Your Therapeutic Voice
Have you thought of your voice as a tool…
…as a way to enhance how you connect and communicate? I don’t mean the words you say, but your actual voice.
Your therapeutic voice.
Your voice is something you use every day, unless you’re on silent retreat. And every time you use your voice you’re having an effect whether you think about it or not. How loud, how soft. How sharp, how gentle. How fast, how slow.
These are some of the many ways your voice is shaped as it reaches out to the people you speak to. These qualities of voice can have more effect on how you’re received and what you communicate than the actual content of what you’re saying. The quality of your voice communicates warmth or distance, appreciation or rejection, kindness or indifference, ease or fear. And that subliminal message speaks louder than words.
If you are a therapist, your voice is your most immediate connection with your client. It is the place from which you invite or soothe or intervene… Ideally, your voice is aligned with your feeling. This alignment gives you clarity, authenticity, and trust.
Your client’s voice is full of information. It reveals what words might want to conceal. That could be hesitation, excitement, struggle, peace, and on and on. When you attune to the textures and speeds and intonations that carry these messages, you deepen your connection with and awareness of your client, perceiving cues that can easily slip by unnoticed.
Using your voice consciously, on purpose, in a way that is connected and real, engenders trust. And hearing and perceiving your client’s voice, and what it transmits, brings you in closer and also engenders trust.
If you’d like to explore the power and effect of voice for your practice or for yourself, you can check out my workshop, Voice Attunement for Therapists, or…
Schedule a complimentary meeting to explore how you can deepen your practice through voice.
What does your voice communicate when you speak?
Does it match what you’re saying?
Is it open and inviting?
What are the qualities of your voice that speak louder than your words?
© 2016 Naaz Hosseini. All Rights Reserved.
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About the Author: Naaz Hosseini
