Observing skills are the most basic helping skills. They are a rich source of learning about the helpees. When all else fails, we emphasize observing our helpees. We learn much of what we need to know about people by observing them.
Observing skills involve the helper’s ability to see and to understand the nonverbal behavior of the helpee. We must observe those aspects of the helpee’s appearance and behavior which help us to infer the helpee’s physical energy level, emotional feeling state and intellectual readiness for helping. These references are the bases for our initial understanding of where the helpee is coming from.
OBSERVING ...
Get The Art of Helping now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
