"Active Listening": Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings-Talk in Child Counselling

This article presents an analysis of the talk of child counsellors in interaction with young children (4-12 years). The data consist of recordings of counselling sessions offered to children whose parents are in the process of separation or divorce. The ostensible aim of the service was to provide normalizing interventions rather than dealing with clinical referrals. The focus of the article is on the practice of what is known in counselling psychology as active listening. This refers to the ways in which counsellors seek to show responsivity to what the child is saying. Based on analysis of naturally occurring child counselling talk, this article shows how the conversational practice of formulation is utilized to achieve some of the complex interactional work involved in active listening.