Thursday, March 18, 2010

Reflective Listening

In reflective listening, you get into rapport with your subject (the joke is: smile, lean forward and nod), occasionally repeat what they've said back to them, and let them go on. This interview is a great example of that.

Rielle Hunter (the mother of John Edwards' love child) insisted that if she were to go public, she'd do it in her own words. This is, therefore, a verbatim transcript of the interview.

The technique is great, and okay, it's maybe a little titillating in that, "ooh, here's someone else's dirty laundry in public" kind of way. Enjoy!

Hello, America, My Name Is Rielle Hunter: Politics: GQ

Talk Deeply, Be Happy?

I guess this is why I love my work so much -- I get to have deep, substantive conversations with people every day!

Talk Deeply, Be Happy? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

It does make me wonder, though, if focus is associated with melancholy (aka sadness), and deep conversations (during which you'd have to be focused, right?) make you happy, is the main difference the connection to another person? That is, does deep, solitary focus tend to make you sad, while deep connection tend to make you happy?