Sometimes, I just want someone to listen

The purpose of listening in conflict resolution is not for the listener to get ‘the facts’ but to support the speaker in understanding their own thoughts and feelings about the destructive conflict they are involved in.

If you are focused on getting the facts it suggests you are wanting to take some level of control of the situation in order to resolve it for the speaker.

You can't resolve another person's destructive conflict, you can only help them to resolve it themselves.

The following poem introduces us to the features of this important skill:

Listen  When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving advice
You have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way
You are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problems
You have failed me, strange as that may seem. Listen! All I ask is that you listen
Not talk or do – just hear me. Advice is cheap: 50p will get you both Claire Rayner and Russell Grant in the same newspaper. And I can DO for myself. I’m not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless. But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational, then I stop trying to convince you,
And can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling. And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice. So please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk,
Wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.

Anonymous