Paraphrasing is generally applied as one of the most important constitutional elements across all domains of conflict mediation (business mediation, family mediation, community mediation, victim-offender mediation, etc.). Hence, it seems expedient to take a closer look at the emotional effects of a technique so widely used within the context of its most common application.

Social psychology research offers evidence for a connection between dispositional affective empathy as well as dispositional perspective taking and adaptive social conflict behavior (Steins, 2000 ; Gehlbach, 2004 ; de Wied et al., 2007 ). However, there is hardly any research on the effects of being treated in an empathic manner (as opposed to feeling empathy oneself) on conflict behavior. Moran and Diamond ( 2008 ) report positive effects of therapist empathy on parent’s negative attitudes toward their depressed adolescent children. Being treated in an empathic way seems to help parents to also empathize with their children going through a rough time. This is an interesting finding, which contains parallels to social conflict situations and stimulates the question which emotional effects are triggered by being treated empathically, and how these emotional processes aid own empathic reactions toward others.

An interesting train of evidence regarding the socio-cognitive effects of being treated empathically is provided by research on interpersonal mimicry and language matching in social interaction. Numerous studies confirm that non-verbal interpersonal mimicry increases affiliation and positive social judgment as well as pro-social behavior not only toward the mimicker but also toward people not involved in the mimicry situation, indicating that being mimicked not only leads to an increased liking toward the interaction partner, but to an increased pro-social orientation in general (van Baaren et al., 2004 ; Ashton–James et al., 2007 ; Fischer-Lokou et al., 2011 .; Guéguen et al., 2011 ; Stel and Harinck, 2011 ). This is true for the mimickee as well as the mimicker (Stel et al., 2008 ). Maddux et al. ( 2008 ) also report that strategic mimicry in negotiation abets more favorable negotiation outcomes, facilitating both individual and joint gains. This effect was mediated by higher levels of trust toward the mimicker. Ashton–James et al. ( 2007 ) tested several hypotheses on why mimicry promotes pro-social behavior and found that being mimicked during social interaction shifts self-construal toward becoming more interdependent and “other-oriented.” Additionally, mimicry strengthens one’s perception of interpersonal closeness with other people in general.

Correspondingly, language style matching, i.e., similarity in use of function words, has been found to predict relationship initiation and stability (Ireland et al., 2011 ). On a similar vein, according to the interactive-alignment account of dialog, the success of any given conversation depends on the extent of the conversation partners arriving at a common understanding of the relevant aspects of what they are talking about, i.e., a common situation model (Pickering and Garrod, 2004 ). Interlocutors tend to automatically align at different levels of linguistic representation, e.g., through repeating each other’s words and grammar (Garrod and Pickering, 2004 ). This alignment at low-level structure positively affects alignment of interlocutors’ situation models – the hallmark of successful communication – as people who describe a situation in the same way tend to think about it in the same way as well (Markman and Makin, 1998 ; Menenti et al., 2012 ). These findings strongly support the hypothesis that paraphrasing, which involves a certain degree of language matching and bears parallels to mimicry on a verbal level, administrates emotional and socio-cognitive effects on the person being paraphrased.

Regardless the impressive amount of research reviewed above, the specific dynamics of emotional response to empathic paraphrasing are yet largely unclear. Rime ( 2009 ) suggests that socio-affective responses such as comfort and empathy temporarily alleviate a narrator’s negative emotions and generate a deep feeling of relief. However, if no cognitive reframing and re-adjustment of goals, motives, models, and schemas occur, the alleviating effects of socio-affective responses can be expected to be only temporary, because the cognitive sources of the emotional unsettledness have not been transformed. Following this reasoning, the emotional effects of empathic paraphrasing should be expected to be short-lived. On the other hand, Rogers argued that receiving empathy and positive regard are necessary conditions for being able to revise overly rigid structures of the self and assimilate dissonant information and experiences (Rogers, 1942 , 1951 ). Hence, empathic paraphrasing may initiate a cognitive-emotional process progressing in several stages, with emotional alleviation and an increased mental openness and disposition for cognitive restructuring possibly being the first one. In this respect, the present research makes a valuable contribution by moving beyond correlational designs to presenting the first experimental study assessing in detail the emotional effects of empathic paraphrasing in the context of social conflict, hopefully providing a useful basis for further analysis in future studies.

To investigate whether and how empathic paraphrasing in the context of a real-life social conflict extrinsically regulates emotion, we invited participants to an interview in which they were asked to talk about an ongoing or recently self-experienced social conflict with a partner, friend, roommate, neighbor, or family member. The interviewer responded to participants’ descriptions by either paraphrasing (experimental condition following half of the interview questions) or taking notes (control condition). We assessed valence ratings pertaining to participants’ current emotional state as well as skin conductance response (SCR), blood volume pulse (BVP), blood volume pulse amplitude (BVPamp), and heart rate (HR) as indicators of autonomous nervous system (ANS) activity during the interviews. We also recorded the interviews for documentation and analysis.

Psychophysiological and voice parameters have been proven to be reliable indicators for emotional responses (Scherer, 2003 ; Kushki et al., 2011 ). HR is regulated by sympathetic (increase) as well as parasympathetic (decrease) pathways of the ANS (Li and Chen, 2006 ; Kushki et al., 2011 ), and reflects autonomic arousal (Critchley, 2002 ) as well as emotional valence (Palomba et al., 1997 ). BVP is a measure of changes in the volume of blood in vessels and has been associated with affective and cognitive processing (Kushki et al., 2011 ). BVP amplitude has been found to be lower during episodes of increased sympathetic activity (Shelley, 2007 ) and has also been shown to decrease when feeling fear or sadness in several studies (Kreibig et al., 2007 ). SCR depicts changes in the skin’s ability to conduct electricity and is considered a sensitive psychophysiological index of changes in autonomic sympathetic arousal that are integrated with emotional and cognitive states. In addition, SCR reflects vicarious emotional responses to another’s affective state (pain), and is therefore also connected to empathy (Hein et al., 2011 ).

Based on the literature reviewed above, we hypothesized that empathic paraphrasing would lead to a reduction of negative emotion in the situation of talking about the conflict. Specifically, we expected valence ratings to be more positive after paraphrasing. Furthermore, we hypothesized that empathic paraphrasing would lead to lower autonomic arousal, reflected in psychophysiological measures and voice analysis.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

Twenty healthy subjects [10 female; age: mean (M) = 27, standard deviation (SD) = 7.9] participated in this study. All participants were native German speakers, and had recently experienced a potentially ongoing social conflict with a partner, friend, roommate, neighbor, or family member. No conflicts involving physical or psychological violence were included in the study. Due to technical problems, SCR and voice data of four participants as well as BVP data of three participants were lost. Therefore, 20 participants entered the analysis of self-report data, 16 entered voice data analysis and analysis of SCR, and 17 entered analysis of HR and BVP.

The study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the ethical committee of the Charité University Medicine Berlin. All participants gave written informed consent prior to investigation and received payment for participation.

Interview design and procedure

Participants were told that the study investigates emotion in social conflict, especially how emotions develop while speaking about a social conflict. The interviewer further informed participants that she would try to understand their perspective, and sometimes summarize what she understood so far, while at other times take notes to help her memorize certain things and have them present over the course of the interview.

Interviews consisted of 10 standardized open questions (e.g., “What exactly bothers you about the other person’s behavior?”). After the participant answered each question, the interviewer either paraphrased what had been said, or silently took notes (control condition). Following these paraphrasing interventions or control conditions, respectively, participants were asked to rate their current emotional state. In order to avoid confounding effects resulting from the content of the questions, as well as distortions due to emotional processing over the course of the interview, interventions, and control condition were given alternately during the interview. Half of all participants received an intervention (empathic paraphrasing) after the first question, a control intervention after the second question, and so forth; the other half received a control intervention first. All interviews were conducted by the same female interviewer, who had previously received 190 h of training in conflict resolution and has worked on cases in community mediation, business mediation, and family mediation over several years, applying empathic paraphrasing as one of the core techniques of conflict resolution.

Paraphrasing in the present study was implemented in such a way that after each narration the interviewer briefly summarized the facts of the narration and described her understanding of how the narrator felt, and why, and what she understood was important to the narrator regarding the situation described. To confirm the accuracy of her paraphrasing, the interviewer asked if her understanding was correct at the end of each paraphrase. An example of a paraphrase is given in the Appendix.

All interviews were audiotaped. Interview length was 30.16 min on average (SD = 11.03), depending on how extensively participants answered to the questions. Figure ​ Figure1 1 depicts the interview questions as well as a schematic overview of the interview procedure and measurements.

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Interview guideline and procedure .

Data acquisition and analyses

Participants were asked to indicate their current emotional state (valence rating) on an eight-point Likert scale ranging from −4 to 4 (“How positive or negative do you feel right now?”) 10 times during the interview, following the interventions and control condition, respectively. Ratings were analyzed with two-tailed t -tests for repeated measures in IBM SPSS Statistics 20.

Skin conductance response and BVP were recorded continuously with a sampling frequency of 40 Hz using a commercial sampling device ( Biofeedback 2000 X-pert , Schuhfried GmbH, Austria) during the entire interview. Both interviewer’s and participant’s voices were recorded using Audacity 1.2.6 with a highly directional microphone (Shure, WH20 Dynamic Headset Microphone, IL, USA).

Skin conductance data was analyzed in LedaLab V3.3.1. Time frame of analysis was 25 s after the onset of the intervention or control condition. Within this interval, SCR was decomposed by continuous decomposition analysis (CDA; Benedek and Kaernbach, 2010 ). For each participant and interval, the maximum phasic activity was computed (with a minimum amplitude of 0.001 μS) and averaged for each participant across all intervals of both conditions).

Blood volume pulse and BVPamp were analyzed for intervals of 23 s after the onset of intervention or control condition using Matlab 7.1 (The Math-Works, Inc., MA, USA). Data were smoothed using a six point Gaussian filter. BVP was further used for extracting HR data through computing the inverse of the distance between successive peaks of the BVP signal in intervals larger than 0.4 s (Kushki et al., 2011 ). Mean SCR between both conditions (paraphrasing interventions and control conditions), BVP, BVPamp (in%), and HR (in beats per minute) were also analyzed with two-tailed t -tests for repeated measures in IBM SPSS Statistics 20. In addition, we compared BVP, BVPamp, and HR during the paraphrasing intervention and the interview question directly following the paraphrase, with a standard time frame of 4 s for the question phase.

Analysis of voice recordings was done with seewave in R statistics (Sueur et al., 2008 ). Using Audacity 1.2.6., intervals of speech for voice analysis were selected manually by listening to the recorded interviews and cutting out participants’ responses to each question – following an intervention or control intervention, respectively.

Behavioral data

Valence ratings following paraphrasing revealed less negative feelings than ratings following the control condition [ t (19) = 3.395, p  = 0.003]. Effect size is d  = 0.76 (Cohen’s d for repeated measures, calculated with pooled means and standard deviations).

Differences in valence ratings over the conditions are shown in Figure ​ Figure2 2 .

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Mean valence ratings (with standard error of the mean) after the empathic paraphrasing and control conditions .

Time series plots over the entire course of the interview show a U-shaped trend in valence ratings over time, which is mainly due to ratings following the control condition (see Figure ​ Figure3). 3 ). However, a repeated measures ANOVA including sequence of intervention over time as an additional factor demonstrates that the effect of the intervention remains untouched by sequence [main effect of sequence F (4, 72) = 1.768; p  = 0.145; main effect of intervention: F (1,18) = 11.400; p  = 0.003 interaction intervention × sequence F (4, 72) = 1.489; p  = 0.215].

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Mean valence ratings over the course of the interview, averaged over both conditions (A) and split up into paraphrasing and control condition (B) . At each of the 10 trials, 10 subjects received an intervention and 10 received a control intervention.

Psychophysiological data

Two-tailed t -tests for repeated measures show that participants had a higher SCR during paraphrasing than during the control condition [ t (15) = 2.589; p  = 0.021]. Effect size is d  = 0.65 (Cohen’s d ). Complementary results were found in participants’ HR, which was also higher during paraphrasing than during the control condition [ t (16) = 6.491; p  = 0.000; effect size d  = 1.57]. No significant differences between the conditions for BVP were found [ t (16) = 0.22; p  = 0.812]. However, there was a strong trend for mean BVPamp [ t (16) = −2.119; p  = 0.050; effect size d  = 0.51], which was lower during paraphrasing than during taking notes. Comparing BVPamp during paraphrasing with the interview question directly following the paraphrase, we also found that BVPamp is lower during paraphrasing than during the following interview question [ t (13) = 2.381; p  = 0.033; effect size d  = 0.64]. For HR and BVP, no such difference between paraphrase and subsequent interview question was found. Figure ​ Figure4 4 illustrates differences in psychophysiological measures and voice intensity over the two conditions.

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Measures of sympathetic activation (mean values with standard error of the mean) . (A) Skin conductance response (SCR; in μS), (B) Heart rate (in beats/minute), (C) Blood volume pulse amplitude (BVPamp in%), and (D) Voice volume (in dB) during empathic paraphrasing and control condition.

Voice analysis data

Mean intensity/volume of participants’ voices was lower when they replied to an interview question following a paraphrase [ t (15) = −2,466; p  = 0.026; effect size d  = 0.62]. There was no difference in mean fundamental voice frequency (F0) between the conditions [ t (15) = 0.583; p  = 0.568]. F0 range and F0 standard deviation did not differ between the conditions, either (see Table ​ Table1). 1 ). However, speech rate and articulation rate showed trends for slower speech following paraphrasing [speech rate t (15) = −1.86; p  = 0.082; articulation rate t (15) = −2.05; p  = 0.059]. Cohen’s d yielded effect sizes of d  = 0.47 for speech rate and d  = 0.51 for articulation rate.

Means (M), standard deviations (SD), t -, p -, and d -values of all parameters in intervention and control condition .

* and ** indicate significant findings .

Table ​ Table1 1 gives an overview of means and standard deviations of all psychophysiological, voice, and self-report parameters over the two conditions.

The aim of our study was to investigate the short-term emotional effects of empathic paraphrasing in social conflict. To achieve this, we conducted interviews on real-life social conflicts currently experienced by our participants. During the interview, paraphrasing was alternated with a control condition (taking notes). Emotional valence ratings were obtained after each intervention and control intervention and psychophysiological and voice recordings were executed continuously during the interviews. Our hypothesis was that paraphrasing would lead to more positive emotional valence and lower autonomic arousal. Viewing the results of our study as a whole suggests that empathic paraphrasing has a regulating effect on a narrator’s emotions, however, this effect seems to be more complex than originally expected. In sum, we found that participants felt better when the interviewer paraphrased their emotions and perceptions of the conflict. At the same time, and contrary to our expectations, SCR, HR, and BVP amplitude indicate higher autonomic activation during paraphrasing. Voice intensity as well as speech and articulation rate of participants on the other hand was lower when answering to a question following a paraphrase.

Effects of paraphrasing on valence

The self-report ratings demonstrate that participants felt better after the interviewer had paraphrased what they had said. Also, the relatively high effect size suggests that this effect is strong and practically relevant. The interview itself also induced valence effects over time, insofar that participants experienced a decline in emotional valence in the middle of the interview, which recuperated toward the end of the interview. However, due to the alternation of intervention and control intervention, which was again alternated in sequence over participants, this trend does not affect the intervention effect.

This self-reported valence effect is consistent with participants’ lower voice intensity after paraphrasing compared to the control condition. Banse and Scherer ( 1996 ) have linked high voice intensity with negative affects or aggressive speaker attitudes, thereby suggesting a conjunction between high voice intensity and negative emotional valence. Conversely, speech and articulation rate are also slightly lower following an intervention, even though these effects are not statistically significant. Speech rate is defined as the number of spoken units (e.g., words/syllables) per unit of time (minute/second). It is calculated across continuous speech segments, which may include pauses, disruptions, or dysfluency. Articulation rate is an analogical measure based only on fluent utterances, excluding pauses, and dysfluency (Howell et al., 1999 ). Speech rate has been demonstrated to increase when experiencing anger or fear compared to neutral emotional states (Scherer, 1995 ; Rochman et al., 2008 ). Hence, the lower speech and articulation rates following paraphrasing also suggest that participants experienced less negative emotion after paraphrasing.

By the same token, HR was higher during paraphrasing than during the control condition, which according to Palomba et al. ( 1997 ) can also be interpreted as a valence effect. HR deceleration has been associated with negative emotional valence during presentation of unpleasant visual stimuli. In social tasks, HR acceleration has been measured in accordance with intensity of emotion, and to a lesser degree, with emotional valence (Palomba et al., 1997 ). Palomba et al. ( 1997 ) found significant differences in HR deceleration between positive, negative, and neutral visual stimuli, with positive stimuli producing the highest and negative stimuli the lowest HR. Hence, self-report data, voice data, and HR analysis all support the conclusion that emotional valence was positively influenced by offering cognitive empathy through paraphrasing. This effect of paraphrasing on valence bolsters Rime’s ( 2009 ) supposition that being treated empathically while socially sharing negative emotion produces a short-term alleviation of these negative emotions.

Interestingly, the positive impact of mimicry on social judgment mentioned in the introduction (i.e., promoting liking toward the mimicker) suggests the generation of positive emotion as a result of mimicry. This was not the case for paraphrasing in our study: valence ratings in the intervention condition center around the neutral. Nevertheless, it is still possible that paraphrasing led to an increased liking toward the interviewer, while overall affect was neutral. Social judgment was not assessed in the present study, hence, no direct comparison with mimicry is possible. However, it would be interesting to compare the effects of mimicry and paraphrasing on emotion in future studies, as well as to study verbal mimicry or matching more extensively in the context of distressing conversations such as social conflict discussions.

Effects of paraphrasing on arousal

Skin conductance response, HR and BVP amplitude indicate a period of higher autonomic arousal while the interviewer paraphrased what participants had said, compared to taking notes on what they had said. Again, effects sizes of physiological measures suggest medium and in the case of HR, very strong, effects. This is surprising, as we presumed that the lower intensity of negative emotion induced by paraphrasing would be accompanied by lower arousal. Instead, paraphrasing apparently enhanced autonomic arousal. Quite conversely to psychophysiological data, the lower voice intensity following the intervention on the other hand suggests a calming effect of paraphrasing on autonomic arousal, as several studies on emotion and voice quality have associated high voice intensity with high sympathetic autonomic arousal emotions (Scherer, 2003 ). This apparent contradiction between voice data and psychophysiological data appears initially confusing, as vocal changes and changes in SCR both originate in mediated variation of HR, blood flow, and muscular tension caused by an arousing event (Duffy, 1932 ; Laver, 1968 ; Schirmer and Kotz, 2006 ).

However, this discrepancy can be explained by the fact that BVP and SCR were recorded while participants listened to the interviewer paraphrasing, whereas voice analysis was done on recordings of participants’ answers to the interviewer’s next question, following the paraphrase. Thus, the autonomic arousal induced by paraphrasing may already have subsided and passed into a calmer state at the time participants answered the next question. This possibility is difficult to double-check for SCR as this parameter is reactive to speech and will thus be higher while participants are talking, even though autonomic sympathetic arousal induced by the intervention might have diminished already. However, we reassessed this hypothesis using BVP, BVPamp, and HR data, comparing the paraphrasing phase with the subsequent question phase and found a confirming result for BVPamp, although not for the other two measures. Participant had a lower BVP amplitude while listening to the paraphrase compared to listening to the interview question asked in direct succession. This indicates a specific effect of paraphrasing on autonomic arousal, which is not induced by speech in general. It should also be noted that voice intensity following paraphrasing is significantly lower than voice intensity following the control condition. Hence, given the assumption made above is correct, participants’ autonomic arousal is first heightened by listening to the paraphrasing, and after a short period of time lowered to a level below the control state. This is a very interesting finding, for which two possible explanations should be considered.

Firstly, it is possible that empathic paraphrasing not only leads to a reduction of negative emotion in participants, but even induces positive emotions, such as happiness and relief about being listened to and validated. This would explain the initial higher autonomic arousal, which would in this case be due to a short-term experience of positive emotions, in accordance with Rime ( 2009 ) dissipating quickly. However, the behavioral data does not support this notion, as the valence ratings remain in the negative range of the scale even after paraphrasing, only approximating the neutral zero-point. Also, it should be noted that empathic paraphrasing is distinctly different from everyday forms of volunteering empathy or forms of social sharing of emotion as referred to by Rime. Paraphrasing does not offer sympathy or emotional empathy, but instead takes a purely cognitive road by demonstrating that the listener can understand the narrator’s perspective. It does not seem likely that this technique should have the same emotional effects as common social sharing responses such as offering sympathy.

Therefore, as an alternative explanation of our results, it is more conceivable that demonstrating cognitive empathy through paraphrasing temporarily leads to a heightened focus on and increased processing of negative emotion, which might eventually have a resolving effect on these emotions. This explanation seems probable considering the nature of paraphrasing, which entails repeating emotional narrations in a pointed way, thereby sharpening and clarifying the emotional experience. In a study on the relationship between therapist pre-session mood, therapist empathy, and session evaluation, Duan and Kivlighan ( 2002 ) found that intellectual empathy (demonstrating an understanding of the client’s perspective, i.e., empathic paraphrasing) was positively correlated with client-perceived session depth (power and value of the session), but not correlated with perceived session smoothness (comfort and pleasantness of the session). In a way, paraphrasing confronts people with what they are feeling, and thus can stimulate a deeper processing of negative emotion (depth), which temporarily involves higher autonomic arousal and may even be perceived as trying and hard work (smoothness), but eventually abets resolution of the emotional conflict. It however seems unlikely that this process advances automatically without fueling cognitive work such as reappraisal and re-adjustment of goals and schemas. Yet, the clarifying focus on one’s own emotion, accompanied by the non-judgmental stance of empathic paraphrasing might strongly push this process forward. This notion is in line with Rogers’ original claim to evoke personal growth and transformation in the client through empathic paraphrasing, thereby achieving therapeutic change (Rogers, 1942 , 1951 ).

Also, considering the findings from mimicry and language matching research, which have demonstrated that being treated empathically on basal levels such as facial expression and language style promotes attitude and behavior change, it seems plausible that empathic paraphrasing may foster socio-cognitive processes in a similar direction. As paraphrasing contains a deliberate effort to verbally align with the narrator, it may generate a shared situation model and in this way promote successful communication. It would be interesting to consider if empathic paraphrasing, as it bears a certain resemblance to mimicry on a verbal level, can also stimulate pro-social behavior in the person being paraphrased; for instance a greater willingness to open up for the other party’s perspective on the conflict. This would strongly support the idea of paraphrasing stimulating a clearance of negative emotion.

There seems to be wide consensus between psychotherapists of different disciplines that psychotherapy benefits from an optimal level of arousal in the client, similar to the Yerkes–Dodson law, which posits an inverse U-shaped correlation between arousal and performance in complex tasks (Bridges, 2006 ). Markowitz and Milrod ( 2011 ) argue that emotional arousal is central for engaging the client in psychotherapy and making the therapeutic experience meaningful. They claim that the therapist’s ability to understand and respond empathically to negative emotional arousal should be considered the most important one of the common factors of psychotherapy. The therapist provides support and at the same time acts as a model, teaching the client to tolerate, verbalize, and integrate their feelings. Thus, negative feelings diminish and lose toxicity. In a similar vein, the traditional concept of the “corrective emotional experience” by Alexander and French ( 1946 ) describes the transformation of painful emotional conflicts as re-experiencing the old, unsettled conflict but with a new ending. This notion, which has gained ample empirical support, holds that processing emotional conflicts within a safe and empathic environment is necessary for therapeutic change (Bridges, 2006 ).

A resembling road is also pursued by acceptance and mindfulness-based interventions. Research on acceptance-based and mindfulness-based therapy has shown that accepting and mindfully observing negative emotions (instead of trying to suppress them) leads to the dissolution of these emotions (Eifert and Heffner, 2003 ; Arch and Craske, 2006 ; Hayes-Skelton et al., 2011 ). Czech et al. ( 2011 ) cite several experimental studies which have demonstrated that acceptance of negative emotion decreases distress and increases willingness to engage in challenging tasks. Empathic paraphrasing may have similar effects, as it essentially applies the principles of mindfulness and acceptance from the outside – through a listener who takes on an accepting role, thereby prompting the narrator in the same direction. Offering cognitive empathy through paraphrasing draws attention to emotions, non-judgmentally describes and accepts them, and is thus very similar to acceptance-based and mindfulness-based therapy. The central difference might be the locus of initiation of these processes, which in the case of empathic paraphrasing comes from somebody else. Comparing the effects of mindfulness and empathic paraphrasing and investigating the potential consequences of this difference on emotion processing and emotion regulation could be an interesting research focus for future studies.

Limitations of the present study

A potential short-coming of the present study pertains to the nature of the control condition, which consisted of taking notes silently. It could be argued that, as only the experimental condition involved speech, the differences found might be due to a general effect of being spoken to, rather than to an isolated effect of empathic paraphrasing. However, it should be noted that within a social conflict situation, the content of a reply to emotional descriptions can never be perceived as completely neutral, and any control condition involving speech will induce emotional effects of its own, e.g., irritation or even anger caused by inapplicable verbal comments of the interviewer following participants’ emotional disclosure. The present control condition was deliberately chosen for providing a neutral baseline against which the effects of empathic paraphrasing can be tested before moving on to other modes of comparison.

An aligned point of concern might be that it cannot be ascertained how the control condition was perceived by participants. For instance, even though they were informed that the note-taking simply served the purpose of bolstering the interviewer’s memory during the conversation, some participants may still have worried about the notes containing subjective judgment. This would most likely induce stress and add an emotional bias to the control condition. In this case, however, one would expect an increase in autonomic responses during the control condition, which did not occur. Still, considering these shortcomings of the control condition, the results need to be reproduced with varying kinds of control conditions involving speech before they can be viewed as definite.

It should also be mentioned that this study focused exclusively on short-term emotional reactions to paraphrasing, in order to obtain a constitutional data base illustrating the regulatory effect of this communicational technique. Our results suggest that in addition to influencing immediate emotional valence, paraphrasing sets in motion an initially arousing process of coping with negative emotions associated with the social conflict, which eventually may lead to resolving these emotions. However, as we did not assess longitudinal measures pertaining to the emotions associated with the social conflicts in question, this conclusion has to remain speculative until backed up by further research.

Finally, the relatively small sample size of the study makes it prone to distortions from individual variations and gender differences, e.g., in emotion expression. Again, replication of the results based on larger groups of study participants is called for.

Conclusion and directions for future research

The present study provides first experimental evidence that offering cognitive empathy through paraphrasing extrinsically regulates emotion in social conflict. Paraphrasing led to less negative feelings in study participants, while at the same time inducing higher autonomic arousal, which subsided after a short period of time. A possible explanation for these findings is that empathic paraphrasing stimulates an increased and focused processing of negative emotion in social conflict, and thus may contribute to resolving these emotions.

Future studies investigating the emotional effects of demonstrating cognitive empathy may further scrutinize the short- and long-term effects empathic paraphrasing has on arousal, and test the hypothesis that paraphrasing induces a cognitive-emotional process which facilitates the resolution of negative emotion in social conflict. Also, it would be interesting to investigate the dynamics of this process more closely and identify factors necessary for its successful development. Presently, we are working on a neuroimaging paradigm designed to overcome some of the above mentioned shortcomings and further explore the effects of empathic paraphrasing on the disposition to consider other people’s perspective in social conflict.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” at Freie Universität Berlin which is funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation), and by the Open-Access publication fund of the DFG and the Freie Universität Berlin.

Example of a paraphrasing sequence

Interviewer: “What is worst for you about this situation?”

Narrator: “The worst thing is not knowing what happens now, well, this uncertainty. I mean, there is a problem, I have to make sure the rent is being paid, because in the end I am responsible, because I am in the rental agreement…and then – not being able to deal with that situation, not being able to act, because I just don’t know what is going to happen. The worst…now I am not so sure anymore, what was worst about it – well, also interpersonally it was very disappointing, because after all I took care of everything, voluntarily, and…I mean, when she is acting this way now, that is also a lack of recognition for what I do, what I accomplish. For my whole courtesy. What aggravates things is that is was clear from the beginning that she does not do so well financially, but urgently needed an apartment, and I let her move in with me to help her. And that is something that is…not being trampled under her feet…but you notice that there is a lack of recognition. Well, I think this second issue is worse than the first one.”

Interviewer: “So it is a combination, is it? For one, this thing, that in some way your existence is on stake here, that you are saying, this uncertainty is hard to bear – that you do not know how the rent is going to come around in the future. And then also the interpersonal issue, that you are saying you are disappointed of her, because you helped her, and in return you get this now, right? Especially the lack of recognition, the interpersonal treatment is what is worst – did I understand that correctly?”

Narrator: “Yes.”

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Thrive Talk

Paraphrasing in Counselling

Table of Contents

In essence, paraphrasing is a micro skill that allows counselors to create an authentic bond with their clients  Together with encouraging and summarizing, paraphrasing plays a crucial role in therapeutic communication, making the client feel understood and listened to.  In other words, paraphrasing in counseling is what makes the client say, “ Finally, someone who understands what I’m going through.” Without this essential ingredient, counseling sessions would be nothing more than dull and impersonal exchanges of ideas.

What is the difference between reflecting and paraphrasing in Counseling?

Paraphrasing and reflecting are close synonyms for most people, both playing a crucial role in any form of communication.

Although paraphrasing and reflecting are fundamental counseling communication skills [1], these two processes can have slightly different connotations in a therapeutic context.

In essence, reflecting is like putting a mirror in front of your clients, helping them gain a better sense of the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors they experienced in a situation that has meaning for them.

Of course, this does not mean you have to parrot their message; simply highlight the link between different ideas and emotions and how one influences the other.

When reflecting, it is vital to match the client’s tone and even body language so that he/she knows that you’ve received the message and the feelings that accompany his/her story.

On the other hand, paraphrasing is about capturing the essence of their story with a brief statement that emphasizes the underlying emotional vibe.

This technique is particularly useful when clients know how ideas and emotions can merge to create a subjective experience, but you want them to feel understood and listened to.

In a way, we could argue that paraphrasing is a brief version of reflecting.

Let’s look at a brief example of paraphrasing in counseling:

Client: I had a huge fight with Andrew last night. At some point, he stormed out and didn’t come back ‘til morning. I tried calling him all night, but his phone was switched off. I was worried sick and thought he did something stupid. This whole thing was like a nightmare that I could not wake up from.

Therapist : It seems this unpleasant event has put you through a lot of fear and anxiety.

Now let’s take a look at reflecting:

Therapist : I can only imagine how terrifying it must have felt to see your partner storm out after a huge fight without telling you where he is going or when he’ll be back.

As you can see, both processes require active listening. But while paraphrasing is a short statement that highlights the emotional tone of the situation, a reflective response captures “the vibe” of the story, along with other essential details.

How do you paraphrase?

Start by listening.

Whether the purpose is to paraphrase or reflect, listening is always the first step.

Through active listening, counselors gain a better sense of what their clients have experienced in a particular situation. Active listening means looking beyond the surface and trying to connect with the client on an emotional level.

To achieve this level of emotional depth, counselors listen with both their ears and their hearts. That means putting themselves in their clients’ shoes and zeroing in on the emotional aspect of the experience.

Focus on feelings and thoughts rather than circumstances

When we listen to another person’s story, the most visible aspects are related to the actual events that he or she has gone through.

But details like names, dates, locations, or other circumstantial issues are less relevant than how the person interpreted and consequently felt in a particular situation.

When it comes to paraphrasing, counselors are trained to look beyond circumstances and identify why a client has chosen to talk about a particular event.

In almost every case, the reason is a set of emotional experiences.

Capture the essence of the message

Although people can experience a wide range of emotions in a given situation or context, there’s always an underlying feeling that defines how they react.

That underlying emotional vibe is the “golden nugget” that counselors are looking to capture and express through paraphrasing.

If done right, paraphrasing in counseling creates an emotional bridge that sets the foundation for authentic and meaningful interactions. This will encourage clients to open up and share their struggles.

Offer a brief version of what has been said

The last step is providing a concise version that highlights the emotional tone of the story.

Once this message reaches the client, it creates a sense of understanding that builds trust and authentic connection.

Long story short, paraphrasing is a valuable tool for cultivating empathy and facilitating therapeutic change.

How does paraphrasing help in communication?

Cultivating clarity (on both sides).

Any form of communication, whether it’s a therapeutic process, a negotiation, or a casual chat between friends, involves exchanging ideas.

And when people exchange ideas and opinions, there’s always the risk of confusion and misunderstanding.

By paraphrasing what the other person has shared, not only that you cultivate empathy, but you also let him/her know that the message has been received and understood correctly.

Research indicates that paraphrasing in counseling helps clients clarify their issues. [2] The more clients understand the inner-workings of their problems, the better they can adjust their coping strategies.

In a nutshell, paraphrasing eliminates ambiguity and paves the way for clarity.

Facilitating emotional regulation

One of the main functions of paraphrasing is to build empathy between two or more people engaged in conversation.

But the effects of paraphrasing on emotions extend way beyond empathy and understanding.

One study revealed that empathic paraphrasing facilitates extrinsic emotional regulation. [3] People who receive empathy through paraphrasing feel understood, and that prompts them to engage in a more intense emotional regulation process.

What starts as extrinsic emotional regulation slowly becomes intrinsic emotional regulation. This is the reason why someone who’s going through a rough patch can feel better by merely talking to a person who listens in an empathic manner and doesn’t necessarily hand out solutions or practical advice.

Paraphrasing can be a vital skill in heated arguments where two people have opposing views that result in emotional turmoil.

If one of them manages to exercise restraint over their intense emotional reactions and tries to paraphrase what the other shares, it could change the whole dynamic of the conversation.

What is the role of paraphrasing in listening?

As we discussed throughout this article, paraphrasing is one of the critical aspects of active listening.

It’s what turns a passive individual who listens only to have something to say when it’s his/her turn to speak into an active listener who understands and resonates on an emotional level.

Furthermore, paraphrasing is a means by which we provide valuable feedback on the topic of discussion, keeping the conversation alive.

It is also the tool that allows therapists to build safe spaces where clients feel comfortable enough to unburden their souls by sharing painful experiences and gaining clarity.

To sum up, paraphrasing in counseling is a vital micro skill that creates an authentic connection, providing clients with the opportunity to experience a sense of understanding.

Knowing there is someone who resonates with your emotional struggles makes your problems seem less burdensome.

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Reflecting Skills

Ensuring that you understand your clients, and that your clients feel understood by you is foundational to the counseling relationship. The skills on this page are particularly useful for building the counseling relationship by helping your clients to know that you are hearing and understanding what they are saying.

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, & Reflecting

Summarizing, paraphrasing, and reflecting are probably the three most important & most commonly used microskills. These skills can be used by counselors to demonstrate their empathy to clients, make the counseling session go "deeper", & increase clients' awareness of their emotions, cognitions, & behaviors. All three methods involve repeating back, in your own words, what the client has said. Counselors often go beyond simple repetition and include their own interpretations of the client's emotions or existential meaning to increase the "depth" of the session. These techniques can often be used in place of questions, as, like questions, they prompt the client to reflect or talk more. However, these techniques often have additional benefits of questions as they also demonstrate that the counselor empathizes with and understands each client. Summaries, paraphrases, and reflections can be described as:

  • Broadest of the three methods for repeating information.
  • Useful at the end or beginning of session. For example, summarizing the session to the client or reorienting the client to the previous session.
  • Summaries can include condensed paraphrases & reflections.
  • Not as broad as a summary, yet more broad than a reflection.
  • Useful for pacing counseling sessions and for demonstrating empathy to clients.
  • Paraphrases can contain condensed reflections.
  • There are three broad types of reflection: Reflections of content, reflections of feeling, & reflections of meaning.
  • Counselors can strengthen their reflections by constructing a reflection that integrates content, process, affect, and meaning. For example, "While talking about the loss of your dog (content) I experience you as alternating between anger and sadness (affect). That makes a lot of sense to me (self-disclosure), since you told me that seeing your dog at the end of a stressful day kept you grounded (meaning)".

Types of Reflections

Counselors can reflect a wide range of information, but reflections typically include one or more of the following:

  • Reflecting content involves repeating back to clients a version of what they just told you. Reflecting content shows the client you understand and are listening to them. Typically, reflecting content alone is not as powerful as reflecting content with emotions and/or meaning.
  • Reflecting a client's emotions is often useful for heightening the client's awareness of and ability to label their own emotions. It is important that counselors have a wide emotional vocabulary, so they can tailor their word choice to match a level of emotional intensity that is congruent with a client's experience. Feeling word charts are useful for reviewing a wide range of feeling words.
  • As existential theorists observe, humans are meaning making creatures. Reflecting a client's meaning can increase the client's self-awareness while encouraging emotional depth in the session.

Emotional Heightening

Counselors can intentionally use language to increase or decrease the emotional intensity of their reflections, thereby altering a client's emotional arousal. Using evocative language and metaphors (e.g., "walking on eggshells") encourages clients to go deeper into a particular experience or emotion, which can heighten awareness and understanding. Conversely, a counselor might support a client in containing their emotions toward the end of the session, so the client is prepared to leave the session.

It is important that counselors attempt to match their reflections to the emotional intensity of the client's experience. Thus, intentionality is important when counselors reflect more or less emotion than the client expresses, as doing so can result in the client feeling misunderstood and not listened to.

An example of emotional heightening is:

  • Client: "My wife and I can't stop fighting with each other, and things are really escalating."
  • Counselor: "Your fights are becoming more explosive and hostile."

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

Paraphrasing

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is repeating back your understanding of the material that has been brought by the client in your own words. A paraphrase reflects the essence of what has been said.

We all use paraphrasing in our everyday lives. If you look at your studies to become a counsellor or psychotherapist, you paraphrase in class. Maybe your lecturer brings a body of work, and you list and make notes: you’re paraphrasing as you distil this down to what you feel is important.

The Power of Paraphrasing:

  • The speaker feels heard.
  • Helps the listener to adjust frame of reference.
  • Highlights areas of high importance.
  • Acts as an invite to explore deeper.
  • Can indicate an end to the current discussion.

How Paraphrasing Builds Empathy

How does paraphrasing affect the client-counsellor relationship? First of all, it helps the client to feel both heard and understood. The client brings their material, daring to share that with you, and you show that you’re listening by giving them a little portion of that back – the part that feels the most important. You paraphrase it down. If you do that accurately and correctly, and it matches where the client is, the client is going to recognise that and feel heard: ‘Finally, somebody is really listening, really understanding what it is that I am bringing.’

This keys right into empathy, because it’s about building that empathic relationship with the client – and empathy is not a one-way transaction. Carl Rogers (1959, pp. 210-211) defines ‘empathy’ as the ability to ‘perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the “as if” conditions’. In other words, we walk in somebody’s shoes as if their reality is our own – but of course it’s not our reality, and that’s where the ‘as if’ comes in. I’ve heard this rather aptly described as ‘walking in the client’s shoes, but keeping our socks on’!

Empathy is a two-way transaction – it’s not enough for us to be 100% in the client’s frame of reference and understanding their true feelings; the client must also perceive that we understand. When the client feels at some level that they have been understood, then the empathy circle is complete.

For example, if you watch a TV programme in which somebody achieves something that is really spectacular, you may find yourself moved for this person. You’re almost there with them on this journey, and as they’re receiving their award or their adulation, and the audience is clapping for what they’ve done, you may even be moved to tears. But the person on the TV cannot perceive your reaction – the empathy is empty, because it’s one-way.

So empathy is effective only if your client feels heard and understood – i.e. they sense that empathic connection. Using paraphrasing is a way of completing the empathy circle – a way of letting them know that we see and hear them.

Other Benefits of Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing also highlights issues by stating them more concisely. This is focusing down: it invites the client to go and delve deeper into part of what they have said. We can also use paraphrasing to check out the accuracy of our perception as a counsellor.

Below is an example of my use of paraphrasing to clarify my understanding of what was brought. This shows how paraphrasing affects the therapeutic relationship; because the paraphrase fits well for the client, she feels heard and understood. As this happens, the material deepens.

I really have a battle with doing things for the impression that others will have of me, or the approval that I will get from other people for what it is that I do. So much so that I will very often override myself, my family, so that I can gain the acceptance, I guess, of other people, whether friends, family or clients in a work situation. I will always favour what the action would be that would gain that acceptance, that would not bring up any sort of confrontation or maybe have a conflict situation arise from it.

So, I guess, I’m eager to please, wanting to make sure that all things are well and smooth – and that I’m liked and accepted with whatever the transaction or situation may be.

Counsellor:

As you’re saying that, it really feels like a lot of hard work. A lot of hard work, pre-empting whatever it is that they would have expected of you, and then ‘sacrificing’, I guess, is a word that came up for me – sacrificing your own wants/needs to be able to meet what you perceive is expected of you. Have I understood that correctly?

Yeah, the word ‘sacrifice’ really captures the feeling that comes up for me when I sort of reflect and look over that kind of situation. So often, I will sacrifice my own wants and my own desires…

In this example, the client really resonated with the word ‘sacrifice’, which the counsellor introduced as a paraphrase; she really felt understood. And it’s interesting to note that throughout the rest of this stimulated session, the word ‘sacrifice’ became almost a theme.

Another paraphrase in this example was ‘hard work’. Although the client hadn’t used this phrase herself, she was presenting visually as weighed down. Her shoulders looked heavy as she was bringing the material. So the counsellor was paraphrasing, not only the words of the narrative, but digging deeper, looking for the feelings and paraphrasing the whole presence of that client within that relationship.

Listening for ‘the Music behind the Words’

Here is another example of paraphrasing, from the same skills session. Try to see if you can hear, as Rogers would put it, ‘the music behind the words’, where the counsellor looks deeper than just the words the client is bringing, paraphrasing back their whole being.

Out of my own will or my own free choice, I would put that aside and favour what would be accepted – or what I think someone else would rather I do. And sometimes it’s hard. It leaves me with a situation of not knowing if they actually really realise what it is that I sacrificed, that I’ve given up, so that it can fall into what I think they would prefer in that situation.

It feels confusing to you in that situation of whether they even perceive what it is that you are sacrificing, what you’re giving up. That it almost feels like you’re giving up part of yourself to match what you think they may want or need from you. And I kind of got the feeling, as you were saying that you wonder if they even see that.

Yeah. As I was sort of verbalizing and talking through that, I actually realised that even within that sacrifice, it’s all my perception of what I think they might want me to do. And just saying that is actually a bit ridiculous. Because how am I to know what it is that they want or need to do? So here I am – disregarding my own desires, for lack of a better word – to do something I assume someone else would want me to do instead.

I thought it was really interesting that this client started off in what felt to me like an external locus of evaluation. She was confused, and wondering whether the people she refers to understood what she was giving up to meet their perceived expectations. Immediately after the counsellor’s paraphrase, this client experienced a moment of movement from an external to an internal locus of evaluation, where she realised it was all about her own perceptions and responsibility. In this way, she went from being powerless to having the power to change this situation.

Next Steps in Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is so much more than just repeating the client’s words back to them using your own words. Although it might feel very simplistic – and there’s often a tendency to paraphrase the narrative/story that the client brings, rather than their feelings/process – there’s so much more to it than that and so much deeper that we can go. There’s real power in paraphrasing.

I suggest that you:

  • Practice active listening and paraphrasing in your day-to-day life.
  • Practice paraphrasing in your own stimulated skills sessions.
  • Try to look for the full person when paraphrasing, e.g. not just the client’s words, but also their body language, facial expressions, and way of being within the counselling relationship.
  • Record these sessions (with your peer’s consent) and listen back to them.
  • Speak to your peers about paraphrasing.
  • Evaluate each other’s skills and explore how you might paraphrase more effectively.
  • Look whether you’re getting empathic connection within your paraphrasing.
  • Search out moments of movement when you paraphrase.
  • Ask how paraphrasing affects both the client and you, as a counsellor.

Paraphrasing is definitely something that should be debated. I hope that this chapter will encourage you to go out there with a new passion for – and a new way of looking at – paraphrasing!

Alternatives to Questions

What else can we use when we’re not sure what exactly a client means? For example, if a client was speaking about his brother and father, he might say: ‘I really struggle with my brother and my father. They don’t get on, and at times he makes me so angry.’ Who does the client mean by ‘he’: the brother or the father? Not knowing who makes him angry means I cannot be fully within the client’s frame of reference.

I could ask: ‘Sorry, just so I can understand, who it is that you’re angry at – your father or your brother?’ This risks ripping the client out of that emotion (the anger). Instead, we could use reflection: ‘He makes you so angry.’ This invites the client to expand on what he has said. He might say: ‘Yes, ever since I was a young boy, my dad was always…’ In this case, I didn’t need to ask a question – we’re still in the feelings, and I’ve got what I needed in order to be fully in the client’s frame of reference.

Of course, the client might not reveal the information I need in his answer – for example, if he responded to my reflection: ‘He does. He makes me really angry – in fact, so angry that I don’t know what to do about it anymore.’ In that case, I would still need to put in a question: ‘Is this your dad or your brother that you’re referring to?’

Rogers, C, 1959. ‘A Theory of Therapy, Personallity, and Interpersonal Relations, as Developed in the Client-Centered Framework’, in S Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science (Vol.3), New York: McGraw-Hill, 184-256.

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Encouragers, Paraphrasing and Summarising

A counsellor can encourage a client to continue to talk, open up more freely and explore issues in greater depth by providing accurate responses through encouraging, paraphrasing and summarising. Responding in this way informs the client that the counsellor has accurately heard what they have been saying. Encouragers, paraphrases and summaries are basic to helping a client feel understood.

Encouragers, also known as intentional listening , involve fully attending to the client, thus allowing them to explore their feelings and thoughts more completely. Paraphrasing and summarising are more active ways of communicating to the client that they have been listened to. Summarising is particularly useful to help clients organise their thinking.

The diagram below shows how encouragers, paraphrases and summaries are on different points of a continuum, each building on more of the information provided by the client to accurately assess issues and events.

Encouragers – Encouragers are a variety of verbal and non-verbal ways of prompting clients to continue talking.

Types of encouragers include:

  • Non-verbal minimal responses such as a nod of the head or positive facial expressions
  • Verbal minimal responses such as “Uh-huh” and “I hear what you’re saying”
  • Brief invitations to continue such as “Tell me more”

Encouragers simply encourage the client to keep talking. For a counsellor to have more influence on the direction of client progress they would need to make use of other techniques.

Paraphrases – To paraphrase, the counsellor chooses the most important details of what the client has just said and reflects them back to the client. Paraphrases can be just a few words or one or two brief sentences.

Paraphrasing is not a matter of simply repeating or parroting what the client has stated. Rather it is capturing the essence of what the client is saying, through rephrasing. When the counsellor has captured what the client is saying, often the client will say, “That’s right” or offer some other form of confirmation.

Example: I have just broken up with Jason. The way he was treating me was just too much to bear. Every time I tried to touch on the subject with him he would just clam up. I feel so much better now. Paraphrase: You feel much better after breaking up with Jason.

Summaries – Summaries are brief statements of longer excerpts from the counselling session. In summarising, the counsellor attends to verbal and non-verbal comments from the client over a period of time, and then pulls together key parts of the extended communication, restating them for the client as accurately as possible.

A check-out, phrased at the end of the summary, is an important component of the statement, enabling a check of the accuracy of the counsellor’s response. Summaries are similar to paraphrasing, except they are used less frequently and encompass more information.

  • July 21, 2009
  • Communication , Counselling Process , Encouraging , Microskills , Paraphrasing
  • Counselling Theory & Process

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Comments: 23

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Yeah,must say i like the simple way these basic counselling skills are explained in this article. More of same would be most welcome as it helps give a better understanding of the counselling process and the methods and techniques used within the counselling arena

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I really find this information helpful as a refresher in my studies and work. Please keep up the excellent work of ‘educating’ us on being a better counsellor. Thank you!

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Wonderfully helpful posting. Many thanks!

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Thankyou so much. I am doing a assignment at uni about scitzophrenia and needed to clarify what paraphrasing truly meant. Cheers

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So helpful to me as a counselor.

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Thankx so much for these post. I’m doing Counselling and Community Services and I need to clarify what summarising and paraphrasing really meant. Once again thank you, this information it’s really helpful

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Hello Antoinette friend and doing guidance and counselling need uo help about this question With relevent examples explain the following concepts as used in communicating to clients. (I;listening to verbal messages and using encouraged minimal prompts. 2)making use of non verbal communication and exhibiting attending behaviours using Gerald Eganis macro skill SOLER/ROLES. 3.paraphrasing 4.identifying and reflecting feelings and emotions from the clients story 5.summarizing 6.confrotation 7.counsellor self disclosure 8.asking open and close open ended concept 9.answering questions 10.clarifying

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thanks I am doing a counselling community services at careers Australia

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Really love the explanations given to the active listening techniques it was really useful and helpful good work done.

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Helpful. Thanks!

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I really like hw u explain everything in to simple terms for my understanding.

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Hai ,thanks for being here .Am a student social worker,i need help an an able to listen to get the implied massages from the client.and to bring questions to explore with them .I love to do this work .What shall I do.how do i train my self in listening.

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really appreciate.

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You explanation of these three basic intentional listening are very helpful. Thank you for remained us.

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very helpful indeed in making the client more open and exploring the issues more deeply

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Very important cues.thanks

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the article was helpful .thank you for explaining it in more clear and simple words.appreciate it alot .

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I need to write about what counselling words mean ie I understand summarising and paraphrasing any more would be useful as I’m near the end of my course

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I have a role play exam tomorrow on counselling and find above explanation very useful. thanks for sharing.

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This explanation is clear and precise. Very easy to understanding than the expensive textbook. Please keep posting as this helps a lot. Thanks and God bless.

Pingback: Summarising In Counseling (a Comprehensive Overview) | OptimistMinds

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One of the simple and memorable descriptions of this I’ve read, thanks so much!

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Processing Therapy

What is reflection of feeling in counseling?

Table of Contents

a statement made by a therapist or counselor that is intended to highlight the feelings or attitudes implicitly expressed in a client’s communication and to draw them out so that they can be clarified. Also called reflection response. Reflecting feeling is listening accurately to another and naming the emotional state of the other in your own words. It involves stating a feeling word that captures the emotion of the other. Reflecting a client’s emotions is often useful for heightening the client’s awareness of and ability to label their own emotions. It is important that counselors have a wide emotional vocabulary, so they can tailor their word choice to match a level of emotional intensity that is congruent with a client’s experience. The purposes of reflecting are: To allow the speaker to ‘hear’ their own thoughts and to focus on what they say and feel. To show the speaker that you are trying to perceive the world as they see it and that you are doing your best to understand their messages. To encourage them to continue talking. There are two main ways to practice reflective listening: mirroring and paraphrasing. The 5R framework for reflection will guide you through Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and Reconstructing to make sense of a learning experience.

What is reflection of feelings in client centered therapy?

Reflection of Feelings: Repeating what the client has shared about his or her feelings; this lets the client know the therapist is listening actively and understanding what the client is saying, as well as giving them an opportunity to further explore their feelings. a statement made by a therapist or counselor that is intended to highlight the feelings or attitudes implicitly expressed in a client’s communication and to draw them out so that they can be clarified. Also called reflection response. Definition: The social worker uses reflection of feeling to restate and explore the client’s affective (feeling) messages. The response may capture both feeling and content, but the emphasis is on feelings. You validate the client by conveying accurately an understanding of the client’s feelings. Examples of reflection of feeling are ‘You’re feeling sad’ or ‘You feel sad’ or ‘You’re sad’. Sometimes, reflection of content and feelings are combined, as in the statement: ‘You’re sad because you’ve lost your best friend. Reflective practice allows the Counsellor to do their job to the highest standards. It ensures that they don’t waste time on methods that don’t work and that they repeat methods that do. Another benefit is that the Counsellor is able to self-assess their working methods and apply improvements where necessary.

What is an example of a reflective statement in counseling?

Common reflective statement stems: “So you feel…” “It sounds like you…” “You’re wondering if…” “For you it’s like…” The listener can repeat or substitute synonyms or phrases and stay close to what the speaker has said. The listener can make major restatements in which the speaker’s meaning is inferred. Reflecting feelings is determining the feelings and emotions in a person’s verbal and body language and stating (or reflecting) those feelings back to the person or client. Reflection helped participants manage personal feelings, such as anxiety and inadequacy, and their impact on others. Reflective practice enabled participants to better understand themselves as well as their impact on the people around them. Reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences and actions / interactions. It helps us gain insight and see how to move forward. Its power lies in being able to help you develop your understanding of the way you. Reflection can be a very empowering process. It can help you to make sense of your day; to come to decisions, to set a course of action; to step away from your habitual way of doing and thinking and discover new freedoms and opportunities. Reflection is the examination of one’s own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology the process of reflection relies exclusively on observation of one’s mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one’s soul.

What are the types of reflection in Counselling?

In many counseling sessions, the client will speak the most as they recall, process, and experience growth in challenging areas. However, when it’s the therapist turn to speak, it is important what you chose to say and how you chose to say it. The three basic types of reflections are: content, emotion, and thematic. When a counselor uses reflection, s/he accurately describes the client’s affective state from either verbal or nonverbal cues. By listening for and responding to the feelings of the client rather than the content of their statement you arc communicating that you can accurately sense the world as they are perceiving it. There are two types of reflective responses: (1) simple reflections essentially repeat back to a client the explicit content of something he or she has said; (2) complex reflections include the client’s unspoken (implicit) meaning, feelings, intentions or experiences. There are two main ways to practice reflective listening: mirroring and paraphrasing.

There are three broad types of reflection: Reflections of content, reflections of feeling, & reflections of meaning. Counselors can strengthen their reflections by constructing a reflection that integrates content, process, affect, and meaning. Reflecting helps you to develop your skills and review their effectiveness, rather than just carry on doing things as you have always done them. It is about questioning, in a positive way, what you do and why you do it and then deciding whether there is a better, or more efficient, way of doing it in the future. According to this model, reflections can be organized into three levels: technical, practical, and critical. Reflection is divided into three types: diffuse, specular, and glossy.

What is reflecting feelings?

Reflecting feelings is a statement made by a therapist or counselor that is intended to highlight the feelings or attitudes implicitly expressed in a client’s communication and to draw them out so that they can be clarified. Also called reflection response. Reflecting is like mirror. Reflection is a process which helps you gain insight into your professional practise by thinking analytically about any element of it. Reflection is a process which helps you gain insight into your professional practise by thinking analytically about any element of it. Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. Reflection brings learning to life. Reflective practice helps learners find relevancy and meaning in a lesson and make connections between educational experiences and real life situations. It increases insight, and creates pathways to future learning. Meaningful reflections go beyond simple recall of information and descriptions of what happened; rather, meaningful reflections exhibit original thinking that goes beyond the surface. Prompts that elicit meaningful reflection: Are crafted strategically with specific personal and intellectual goals in mind.

What is paraphrasing and reflecting feelings in Counselling?

Paraphrasing or active listening (coined by Carl R. Rogers in Client-Centered-Therapy) is a form of responding empathically to the emotions of another person by repeating in other words what this person said while focusing on the essence of what they feel and what is important to them. Paraphrase instead of parroting Rather than repeating what’s already been said, try paraphrasing to put your own words to the feeling. Paraphrasing reinforces your understanding, and shows your conversation partner that you’re processing how they are feeling and what they are saying. a statement made by a therapist or counselor that is intended to highlight the feelings or attitudes implicitly expressed in a client’s communication and to draw them out so that they can be clarified. Also called reflection response.

What is an example of reflection of feelings?

Examples of reflection of feeling are ‘You’re feeling sad’ or ‘You feel sad’ or ‘You’re sad’. Sometimes, reflection of content and feelings are combined, as in the statement: ‘You’re sad because you’ve lost your best friend. ‘ Reflecting feeling is listening accurately to another and naming the emotional state of the other in your own words. It involves stating a feeling word that captures the emotion of the other. Reflection is defined as the process of engaging the self (S) in attentive, critical, exploratory and iterative (ACEI) interactions with one’s thoughts and actions (TA), and their underlying conceptual frame (CF), with a view to changing them and a view on the change itself (VC). Reflecting content is listening accurately to another person and reflecting the essence of the content of the communication to the other in your own words. In reflecting content, you focus on the content of what a speaker is saying to you, including thoughts, ideas, beliefs, facts, data, etc. Use present tense for feelings you have at the time of writing. Feelings should already be processed. For academic reflection you should not write in the heat of the moment. The feelings presented should aid the reader’s understanding of the situation and help you to make connections to future actions. So when we say “feel your feelings” that starts with noticing what feelings you have and later learning how to focus in on them one at a time. When you learn to sort out your feelings and focus on them one at a time, you’ll start to develop a better understanding of your reactions, your needs and your beliefs.

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The Journal of Integrative Behavioral Science Writing Guide: Paraphrasing

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Benefits of Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing can help you prevent overuse of direct quotations and it can be more concise than quoting.

Paraphrasing can help you think about and understand the text that you are paraphrasing. When you rephrase another person’s idea, it forces you to think about what that person is really saying.

When to Paraphrase

Preserve the Meaning

You can paraphrase when you are able to  reword the author’s idea without changing the meaning.

When Only the Information is Important

You should paraphrase when you want to express an idea from a source but  the source is not particularly noteworthy or the way the passage is phrased is not especially unique or impactful.

To Support Your Argument

Use paraphrases in the body of your paper in order to  back up your thesis ; make sure all of the ideas that you use are relevant to the point that you are trying to make.

Understand the Source

Make sure you know and understand what the author is saying before you rephrase;   be accurate. If you cannot change the words without  changing the meaning, use a direct quote instead.

Use Completely Different Wording and Phrasing

Be sure that   your word choice, phrasing, and sentence structure are completely different   from that of the original source.   Also, make sure you  explain or expound upon  the information that you use.

  Paraphrasing  is taking the main idea from a source material, rewriting it with your own wording and style.

Good Paraphrase Example

Original Quote

“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.”

According to Franklin, pride is the most difficult vice to defeat; no matter how hard one tries to overcome it, it keeps returning.

Paraphrasing Guidelines

Introduce Your Paraphrases

It is a good idea to introduce your paraphrases using attributive tags in order to make it obvious that you are borrowing ideas from another person rather than coming up with them on your own.

Example: Benjamin Franklin believes that . . .

Use Proper Citation

Cite your paraphrases. Even if you are not taking something from your source word-for-word, you are still borrowing someone else’s thought/idea and you need to give credit where credit is due. 

Subject Guide

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Combining Quoting and Paraphrasing

 Quoting and paraphrasing can be combined; one way of doing this is paraphrasing most of the passage but including key words or phrases directly from the source (but be sure to put these in quotation marks).

Example: Franklin implies that it takes greater intelligence to be honest than to rely on “tricks” and “treachery”.

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Using evidence: ineffective paraphrasing strategies, ineffective paraphrasing strategies.

When paraphrasing, there are a few common mistakes you should learn to avoid:

  • Avoid switching out or changing around of a few words in an author's sentence(s) for use in your paper.
  • Avoid failing to acknowledge (through an in-text citation or direct quotes) the outside source from which you obtained your information or ideas.   Exception: When paraphrasing, you do not have to directly cite common knowledge . Common knowledge is information that is widely known and can be found in multiple places. For example, writing that Ronald Reagan was a U.S. Republican president would be considered common knowledge, so it would not need to be cited. However, when in doubt, it is always better to cite than run the risk of plagiarism.
  • Avoid acknowledging the author in an in-text citation but failing to include quotation marks around any terms or phrasing that you have borrowed from the author.

Note that any of the unsuccessful elements of paraphrasing are considered plagiarism in your essay, even if these paraphrasing missteps are unintentional. Learn more about inadvertent plagiarism and its connection to insufficient plagiarism via the plagiarism videos below or visit our Plagiarism Prevention Resource Kit .

Plagiarism Detection & Revisions Skills: Ineffective Paraphrasing Video Playlist

Paraphrasing Sources: Paraphrasing Strategies Video

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disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

3 Benefits of Paraphrasing: The Skill for Learning, Writing and Communicating

Paraphrasing is the underrated skill of reinstating, clarifying or condensing the ideas of another in your own words. By paraphrasing, you can curate credible and well-developed documents, and arguments. But there’s more to paraphrasing than the final result, the process of paraphrasing engages your ability to learn actively, write well, and communicate creatively.

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

Paraphrasing allows you to share another’s ideas in your own words. This powerful technique is useful in both written and verbal communication, and acts as a tool for conveying information effectively. Paraphrasing is an underrated skill that is beneficial to a variety of individuals from students and writers to employees and business owners. In any setting, sharing information well is the key to good quality work and results. The process of paraphrasing itself also has a number of benefits, making you a better learner, writer and communicator. 

Paraphrasing: The Active Learning Strategy 

Paraphrasing requires you to think about the information you want to convey. You need to understand the meaning in order to reword and restructure the idea, and share it effectively. The process of paraphrasing encourages you to get to the core message, and improves your understanding of the material. In this way, you are actively engaging with the material . Instead of passively reading, you are breaking down the ideas and concepts. Rather than slotting information into your writing, you’re reworking and tailoring it to your needs and your audience. 

Paraphrasing can improve your memory by encouraging you to engage with the information. The 5-step approach to paraphrasing suggests writing your first paraphrase without looking at the original material. This engages your ability to actively recall information from memory, and think of new ways to write it out, rather than simply trying to memorise what you read word for word. After your first draft, you’ll revisit the original material to check if your work conveys the same meaning, this part of the process can further strengthen memory. You’re again revisiting the material in a way that is active and assessing your understanding. Likewise, the practice of paraphrasing improves your ability to convey information, ensuring that it is well-written and tailored to your audience.

This learning method is particularly useful for exams. You’ll learn the material well, developing a deep understanding and continue to refine this as you paraphrase the information. You’ll also be practising your ability to share this information in a way that is well-written, avoids plagiarism and engages your audience. This means, you’ll be able to easily add these ideas into your assignments or exams, having already taken the time to understand the ideas deeply and even practised sharing this information. You’ll be able to show the depth of your learning through paraphrasing, proving you understand the bigger picture and the finer details. 

Paraphrasing: The Technique for Improving Writing Ability

Once you’ve understood the concept well, the process of paraphrasing can improve your writing ability in a variety of ways. You’ll improve your vocabulary by making use of synonyms and identifying key words. You might also switch between word categories, using a noun instead of a verb or changing  adjectives into adverbs. Overtime, this will make you a better writer. Paraphrasing is more than changing a few words and can involve switching between the active or passive voice, this can improve your ability to distinguish between the two. Effective paraphrasing also involves playing around with sentence structure, you might utilise shorter or longer sentences to convey the idea at hand. 

These benefits can still be found even when using paraphrasing tools . You’ll still have to test your understanding by assessing the paraphrase the tool produced. Likewise, you’ll be exposed to new ways of writing things, new words, sentence structures, and organisation. You’ll learn how to pick out the paraphrasing styles that do or don’t work for your writing. Beyond the more technical aspects of writing, paraphrasing can also teach you how to communicate more clearly. You might rearrange the information to emphasise a particular point, or simplify the language to make it accessible to your audience. This improves your ability to clarify the ideas of the original material, and make ideas that might be overly complex, easier to digest. 

Paraphrasing: The Skill for Better Communication 

Finally, paraphrasing can make you a better and more creative communicator. By engaging in the process of paraphrasing, you’re developing your ability to share one idea in a variety of ways. For this to be engaging, you have to get creative. You might play around with the tone, switching between formal, informal, casual, or persuasive. Imagine a business launching a new product, communicating the idea to various internal teams, and customers, each would require a different approach and yet the meaning behind the information would remain the same. 

You might ask questions such as, how can I tailor this information to my audience? How can I bring this aspect of the idea to life? This highlights how paraphrasing can really exercise your ability to communicate creatively. Similarly, paraphrasing can teach you how to share ideas in your own personal way. Whether you’re sharing an idea with a friend, or on social media, you’ll find you can share information in your own personal style while still retaining the original meaning. This can make ideas more accessible and relatable to those in your circle. Additionally, this can prove to be a useful skill in your career, studies or creative endeavours.

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

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What are the Pros and Cons of the Paraphrasing Tool

Brian Peng

If you want to create new content and don’t have the right experience or skills to do it, then you should always take professional help. Professional writers can help you create new content, but the problem that arises here is that they can charge a lot of money for what you require. If you don’t have the budget or the budget to hire a writer, then all you can do is trust the modern technology and tools for their services.

You can take help from the best paraphrasing tools like RewriteGuru ! The online paraphrasing tools can help you create new content in less than minutes. Still, experts recommend that you must be familiar with the pros and cons of using this technology before you start using the rewriter tool. So, in this resource, you can collect all the information about the advantages and disadvantages of paraphrase online.

Pros and cons of Spinner Technology

We want you to know that there is no doubt that with modern tools and technology you can create new content by plagiarizing an already published one, but not all of the paraphrasing tools on the web are reliable or are free, and this is the reason that you have to be very careful plus responsible about the selection of the paraphrasing tool and also of its pros and cons! So without any delay, let us start with the details of the advantages of the paraphrasing tools first!

Advantages or Pros of using paraphrasing tools in 2021

Consider these points and understand the importance of these tools while you can!

1. The first pro that you can enjoy by using paraphrasing tools is that you can easily help yourself in saving your time. Conventional writing needs ideation and research before you execute it. Furthermore, it can take up to thirty minutes to create a thousand-word article. On the other hand, you can create a thousand-word article in thirty seconds with paraphrasing tools.

2. You can get consistent results if you hook up with the same tool. Different paraphrasing tools have different presentation techniques that can give a fishy look if you do not rely on one. If you integrate yourself with one tool, then you can easily create good quality content.

3. Writing content is not as easy as it looks. It takes a lot of effort and hard work to even paraphrase content manually. You have to read the input content multiple times before you write it in your own words. With paraphrasing tools, you can get rid of all the efforts of creating new content.

4. You can save money if you start using paraphrasing tools. It can cost you thousands of dollars if you want to create content capital for your website or blog. On the other hand, if you use the paraphrasing tools, then you can create content for free or by spending a minimal amount.

5. Online paraphrasing tools are also very much accessible. You can find hundreds of paraphrasing tools online and can use them on all kinds of devices and operating systems. The majority of the tools work online, so you need a strong connection with a browser.

Disadvantages of using paraphrasing tools!

There are also some disadvantages to using paraphrasing tools, and you should know about them.

1. Some paraphrasing tools are not free and can charge hundreds of dollars if you want to create the bulk of the content.

2. Not all paraphrasing tools are reliable, so you can’t be sure of the results produced by the service. The majority of the tools available online have a bad reputation for creating reader-friendly content. They can create unique content, but they are not capable of creating content that is more understandable and less artificial.

3. Some of the online paraphrasing tools don’t have proofreading features which is a great con . You cannot check the newly created content for human errors and plagiarism and have to take help from third-party tools which is yet again a great waste of time.

4. The content created by paraphrasing tools can get caught by even the human eye if it is not done properly. Spinning the same content multiple times can damage the quality of creation!

The pros and cons of using paraphrasing tools, you have to be very careful in creating content with them and more importantly selecting the right tool for this purpose. As we have told you guys earlier, there are plenty of paraphrasing tools available online, and you have to choose the best one from them. Some of the high reputed tools have been listed below for our audience!

Best Paraphrasing Tools found in 2021

  • Rewriteguru.com
  • Clever spinner
  • Article spinner 4.0
  • Paraphrasing Tool by SmallSeoTools
  • Artcilerewriter.com

All of these online tools use artificial intelligence to create new and reliable content!

Brian Peng

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Counselling & Psychology

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Individual Counselling?

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As you may already know, the purpose of counselling is to help those dealing with anxiety, stress, or depression. It embraces the saying that ‘an ounce of prevention is equal to a pound of cure’, which means counselling can help deal with your issues before they get severe.

While there remains the opportunity for individual and group counselling, clients choose either of them as per their needs and convenience. This blog guides you about the advantages and disadvantages of individual counselling to help you decide which one you should go for.

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Table of Content

Types of Counselling

Educational counselling, career counselling, marriage and family counselling, mental health counselling, rehabilitation counselling, 1. ensures confidentiality, 2. provides a comfortable environment, 3. confirms focused attention, 4. allows flexibility, 5. assures a comprehensive treatment, 6. promotes a healthy relationship with the counsellor, 7. enables a better communication, 8. reduces the possibility of personal conflicts, 9. less occurrence of judgement , 10. treatment according to client’s convenience.

  • 1. High risk of getting too Personal 

2. Unable to Provide a Sense of Belonging

3. clients are deprived of practical wisdom, 4. does not provide the opportunity to discover yourself, 5. clients lack support from fellow mates, guidance vs counselling:, what to read next:, what is individual counselling.

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

Individual counselling is the process of one-on-one discussion between the client and the counsellor in a safe and confidential environment.

Through individual counselling, clients explore their feelings, beliefs and behaviours to understand themselves better and identify those aspects of their lives that they would like to change.

This type of counselling focuses on the individual’s immediate or near future concerns. For example, a client dealing with personal issues such as marriage and relationship challenges or facing difficulties at the workplace can benefit from individual counselling.

Individual counselling allows the formation of a bond between the client and the counsellor that ensures trust and personal growth.

There is a wide range of specialities in the field of counselling. While the area of focus is gradually expanding, the types of counselling include but is not limited to-

This type of counselling assists and guides the student body. Educational counsellors do this by monitoring students’ workloads and GPAs and assisting them with improvement tactics. They also conduct seminars and private sessions to discuss the students’ interests and help them choose the right concentration of study.

The type of counselling that helps people figure out which career path is right for them is known as career counselling. Here the counsellors provide professional advice to the counsellee by discussing their career interests and possibilities. To do this, career counsellors might conduct certain types of personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help the client have a better picture of themselves.

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

Counselling that focuses on improving your communication and conflict-resolution skills is Marriage and Family Counselling. Since every marriage has ups and downs, it often becomes difficult to cope with the problems in a troubled relationship. Therefore, marriage and family counselling prescribe solutions to overcome the problems.

Mental health counselling is about providing psychological care to patients suffering from both acute and chronic mental or psychological difficulties. Traumas, depression, addiction and phobias are just a few mental health issues that mental health professionals typically treat.

This type of counselling help to improve individuals’ physical and emotional well-being. Rehabilitation counselling assists individuals who are struggling with their personal, social, or physical disabilities.

What are the Advantages of Individual Counselling?

disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

When it comes to the advantages of individual counselling, there are a plethora of them. Learn what you can gain from individual counselling sessions.

Confidentiality is an essential element of individual counselling. Counsellors are not supposed to reveal any information shared by their clients with others. Unlike group counselling, individual counselling assures confidentiality, i.e. any information shared by the client remains between the client and the counsellor only.

Some clients hesitate to share their personal problems in groups. As such, the client might not open up fully during the counselling session and will withhold some information. With individual counselling, clients can express everything with comfort, so the counselling proceeds smoothly.

In individual counselling, counsellors work solely with one client and put all their focus and energy into tailoring the therapy that would be suitable for the individual. This is a significant advantage compared to other types of counselling.

Since individual counselling is a one-to-one session, the clients do not need to adjust their time for others. They can arrange a time for the therapy sessions that is most convenient for them.

Compared to group therapy, the level of analysis and treatment can be much more comprehensive in individual therapy since the focus is not shifted to other clients.

There is no doubt that a good therapeutic relationship between the client and counsellor aids in a successful therapy intervention. This bond is strongest in individual therapy.

When it is individual therapy, you get the opportunity to directly communicate with your counsellor without any intervention from other group members that might happen in group counselling. Thus, individual therapy enables you to communicate better and open up unhesitantly.

In a group therapy session, there are possibilities of personality conflicts that can hold people back from the coping mechanisms they need to work on. However, in an individual therapy session, the possibility of personality conflict is less. Even if there is a conflict between the counsellor and patient, it can be easily resolved.

Within an individual therapy session, there is hardly any judgement because it’s just you and the counsellor in the session. Like in group counselling, there are no group members who might listen to your issues and be critical to judge you.

The pace of the therapy can be customised as per the client’s need in the individual counselling. It can be accelerated in cases where the client can handle more focused and intense interventions and it can also be slowed down if the client needs time to adjust and move slowly.

With the advent of technology, now you can get the best online therapy services from the comfort of your own. With the help of these services, speaking with a qualified therapist is simple, affordable, and as relaxing as possible.

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What are the disadvantages of individual counselling.

Now that you have become familiar with the advantages of Individual counselling find out the disadvantages as mentioned below-

1. High risk of getting too Personal  

Since there is only the counsellor and the client working together in individual counselling, there remains a risk that the client will develop an emotional attachment to the counsellor and end up relying greatly on the counsellor. This could be a potential problem while making decisions, and the counsellor might discontinue counselling.

Clients with mental health issues often suffer from loneliness. They struggle to share their feelings in fear of being judged, and they think that no one will understand them. Clients may find group mates with similar mental issues in a group setting and feel comfortable participating in the discussion. However, this is not possible in the case of individual counselling.

Counsellors provide the guidance to deal with almost any issue. However, wisdom can help a client take the next step, which can only be provided by someone who has already “been there.” Group therapy allows people to benefit from the wisdom of others who dealt with similar struggles instead of individual therapy. 

When a person drowns in negative thoughts, actions, or behaviours, it becomes difficult to see what they are doing wrong from their perspective. Individual counselling does not allow one to address one’s negative cycle by seeing similar cycles in others, which is possible in group counselling.

As mentioned before, individual counselling is one-to-one counselling; there is no involvement of anyone else other than the client and counsellor. Thus clients lack the support of the group members that would have been possible in the group counselling.

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The terms “Guidance” and “Counselling” might sound similar, but there exist differences between what they offer.

This blog has explored the advantages and disadvantages of individual counselling, knowing which you can be benefited from if you are planning to go for a session. Moreover, it would help you compare individual and group counselling, making it easier to choose the right one for you.

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disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

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  1. reflecting and paraphrasing in counselling

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  2. Paraphrasing in Counselling

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    disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

  4. What is the Difference Between Quoting and Paraphrasing

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  6. examples of paraphrasing in counselling

    disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

COMMENTS

  1. Reflecting and Paraphrasing • Counselling Tutor

    This is achieved by the helper/counsellor repeating back to the client parts of their story. This known as paraphrasing. Reflecting is showing the client that you have 'heard' not only what is being said, but also what feelings and emotions the client is experiencing when sharing their story with you. This is sometimes known in counselling ...

  2. Effects of Empathic Paraphrasing

    Paraphrasing led to less negative feelings in study participants, while at the same time inducing higher autonomic arousal, which subsided after a short period of time. A possible explanation for these findings is that empathic paraphrasing stimulates an increased and focused processing of negative emotion in social conflict, and thus may ...

  3. Paraphrasing in Counselling

    In essence, paraphrasing is a micro skill that allows counselors to create an authentic bond with their clients Together with encouraging and summarizing, paraphrasing plays a crucial role in therapeutic communication, making the client feel understood and listened to. In other words, paraphrasing in counseling is what makes the client say ...

  4. Reflecting & Listening Skills

    Summarizing, Paraphrasing, & Reflecting. Summarizing, paraphrasing, and reflecting are probably the three most important & most commonly used microskills. These skills can be used by counselors to demonstrate their empathy to clients, make the counseling session go "deeper", & increase clients' awareness of their emotions, cognitions, & behaviors.

  5. PDF Verbal & Non-Verbal Communication Skills

    Encouragers - Encouragers are a variety of verbal and non-verbal ways of prompting clients to continue talking. Types of encouragers include: Non-verbal minimal responses such as a nod of the head or positive expressions. Verbal minimal responses such as "Uh-huh" and "I hear what you're saying".

  6. PDF Reflecting Skills: Paraphrasing

    Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is a ski! used to address the first level (cognitive level) In the beginning of the counseling relationship a client can feel more comfortable if you are able to reflect content. In most cases you cannot rea!y understand the deeper layers until later on. How to create a Paraphrase 1.Choose a sentence stem. •It ...

  7. Microskills: Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing in Counseling Practice

    So paraphrasing and summarizing are similar in that they both involve repeating or restating a client's thoughts and feelings, but they're different in that paraphrasing is about restating a specific message or idea expressed by the client, while summarizing involves condensing several ideas that have been expressed by the client.

  8. Paraphrasing

    Paraphrasing is repeating back your understanding of the material that has been brought by the client in your own words. A paraphrase reflects the essence of what has been said. We all use paraphrasing in our everyday lives. If you look at your studies to become a counsellor or psychotherapist, you paraphrase in class.

  9. The Relative Effectiveness of Active Listening in Initial Interactions

    The active listening condition included paraphrasing the participant's message and, when appropriate, asking the participant to elaborate on what they said (see Table 1 for an example from the data). The simple acknowledgement condition consisted of only back channel cues such as head nods, and short verbal statements such as "I see," "OK ...

  10. A Critique of Nondirectivity in the Person-Centered Approach

    This article discusses the concept of nondirectivity in person-centered theory. It argues that, since personal and theoretical biases are unavoidable, it is impossible for a therapist to be consistently nondirective. Furthermore, the concept of nondirectivity, with its focus on the psychology of the client, implies that person-centered therapy ...

  11. The Skilled Helper Approach • Counselling Tutor

    56) write: 'Egan has called his approach a developmental or systematic eclecticism. It is taught on many counselling courses.'. The extent to which the Skilled Helper approach fits with person-centred counselling is debatable. Egan's integrative model in fact draws on the work of both Carl Rogers and Robert Carkhuff (co-creator with ...

  12. Encouragers, Paraphrasing and Summarising

    Encouragers, Paraphrasing and Summarising. A counsellor can encourage a client to continue to talk, open up more freely and explore issues in greater depth by providing accurate responses through encouraging, paraphrasing and summarising. Responding in this way informs the client that the counsellor has accurately heard what they have been ...

  13. The benefits of reflection and the reflective tools available

    Counselling can be an isolated role, and sometimes it is difficult to focus and remain motivated without regular colleague support. The benefits of meeting with other counsellors to discuss reflective practice methods can be invaluable. This is because group reflections encourage discussion about how others deal with similar situations, meaning ...

  14. What is reflection of feeling in counseling?

    Reflecting feelings is a statement made by a therapist or counselor that is intended to highlight the feelings or attitudes implicitly expressed in a client's communication and to draw them out so that they can be clarified. Also called reflection response. Reflecting is like mirror. Reflection is a process which helps you gain insight into ...

  15. Paraphrasing

    Quoting and paraphrasing can be combined; one way of doing this is paraphrasing most of the passage but including key words or phrases directly from the source (but be sure to put these in quotation marks). Example: Franklin implies that it takes greater intelligence to be honest than to rely on "tricks" and "treachery". <<

  16. PDF Effects of empathic paraphrasing

    Paraphrasing or active listening (coined by Carl R. Rogers in Client-Centered-Therapy)isaformof respondingempathicallyto the emotions of another person by repeating in other words what thisperson saidwhilefocusingon theessenceof what theyfeeland whatisimportanttothem.Inthisway,thelisteneractivelydemon-

  17. disadvantages of paraphrasing in counselling

    Paraphrasing in counseling is a way of responding, which informs the client that the counselor has precisely heard what the client has conveyed. ... Paraphrasing is a useful skill in academic writing that allows academics to restate already existing statements or content without altering... Learn reflecting and listening skills including ...

  18. Silence in Counselling • Counselling Tutor

    For the counsellor it can be: A deliberate use of silence to encourage the client's self-exploration. A deliberate use of silence to encourage the client to "carry the burden" of the conversation. An organisational use of silence enabling the counsellor to collect her/his own thoughts. A natural ending to a phase of discussion.

  19. Ineffective Paraphrasing Strategies

    Ineffective Paraphrasing Strategies. When paraphrasing, there are a few common mistakes you should learn to avoid: Avoid switching out or changing around of a few words in an author's sentence (s) for use in your paper. Avoid failing to acknowledge (through an in-text citation or direct quotes) the outside source from which you obtained your ...

  20. 3 Benefits of Paraphrasing: The Skill for Learning, Writing and

    By paraphrasing, you can curate credible and well-developed documents, and arguments. But there's more to paraphrasing than the final result, the process of paraphrasing engages your ability to learn actively, write well, and communicate creatively. Amirah Khan. March 22, 2022. Paraphrasing allows you to share another's ideas in your own words.

  21. What are the Pros and Cons of the Paraphrasing Tool

    There are also some disadvantages to using paraphrasing tools, and you should know about them. 1. Some paraphrasing tools are not free and can charge hundreds of dollars if you want to create the bulk of the content. 2. Not all paraphrasing tools are reliable, so you can't be sure of the results produced by the service.

  22. 141

    Potential cons of integrative counselling include theoretical dilution and conflict in practitioners (who are required to blend two or more different sets of language). Rory has written a handout on the pros and cons of integrative counselling; this is available here, or through the Handouts Vault and Counselling Study Resource (CSR).

  23. 10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Individual Counselling?

    3. Confirms Focused Attention. In individual counselling, counsellors work solely with one client and put all their focus and energy into tailoring the therapy that would be suitable for the individual. This is a significant advantage compared to other types of counselling. 4.