Socratic Questioning, Christine A Padesky
https://padesky.com/newpad/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/socquest.pdf
Socratic questioning is akin to critical thinking and reflective inquiry. It’s a framing of (self) directed questions.
Typical ‘good’ Socratic questions may include:
- Have you ever been in similar circumstances before?
- What did you do?
- How did that turn out?
- What do you know now that you didn’t know then?
- What would you advise a friend who told you something similar
“Among therapists, there is a vast difference between one who thinks cognitive therapy involves changing distorted thinking and a therapist who thinks cognitive therapy is a process of teaching clients to evaluate their thoughts, behaviors, moods, life circumstances, and physiological reactions to make choices that are adaptive.” (p.4)
“When using Socratic questioning to guide discovery, our final goal is to help the client use the information we’ve uncovered to reevaluate a previous conclusion or to construct a new idea. Although this goal is implicit in the discovery process, many therapists, including myself, ask dozens of good questions in a session without ever helping the client put the answers together in some meaningful way.” (p.5)
Listening for anomalies: “Listen for idiosyncratic words and emotional reactions.Listen to your clients’ metaphors and recreate in your own mind their images. Listen for a word that seems oddly placed in a sentence.” (p.6)
Feedback: “In the portions of the session where you are using Socratic questioning, there should be a summary every few minutes.” (p.6)
