Campusalam

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Active Listening is a method pioneered by psychotherapist Carl Rogers. Essentially you just listen carefully, then repeat back in your own words what the person said to you.

Her: I’m so angry I can’t speak. I can’t believe she did that to me. I would never have thought she’d do something like that, would you? I’m just in a rage.

You: You’re really upset and really, really angry that she did that.

Her: That’s right!!

If you just parrot back what they say it can sound a bit strange or even get annoying. But if you do it well, using your own words to show you’ve understood and absorbed what they’re saying, it calms people down quickly.

In addition to using this technique on friends and family, you can use it in a group if someone gets worked up. Keep it focused on their opinion, if you can –not so much on their feelings. That will help invite their thinking brain back into the conversation.

Jaffar: And then you get all these so-called ‘Moderate Muslims’ who are basically acting like collaborators and traitors, only too happy to run off to the police or the MI5 or whatever, turning against their own brothers and sisters. Everyone who co-operates with the kuffar against the Muslims is no better than a kaffir themselves and what they deserve is death.

Facilitator: Okay, so what you’re saying Jaffar is that it is more important for Muslims to support one another than to co-operate with the authorities.


The fastest way to calm an angry person down is for them to feel understood and respected and not threatened. If you simply summarise what they are saying, it accomplishes all these three things at once.

1. It shows that they are worth listening to.

2. It shows that you have understood them.

3. It shows that you are not going to write off their views and make fun of them.


So when in doubt – summarise. Summarise what you have just heard in a pleasant and factual manner and check with the speakers if you’ve understood them rightly. It gives you time to think; it encourages the fighters to move into their thinking brain as they have to work out whether they did say that and really mean that. It may allow them to realise they went too far and lets them backtrack a little.