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Chapter 3
ATTENDING, EMPATHY, AND
OBSERVATION SKILLS
Fundamentals of All Interviewing and
Counseling Approaches
How can attending and observation skills be used to help your clients?
Chapter 3, “Attending, Empathy, and Observation Skills: Fundamentals of All
Interviewing and Counseling Approaches,” will enable you to become competent in the
most essential behaviors of empathic listening and observing—the foundation skills for
all interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy.
CHAPTER GOALS
Empathic attending behavior encourages client talk. You will want to use attending
behavior to help clients tell their stories and to reduce your own talk-time. Conversely,
the lack of attending behavior can also serve a useful function. Through no attention, you
can help clients refocus their stories in more positive ways.
Awareness, knowledge, skills, and actions developed through the concepts of this chapter
will enable you to:
▲ Communicate to clients that you understand and are interested in their stories.
▲ Become aware of verbal and nonverbal attending behavior styles in the interview—
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INTRODUCTION
Microcounseling introduced the concept of attending behavior in 1966, and the word has
become generic to our field. Attending behavior is the foundation of skills training, and if
students only learn one thing—listen!—then we have greatly increased their chances of
becoming competent helpers.
Furthermore, the opposite is also clear: without attention, nothing much happens. This
information is so basic that it becomes easy to give it insufficient attention. We
encourage you to provide a full review of this chapter in class. Also, you may wish to
review the more complete discussion of attending in Intentional Interviewing and
Counseling, Eighth Edition, for additional ideas to help students understand the
importance of attending.
OVERVIEW OF THE CHAPTER AND MINDTAP SUPPORT
DEFINING ATTENDING BEHAVIOR
The foundation skill of attending behavior is presented. This behavior is defined as
“supporting your client with individually and culturally appropriate verbal following,
visuals, vocal quality, and body language.” Attending behavior involves the 3V’s + B:
visuals, vocal qualities, verbal tracking, and body language. As they were first developed
in the original microtraining paradigm, these concepts are now well known, and it is
sometimes tempting to move through them too quickly. Our experience has been that the
Attending behavior is fundamental to interpersonal communication in all cultures.
Furthermore, all theories and methods of interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy
rest on a base of attending behavior, which is necessary to build a working relationship or
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DISCERNING: BASIC TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES OF ATTENDING
BEHAVIOR
While interviewing is clearly an art, the most artful and skillful interviewer has solid
skills. It is helpful to observe clients’ verbal and nonverbal behavior in a culturally
sensitive way. The 3 V’s + B reduce interviewer talk time and provide clients with an
opportunity to tell their stories in as much detail as needed.
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Websites: Two websites are listed with listening-related activities.
2. Case Study: Is Attending Enough? What would you do in a similar situation?
3. Video Activity: Sharpening Your Observation Skills. Use your observation skills to
note the interviewer’s behavior.
DISCERNING: INDIVIDUAL AND MULTICULTURAL ISSUES IN ATTENDING
BEHAVIOR
A frequent tendency of beginning interviewers or counselors is to attempt to solve
clients’ issues too soon. We believe it is important to listen carefully and intentionally
before acting. By attending and giving clients talk time, interviewers demonstrate that
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to open and close client talk, making the most effective use of limited time in the
interview. Nonattention may help clients shift from negative, nonproductive topics to
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
2. Interactive Exercise: Toward Intentional Competence.
4. Video Activity: Sharpening Your Observation Skills. Use your observation skills to
DEFINING EMPATHY AND EMPATHIC UNDERSTANDING
Empathy and empathic listening are reviewed and their importance highlighted as they
help clients feel understood, engage in the counseling process, and gain a better
understanding of themselves.
DISCERNING LEVELS OF EMPATHY
Three levels of empathy are discussed here. Subtractive empathy takes away from client
conversation. Interchangeable empathy catches the essence of what the client has said
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Video Activity: Discerning Levels of Empathy: A Demonstration with Allen E. Ivey
3. Video Activity: Discerning Levels of Empathy: A Demonstration with Mary Bradford
REFINING: THE POWER OF THE POSITIVE
The words we exchange during our interactions with clients have consequences. The
words we say produce expectations that have a major impact on clients’ bodies and
DEFINING OBSERVATION SKILLS
The focus here is first on observing client attending patterns, and this is followed by an
DISCERNING SPECIFICS OF OBSERVATION
Movement synchrony, movement complementarity, and mirroring may represent
particularly effective moments and close relationships in the interview. Also, these
movements provide information regarding the client’s experience. Movement
OBSERVING, ATTENDING BEHAVIOR, AND EMPATHY IN ACTION: DO I
WANT TO BECOME A COUNSELOR?
The example interview with Jared demonstrates how attending behaviors vary in
ineffective and effective interviews. A negative and positive interview segment
demonstrating lack of attending and positive attending are presented. The process
comments are designed to help students think in more depth about what is happening in
the session.
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Interactive Exercise: Identification and Classification. Two interview excerpts will
help you identify attending and nonattending responses.
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PRACTICING ATTENDING, EMPATHY, AND OBSERVATION SKILLS
Use the exercises in this section to improve your 3 V’s + B and master observation and
empathic understanding skills. Additional exercises are offered in MindTap.
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Web document: Feedback Form.
REFINING ATTENDING BEHAVIOR, EMPATHY, AND OBSERVATION IN A
MULTICULTURAL CONTEXT
Three important suggestions are emphasized here. Use attending skills to open and close
client talk. Value silence. Remember, clients cannot speak while you are talking; give
clients talk time.
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Interactive Exercise: Shera Looks at Careers. Select which of three possible
2. Interactive Exercise: Examining Your Own Verbal and Nonverbal Styles.
“MAGIC,” SAMURAI, NEUROSCIENCE, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF
PRACTICE TO MASTERY AND COMPETENCE
The microskills approach breaks interviewer skills into single units. When learning single
skills one by one, you may experience a temporary decrease in competence. However,
continued intentional practice and experience develops competence and a natural
integration of skills. The samurai effect helps us understand the importance of practicing
and assimilating each skill. The skills approach to learning clearly works and manifests
Practice is the breakfast of champions. Skipping practice means mediocre performance,
as excellence only happens with extensive practice. Continued and intentional practices
are needed to achieve mastery. Intentional practice makes magic happen!
List of MindTap resources available for this section:
1. Interactive Exercise: Observation of Attending Patterns in Daily Life. Allow yourself
2. Group Practice Exercise: Group Practice with Attending Behavior.
DEMONSTRATIONS AND VIDEOS TO SUPPLEMENT ESSENTIALS OF
INTENTIONAL INTERVIEWING, Third Edition
• Live instructor demonstration.
• Tapes and DVD developed by students and ourselves over the years. Consider the
possibility of saving good modeling tapes developed in your classes as examples.
• Two new videos provide a demonstration of various levels of empathy and follow-up
discussion with Allen Ivey and Mary Bradford Ivey.
• Counseling Children: A Microskills Approach by Mary Bradford Ivey shows listening
skills with children. Students should especially note Mary’s lively style, the
importance of smiling and warmth, and—of course—the critical importance of saying
CLASS PROCEDURES
The basic microtraining procedures for training in attending behavior may be found
below. This basic model has been used many times with consistent success and is, of
course, supported by extensive research data.
For enrichment and further emphasis, the following additions may be made:
1. Lecture/discussion/demonstration of individual and cultural differences in attending
styles. The chapter shows several specific examples of how people differ on these
2. Elaboration on the four basic attending dimensions. We find it helpful, for example,
to divide students into pairs and to have students talk about different topics while
3. The value of nonattention and silence. It is not always appropriate to attend to a
4. Social skills training and microskills. Our research, counseling, and clinical
experience have clearly revealed that training in attending skills is useful for many
5. Becoming a Samurai. Students find these concepts helpful as they start practicing
skills. Discussion of possible skill decrement as one emphasizes single skills can help
students know what to expect. But long-term skill practice makes a real difference.
6. Auditory, visual, kinesthetic? While the concept of clients responding differently to
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7. Portfolio of Competence and generalization. We think it is important to discuss the
8. Deliberate attending and nonattending. This is an exercise we have often used for
homework so that students can see the possible generalizations of the framework
beyond counseling and interview practice. Specifically, students are asked to practice
9. Deliberate attending. This is similar to the above exercise except that students make a
special effort to listen and note the effects that attending has on others. It is
GROUP PRACTICE WITH ATTENDING BEHAVIOR
The Attending Behavior Feedback Form at the end of this exercise is available to students
in MindTap, within the Chapter 3 resources, as well as at the Instructor Resource Center.
The Client Feedback Form is also available in MindTap.
The following instructions are designed for groups of four but may be adapted for use
with pairs, trios, and groups of up to five or six. Ideally, each group will have access to
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• Client. The first role-play client will be cooperative and have a story or
issue to present, talk freely about the topic, and not give the interviewer a
difficult time.
• Observer 2. The second observer will time the session, start and stop any
equipment, and observe nonverbal communication.
Step 4: Plan. The interviewer states her or his goals clearly, and the members of
the group should take time to plan the role-play. The interviewer helps to
open and to facilitate the client’s talking about the story or concern. An
increased percentage of client talk-time on a single topic will indicate a
The suggested topic for the attending practice session is “Why I want to be
a counselor or interviewer.” The client talks about her or his desire to do
such work while the interviewer demonstrates attending skills. Other
possible topics for the session include the following:
• A job you have liked and a job that you didn’t (or don’t) enjoy.
• A positive experience you have had that led to a new learning about
yourself.
• As part of the planning process, try at least one of the role-played
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Step 5: Conduct a three-minute practice session using attending skills. The
interviewer practices the skills of attending, the client talks about the
Step 6: Review the practice session and provide feedback to the interviewer for 12
minutes. As a first step in feedback, the role-play client gives her or his
impressions of the session and completes the Client Feedback Form of
Finally, as you review the audio- or videotapes of the interview, start and
stop the tape periodically. Replay key interactions. Only in this way can
you fully profit from the recording media. Just sitting and watching
television is not enough; use media actively.
Step 7: Rotate roles. Everyone should have a chance to serve as interviewer,
FEEDBACK FORM: ATTENDING BEHAVIOR
Date: ___________________
________________________________ ___________________________________
Name of Interviewer Name of Person Completing Form
1. Visual/eye contact. Facilitative? Staring? Avoiding? Sensitive to the individual client? At
what points, if any, did the interviewer break contact? Facilitatively? Disruptively?
2. Vocal qualities. Vocal tone? Speech rate? Volume? Accent? Points at which these changed in
response to client actions? Number of major changes or speech hesitations?
3. Verbal tracking and selective attention. Was the client able to tell the story? Stay on topic?
Number of major topic jumps? Did shifts seem to indicate interviewer interest patterns? Did
the interviewer demonstrate selective attention in pursuing one issue rather than another? Did
the client have the majority of the talk-time?
4. Attentive body language. Leaning? Gestures? Facial expression? At what points, if any, did
the interviewer shift position or show a marked change in body language? Number of
facilitative body language movements? Was the session authentic?
6. Discussion question: What areas of diversity do the interviewer and client represent? How
does this affect the session?
Instructions: Provide written feedback that is specific and observable, nonjudgmental, and
supportive.
