Uses humor to diffuse tension
While at my first Level 2 Fieldwork, I had to use humor to diffuse the tension between various parties on a frequent basis. For instance, one of my clients was headstrong but so was my fieldwork educator. The tension was mounting as the battle of the wills was taking place and nothing was being resolved for us to start OT. To diffuse the tension, I cracked a joke about something the news was talking about which pertained to something we had just talked about the other day. My client’s face broke into a smile and a laugh. He went into a tirade but visibly felt relieved to express himself. Once he finished, I asked him to share an endearing joke he had made the previous day about my fieldwork educator with her. This briefly made him giddy and he finally shared the joke with her. Initially she stared at him with an irritated expression but suddenly she broke into a big laugh and they both were laughing together. My active listening had paid off because I was able to apply it to this situation which made my client not only feel like someone had listened to him, but they were also applying what he had said with another person, which made him feel like more people were listening to him. Thankfully he was more willing to work with us, and we were able to get more done in that session than we otherwise might have. It also gave my fieldwork educator the chance to realize that he wasn’t as stubborn as she had thought, plus it gave her the idea that he respected her more than she had originally thought. I know that I often tell really corny jokes, but in this case, I am really glad that I had paid enough attention to my conversation with my client to utilize it in this tense situation.