Therapy Guide: Active Listening

If your family is struggling with active listening, therapy is a great place to work on this. A therapist can help you by modeling active listening and giving you a space to practice your listening skills. If you go to therapy with your family or a family member, the therapist can act as a mediator and make sure you’re all actively listening and hearing each other.

If you’re in family or individual therapy, here are some ways to bring up active listening with your therapist:

• “My family talks a lot, but it never feels like we hear or understand each other.”
• “I’m having trouble understanding what my family wants. I really want to work on my listening skills. Can you help me with that?”
• “My partner says I don’t listen to them and it’s coming between us.”
• “I feel like I’m always explaining myself to my family, but nothing changes. We need help communicating.”
• “We cannot seem to understand each other. There’s constant talking over each other, and we both just want to feel heard.”