{"id":275,"date":"2015-05-06T23:31:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecbiz196.inmotionhosting.com\/~drlisa6\/?p=275"},"modified":"2016-07-27T01:07:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-27T01:07:32","slug":"small-talk-2-keeping-a-conversation-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"Small Talk 2: Keeping a Conversation Going"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ecbiz196.inmotionhosting.com\/~drlisa6\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/post-15.jpg\" alt=\"Three Friends Laughing\" width=\"742\" height=\"494\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/post-15.jpg 742w, https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/post-15-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To learn more about Getting a conversation started, refer to the blog earlier this year, <a href=\"http:\/\/ecbiz196.inmotionhosting.com\/~drlisa6\/?p=260\">Small Talk 1: Getting Started and Knowing What to Talk About<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Once you&#8217;ve started a conversation, there are a few different skills to keep it going. First, use \u201csignals\u201d to show you&#8217;re interested and to see if they are interested in the conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Verbal signals are things you say to let the other person know you&#8217;re listening and interested, and things they say to let you know they&#8217;re listening and interested. Here are some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>saying &#8220;Yeah&#8221; or &#8220;Mmm-hmm&#8221; or &#8220;Uh-huh&#8221; or &#8220;Okay&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>saying &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know that,&#8221; &#8220;I hadn&#8217;t heard that,&#8221; &#8220;That makes sense,&#8221; or &#8220;I never thought of it that way&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>stay on the same topic that they are one, ask follow-up questions about that topic<\/li>\n<li>watch out for topics that will make the other person uncomfortable or confused\u2014if they seem uncomfortable, try changing the subject\n<li>respond within a very short time, or if you need time to gather your thoughts, you can say &#8220;Let me think about that,&#8221; or &#8220;Well&#8230;&#8221; or &#8220;Hmmm&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>don&#8217;t interrupt<\/li>\n<li>if they seem uncomfortable for any reason, try switching to a new subject<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Ask yourself, \u201cIs the other person giving me verbal signals that shows they&#8217;re interested? If they&#8217;re not, should I go ahead an end the conversation? Or maybe change the subject?<\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Nonverbal signals are ways you use your body to show that you\u2019re listening and interested, and ways they use their body to show they&#8217;re interested and listening.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>eye contact: look at them in the eye&#8211;not constantly, just every few seconds (this can be an especially challenging skill for people with schizophrenia, try practicing it if it&#8217;s hard for you)\n<li>nodding briefly then they&#8217;re talking, not all the time, just here and there<\/li>\n<li>raising your eyebrows while nodding can show interest<\/li>\n<li>voice volume should be loud enough to be heard easily, but not shouting<\/li>\n<li>lean forward a little<\/li>\n<li>make sure your face expression matches the emotion of the conversation (if someone&#8217;s talking about something funny, smile, and if they&#8217;re talking about something sad, have a serious expression); this can be a challenge for some people with schizophrenia, practice this skill if needed<\/li>\n<li>don&#8217;t stand closer than arm&#8217;s length, face the person or stand kind of to the side<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Are you giving signals that you&#8217;re interested? Are they? If they aren&#8217;t, think about ending the conversation or changing the subject.<\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">If the other person is giving signals that they&#8217;re interested, but you&#8217;re not sure what to talk about, refer to Small Talk Part 1 earlier in this blog to get ideas of topics to starting talking about. Once you&#8217;ve started on a topic, you can ask follow-up questions to keep the conversation going. For example, if the person mentioned they are going to a baseball game this weekend, you could ask one of these follow-up questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;What do you think of how the Twins are doing this season?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Do you go to baseball games often?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;What other sports do you watch?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDo you play any sports yourself?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHave you ever been to a St. Paul Saints game? They&#8217;re super fun.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">Another example of follow up questions would be if the person just said that they are going out to dinner with family this weekend:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWhere are you going? Do you like that restaurant?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMy favorite restaurant is Pepito&#8217;s in Minneapolis, what&#8217;s yours?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>What&#8217;s your favorite type of food? Why?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI&#8217;m not a chef, but I do like cooking. Do you? What do you cook?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDo you have any restaurant recommendations?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">If you run out of questions or things to say about a topic, you can begin a new topic (see Small Talk 1-Appropriate Topics for Anyone in an earlier blog). If they still don&#8217;t seem interested or you can&#8217;t think of anything else to say, it might be time to end the conversation: see <a href=\"http:\/\/ecbiz196.inmotionhosting.com\/~drlisa6\/?p=280\">Small Talk 3-Ending a Conversation<\/a> for helpful techniques for doing so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To learn more about Getting a conversation started, refer to the blog earlier this year, Small Talk 1: Getting Started and Knowing What to Talk About. Once you&#8217;ve started a conversation, there are a few different skills to keep it going. First, use \u201csignals\u201d to show you&#8217;re interested and to see if they are interested &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/?p=275\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Small Talk 2: Keeping a Conversation Going&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coping-skills","category-schizophrenia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drlisacowley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}