Eye Contact with Clients: Importance and Cultural Differences

Cultural Differences in Eye Contact with Clients

Today’s class was about making eye contact with your client. For me I personally thought this would have been an easy task for me. Even thou I am form West Africa Liberia where eye contact is not a big deal. I was brought up by my father who thought me that it is important to look at him the eye when being spoken to or the other way around.  But in Liberia, avoiding eye contact is most of the time seen as a sing of respect to your parents,  elders in the community, or your boss when in a work setting.

 I feel like I was very weird with the activity today because I focused all of my at-tention on my client and I felt like I was trying to be there for my client I found myself mental reaching out  to my client.  I totally shutdown my feelings thoughts or anything relating to me and started to look at me client for answers. I believe I need to be more present with myself, I need to be more aware of what is happing inside my body.  I think if I am conscious of my body language and my feeling it will help me send a message back to my client.  

In Australia eye contact is important and it is seen as respectful when listening and talking to some-one. With that being said it is not to say that I then look at the client consistently with little or not blinks, but rather maintains normal eye contact to show  that I am really interested in what the client is saying to me. It also makes your client relax match the non verbal behaviour of your client. For example sitting in the same position as your client. 

Today class was interesting for me. The activity done today was to sit in silent with the client while looking at them straight in the eye. It was easy for me to do that but I some how felt like I was not doing it right. Because I had focused my all of my attention on my client blinking when I needed to. I  think the reason I why I that  it is not being done right by me is because in a normal situation It would not be consider as normal I was to look at someone that long.

During the activity I found myself wanting to apologise to my client because I felt like I was invading their personal space. I think one of the reasons why it felt like I was doing something wrong is because culturally we have leaned to be uncomfortable with silence. But being present yet silent with your client does have it benefits. By deliberately being silence with your client  and encourage the client to explore them-selves this reinforces the fundamental principles of person-centred  therapy.

 When you allow the room to be silent you automatically encourage the client the carry some of the burden of the conver-sation rather than it all being you as the counsellor. This activity has had me wondering about how much silence is ok and how much is not ok. Based on what I have leant from Viv, if the client wants to sit in silent for the entire session it is ok. If your client indicates that they want you to answer questions or provide guidance, it is ok to sit in silence maybe fallowed by a welcoming smiling to show to them that there is more to be learned form seeing oneself inside than form seeing the therapist as expert. What is a narrative approach in therapy?  How does it work.