Listening in Mental Health Clinical Practice

Abstract

In mental health clinical practice, listening is viewed as a fundamental skill that clinicians should possess to support service users and enable recovery. Given its importance, this review sought to explore how listening is understood in mental health clinical practice. A scoping review was conducted to search for peer-reviewed articles reporting on literary and empirical studies. The search covered five databases (JSTOR, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Google Scholar) and the International Journal of Listening. A total of nineteen articles published from 2000 to 2022 were included for analysis. Thematic analysis was used to identify relevant themes. Findings showed that although listening was seen as critical to mental health treatment and care, little had been done to deconstruct the concept, examine the way it was practised and empirically verify its use. Further, listening was described and used differently, not only across different mental health professions but even within the same profession, between practitioners. This article will discuss these variations and how certain listening types can improve the therapeutic encounter. It will further look at whether listening can be regarded as a virtuous professional characteristic trait in achieving professional role responsibilities in social work.