Reflection On How To Establish Rapport

How did you establish rapport: what worked, what did not work?
To establish rapport with my client I introduced myself and talked a little about my major and the purpose of us meeting. I then asked her to tell me a little about herself. She came in very excited and eager to learn ways to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. She was smiling at all times and shared that she was 5 months pregnant. I congratulated her on her baby and asked her if she knew what she was having as a way to get her to feel comfortable talking with me. Before I began asking her questions I assured her that everything she shared with me was going to be kept confidential. Furthermore, I informed her that she did not have to answer at any time any question she did

I feel this has helped me to be able to work better with my past clients. I feel my personality helps me to be able to establish rapport with my clients. I have always been an easing going person and always been humble. This I believe has helped my clients to feel comfortable with me. People that I have met throughout the years have always complimented on how comfortable they feel talking to me. This characteristic of me I believe will always help me to a certain point when working with individuals for the very first time. However, I am not close to being an expert in establishing rapport with individuals because I still a lot to learn and experience since not every individual I will meet will be the same. Unfortunately, I yet have not had the opportunity to interview someone that is not willing to open up to know how what I need more to learn from. I want to learn what it is like to counsel someone that does not care to be in our session. I feel that the more I come across difficult situations the more I can focus on what I need to practice on. Work on what strategies to use when nothing is working for me with difficult clients. I also learned that I need let my client speak more. I need to be more comfortable with moments of silence to let my client be able to process what is being discussed. I was able to reflect after the mini session that that perhaps if I would spoke less my client would have had more time to reflect and come up with more strategies to eat more fruits and vegetables. I need to learn to be okay with silence and not see those few seconds as eternity for me because those few seconds could make a difference in my client’s behavior change. In addition, because motivational interviewing is client centered and therefore always be about them. Because at the end it is them who are working to make the change in their life. They are the ones that know what is realistic or not for