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Scaling questions: asking and answering them in counsellingTom Strong a; Nathan R. Pyle a; Olga Sutherland a

a University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2009

To cite this Article Strong, Tom, Pyle, Nathan R. and Sutherland, Olga(2009)'Scaling questions: asking and answering them incounselling',Counselling Psychology Quarterly,22:2,171 — 185

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09515070903157321

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515070903157321

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Counselling Psychology QuarterlyVol. 22, No. 2, June 2009, 171–185

RESEARCH REPORT

Scaling questions: asking and answering them in counselling1

Tom Strong*, Nathan R. Pyle and Olga Sutherland

University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

(Received 6 March 2009; final version received 21 July 2009)

Solution-focused counsellors use ‘‘scaling questions’’ to construct under-standings of clients’ concerns and solutions to them. We examine how thesequestions are asked and answered, offering evidence of what is constructedfrom within counselling discourse. Also, clients and counsellors offer theirretrospective accounts of their participation in question and answersequences in their dialogues. We conclude by speaking to the implicationswe see from this research as it relates to collaborative and resourcefuldialogue between counsellors and clients.

Keywords: scaling questions; solution-focused counsellors; clients

Introduction

The notion that understandings can be constructed in dialogue comes to life whenone looks at questions as more than a data gathering tool of the counsellor. Somequestions invite clients to speak from beyond their prior experience, to construct newexperiences via new language (Strong, 2002). For social constructionist counsellors,questions are one of the principal practices in their discursive toolkit (e.g., Anderson,1997; de Shazer, 1994; White & Epston, 1990). For solution-focused counsellors, oneof the social constructionist approaches, scaling questions offer one such tool. In thispaper we examine how this discursive tool is used by counsellors and taken up (ornot) by clients, and how both feel about its use.

Background

Scaling questions, as developed and described by solution-focused counsellors (e.g.,Berg & de Shazer, 1993), have a relatively recent history. Scaling questions can be abarometer of clients’ actual or imagined experiences (e.g., rating one’s confidence inaddressing a concern at ‘‘7’’ out of ‘‘10’’). Behavioral psychologists have longinquired about client ratings of experience (in SUDS, subjective units of distress,Wolpe, 1973) or in goal-attainment scaling (Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968). Othercounsellors invite clients to quantify progress toward counselling outcomes using‘‘self-anchored scales’’ (Franklin, Corcoran, Nowicki, & Streeter, 1997). Answers tothese kinds of scaling questions can offer evaluations of clients’ experiences salient tothe counselling process.

*Corresponding author. Email: strongt@ucalgary.ca1 This paper is based on a presentation given at the 20th Annual Interdisciplinary QualitativeResearch Conference, Athens, Georgia.

ISSN 0951–5070 print/ISSN 1469–3674 online

� 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09515070903157321

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A more creative kind of scaling question helps in constructing solutions(e.g., de Shazer, 1994; de Shazer & Hoyt, 1996). For Steve de Shazer (1994) andothers (e.g., Furman & Ahola, 1992; O’Hanlon & Weiner-Davis, 1989), a solution-focused conversation is purposefully interventive, or socially constructive (McNamee& Gergen, 1992; Tomm, 1988). Scaling questions invite clients to talk particularsolutions and resources into significance and usefulness in counselling. Scalingquestions can ask, for example, how a client rating a problem at a ‘‘6’’ might reducethat problem to a ‘‘4’’ or a ‘‘5’’. Such questions presumably elicit client responsesthat help to solve problems, doing so as an accomplishment within counsellingdialogue. Such accomplishments, for us, are an empirical matter.

Borrowing insights from ethnomethodologists (e.g., Garfinkel, 2002; Heritage,1984) and discourse analysts (Edwards & Potter, 1992; ten Have, 1999), we focus onempirically observable developments and accomplishments in the back and forth ofcounselling dialogue. For us, scaling questions do, in Austin’s (1962) sense, observablethings in counselling; most obviously, when such a question elicits an answer. But,counsellors use scaling questions with particular constructive intentions in mind –intentions realized (or not) in how clients respond. So, from this discursive or socialconstructionist perspective we will turn to the actual conversations of clients andcounsellors to examine how scaling questions are posed and responded to in the courseof counselling. By ‘‘discursive’’, we are more specifically focused on the forms ofcommunication clients and counsellors used and produced in their dialogues involvingscaling questions. We will also share what clients and counsellors said after watchingthemselves ask or answer these questions. We want to shed further light on what isinvolved in asking and answering scaling questions, pragmatically and experientially.

Where Counselling and Research Methods can Overlap

There are some common theoretical principles guiding our empirical examination ofasking and answering scaling questions in counselling. For us, counselling is aquintessentially social constructionist activity since dialogue is how any understand-able reality is constructed, upheld, or deconstructed (McNamee & Gergen, 1992;Miller, 1997). While outcomes in counselling must address clients’ presentingconcerns or aspirations beyond counselling, how clients and counsellors use theirturns at talk can be highly consequential.

While social constructionism is often described in cultural terms, andconstructivism as idiosyncratic meaning-making, we join discursive psychologists(e.g., Edwards & Potter, 1992) and ethnomethodologists (e.g., Garfinkel, 2002;Heritage, 1984) in focusing on interactions between people. It is in and throughsocial interactions, at both cultural and relational levels, that we see understandingsand actions socially constructed. So, turns in talking or acting can be seen asfundamental units of interaction where understandings and actions are sustained oraltered (Heritage, 1984). This is not the same as saying that enduring changes occurbecause of a specific interaction, via a particular thing said or done.

We are concerned with how counsellor interactions are depicted as monologicallycausal, as persuasive or motivating things counsellors do to unilaterally changeclients. Instead we turn to dialogic interaction – what happens in and from peoples’responses to each other (Sampson, 1993). People not only communicate with eachother, they manage their relationships and personal stakes in dialogue through howthey communicate, in what Goffman (1967) described as ‘‘facework’’. This extends

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to the purposes of talking, how each wants to be regarded by the other, and to anyverbal understandings arising in the therapeutic relationship. For Bakhtin (1984),‘‘the word in any dialogue is only half mine’’. In this sense clients and counsellorsactively negotiate the understandings and ways forward in their talking.

This can occur when counsellors ask questions and clients respond. A simplifiedview of this suggests a two part exchange: a question posed and an answer given. But,this doesn’t square with our dialogic sense of what transpires as counsellors andclients talk. Both manage their participation through what they say and how theytalk in addressing the client’s goals for counselling. Thus, we look closely at howclients and counsellors negotiate question and answer sequences, for what developsin and from those ‘‘negotiations’’. In this regard, a dynamic hermeneutic circle isworked out as client and counsellor talk (Strong, 2003). While, arguably, thecounsellor possesses greater cultural power and rhetorical skill than clients, we seemost counsellors keen on avoiding imposing their understandings and ideas. So, weturn to what client and counsellor use and do when talking; in this case, in askingand answering scaling questions.

We are interested in how counsellors articulate scaling questions, and thenrespond to client answers until an answer has been adequately answered for bothparties. Scaling questions and answers offer an interesting laboratory for observinghow new understandings and possible actions might be ‘‘talked into being’’(ten Have, 1999) or socially constructed. What speakers actually say and do inresponse to each offers ‘‘instructably observable’’ data (Garfinkel, 2002) which wewill present and analyze here. And, we also asked clients and counsellors to reviewthe passages we analyze where they participated, – to hear about their experiences ofthese passages. Our aim is to show how some scaling question and answer sequenceswere worked out in actual dialogue, and to hear about them from those involved.

Method

Where most counselling research has focused on subjective measures or accounts ofclient and counsellor experience (e.g., McLeod, 1999), we examine their talk-in-interaction – for what develops in and from the back and forth of their dialogues(ten Have, 1999; Wooffitt, 2005). We are interested in what takes place on‘‘conversation’s shop floor’’ (Garfinkel, 2002), as clients and counsellors talk somedevelopments into significance and pass over others. With scaling questions andanswers, we focus on how counsellors and clients observably make sense and useways of communicating to pose and adequately answer these questions.

Counsellors face a relational and conversational challenge in timing andpackaging interventions, such as questions (Tomm, 1988), so these will be optimallyreceived and responded to by clients. This packaging can feature while a question isbeing posed, sometimes with modifications (‘mid-course corrections’) as a clientreceives is being asked. Part of our empirical task is to render such micro-developments observable, to permit a close examination of how speakers produceand respond to them. Clients and counsellors are normally highly responsive to eachother; they use particular words, features of speaking, and even silences that can behighly relevant and significant as each takes or awaits her or his turn at talking.

Answering scaling questions can be an odd way for clients to relate theirexperiences. This makes asking and answering them a particularly interestingintervention to study. As a student once put it, such questions are like fishing with

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bait of unknown appeal. For conversation analysts, what matters is if or how aquestion is taken up (ten Have, 1999). Answering scaling questions involves puttingwords to previously unarticulated experiences; thus such questions and answers

construct new experiences for client and counsellor as they talk. How they do thisand their experiences of these scaling question and answer sequences interests us.

In specific terms, six counsellors, with graduate level training in counselling, andfurther training and supervision in social constructionist approaches to counselling,participated in single, one hour consultations that took place at the University ofCalgary with 12 volunteer ‘‘clients’’ who sought the hour to discuss lifestyle issues.These consultations and follow-ups were advertised as non-therapeutic in intent, and

counsellors and clients volunteered knowing they would be asked to review theirparticipation in videotaped passages later with a research assistant. The client par-ticipants were a mix of university employees, senior undergraduate or graduatestudents and members of the general public. Where ‘clients’ raised serious concernsbeyond the scope of the consultation to address, referrals to mental health or coun-selling services were made. Clients chose the consultation topics (e.g., career

contemplation and reflection on relationships) and counsellors brought mutuallyagreeable closure to their consultations.

As part of a larger study, the videotaped consultations were reviewed forparticular passages where, in this case, scaling questions were asked or attemptedbetween counsellors and ‘clients’. Eighteen videotaped passages were selectedaccording to the following criteria:

(1) The passage demonstrated an effort by the counsellor to ask the client to

quantify some aspect of her or his experience related to a problem orproposed solution.

(2) The passages usually showed a client responding to such a question in someway.

(3) The passages showed various ways these question and answer sequences werebrought to some kind of resolution between client and counsellor.

Both clients and counsellors returned to review and comment on theirparticipation in videotaped passages, a qualitative research procedure known asComprehensive Process Analysis by Robert Elliott (1989). Each was asked to

observe one or two researcher-selected passages where scaling questions were askedand answered. For each passage, clients were asked:

(1) Looking back, how was it for you to be asked this question at that point inthe interview?

(2) What was it about this question that you found most helpful, and leasthelpful?

(3) In using this question, and in following up on your answer to it, did yourcounsellor respect your ways of understanding and answering? Explain.

(4) Are there times when such a question would not fit for you? Explain.(5) What else would you like to say about your experience of being asked this

question?

Similar questions were asked of counsellors:

(1) Looking back, how was it for you to ask this question at that point in theinterview?

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(2) What was it about this question and what the client had been saying thatprompted you to ask it when you did?

(3) How did you find your client’s response to the question?(4) Are there times when asking such a question would not fit for you? Explain.(5) What else would you like to say about asking this question, or this kind of

question?

The selected videotaped passages were analyzed using conversation analysis(CA, ten Have, 1999), a method that focuses on the turn-by-turn communicativewords, actions and accomplishments of participants in conversation. CA permits amicroanalysis of what transpired in the immediacies of these question and answersequences. To assist with these microanalyses we used the free software program‘‘Transana’’ (Version 2.12) developed for discourse and conversation analysts byresearchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (for website information:Woods, 2006). This program uses a split-screen format, permitting simultaneoustranscription and analyses of digitized, audiovisual passages of conversation.

CA’s transcribed micro-details permit an almost slow-motion (to tenths of asecond) attention to developments as people talk showing analyzable micro-details inhow they initiate new courses of conversation or respond to each other. Howspeakers include or exclude each other through how they take up, contest, or ignorean immediately prior utterance is a focus of analytic interest. Thus, speakers talkacross a conversational gap as they take turns talking – a fundamental juncturewhere social interaction takes on preferred or ‘‘dispreferred’’ developments for thosespeaking (Pomerantz, 1984). Client-preferred developments matter to constructionistcounsellors (Duncan & Miller, 2000; Eron & Lund, 1996) for whom collaborativeinteraction is a primary concern. So, CA can help show if the micro-dynamicsinvolved in posing and answering questions are collaborative and constructivedevelopments in counselling, especially when coupled with the retrospectivecomments of those asking and answering scaling questions.

Results

Of the 18 passages where we observed scaling questions asked and answered, threeare analyzed here given the constraints of space. Before moving to these passages wewill offer some general comments discerned from observing interactions across the 18scaling question and answer sequences. Generally, these questions were raised toachieve three aims:

(1) To quantify the client’s subjective experience of a concern (e.g., ‘‘where on ascale of 1 to 10, with ten being overwhelming and 1 being unnoticeable,would you rate your concern?’’) or confidence in attaining an articulated goal(e.g., ‘‘where between 1 & 10 would you rate your confidence in achievinggoal ‘X’ if 10 is super-confident?’’),

(2) To ‘‘scaffold’’ solutions or find therapeutic exceptions from a previouslyscaled concern or goal (e.g., ‘‘what will help you get from a ‘6’ to a ‘7’ inachieving your goal?’’), and

(3) To re-evaluate a prior scaled rating of a concern or goal (e.g., ‘‘if you were ata ‘5’ in terms of confidence at the start of your session, where are you now onthat scale?’’).

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‘‘Scaffolding’’, as mentioned in the second type of scaling question, adapts

Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of collaborative problem-solving (e.g., Pare & Lysack,

2004) to counsellor questions that invite clients to join proposed therapeutic lines of

inquiry. Each question and answer sequence resolved with clients quantitatively

rating the scaled experience while adequately (i.e., for both parties) elaborating what

such a rating equated to for the client.Initial scaling questions often required important preliminary and collabora-

tive efforts, to help clients articulate a subjective scale from which they could

assign a quantitative value for some goal or concern. These efforts were evident

in such things as how counsellors proposed words and gestures, taken up or not,

(as shown by such things as head nods, mm-hms) in a back and forth process

until clients had co-developed scale useful for quantifying their experiences. Later,

scaling questions built on a client’s initial rating of a concern or confidence

toward a goal using the earlier constructed scale and rating. So, a later scaling

question could elicit both a quantitative rating and a scale to return to from

which an initial quantitative rating had been derived. For example, asking a

client, ‘‘you say you are at a ‘4’ now, might there have been a time when you

were at a ‘5’ or higher?’’ re-uses the earlier client-produced scale in constructive

ways. Therefore, efforts required to use the scale in answering the second or third

kind of scaling question mentioned above, after initially co-constructing the scale,

were much less involved.Turning to specific examples, the first exemplar (below) captures an actual

question and answer sequence, the transcription notations for which can be found in

Appendix A.Exemplar one: John (counsellor) and Sid (client)

1 John: Okay, on like (.) on a scale of one to ten#2 Sid: Okay {nods}¼3 John: ¼Okay, like TEN would be (1.5) ah 4you’ve got a handle on this5#4 Sid: [Uhm huh] {nodding}5 John: [Right] and, and its, its (.) you know, maybe ten would be like the

balance6 (.) if there’s a balance between (.3) you know, sometimes its (.) its (.)7 helpful to plan¼8 Sid: ¼Okay {nodding}9 John: and o, you know maybe over plan (.6) and (1.2) uhm (1) sometimes its,

10 you know, it it 4stresses you out511 Sid: [Uhm uhm] {nodding}12 John: [*Right?*] Ten would be:: (.4) like (.3) the balance is 4this is

nothing but13 helpful514 Sid: Okay {nodding}15 John: Like it’s totally on16 Sid: [Yea {nods} (1.5) Yep]17 John: [on the continuum of] this is helpful. And one would be (.) like18 you’re (.6) you know fretting and worry about everything and

you’re you19 know, it’s (2.5) making you’re stomach20 Sid: [Yea {nods} (1) Yea {nods} (1.5) Yea]

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21 John: [go in a knot or whatever happens for you when you’re stressedout]

22 Uhmm (1.1) 4Where’re you at right now5?¼23 Sid: ¼Somewhere probably a 6 or a 7.24 John: Okay.25 Sid: Yep.26 John: So, that’s, that’s (.) that’s pretty good?27 Sid: Yea, yea it’s not hind (.7) its 4hindering me in the sense that I

have those28 stressful moments throughout the day5 or throughout the week

or whatever29 where I am like ge::ez, you know, but its not killing me# and

I think it is30 beneficial in that (.) it’s gotten me to where I am and its helping

me cope31 with my time and it’s, you know (.8) keeping me on track"32 John: Okay, okay.

This passage shows a counsellor (John) introducing ‘‘scaling’’ as a form ofquestion. Prior developments clearly helped set the stage for this passage, so that, forexample, in line 3 John could say ‘‘this’’ and both knew what he meant. Line onecommenced with John’s discourse marker, ‘‘Okay’’ (Schiffrin, 1987), helping toorient Sid to a topic change – to John’s posing his scaling question. John’s decliningintonation at the end line 1 (#) suggests that he was completing his turn by inviting aresponse from Sid (taken up as indicated in his line 2 verbal ‘‘Okay’’ and nonverbalnods). This accomplished, John responded by elaborating his scaling question(Line 3). Here John somewhat emphatically proposed a ceiling for the scale (‘‘TEN’’)and, after a 1.5 second pause, a client-focused referent for that ceiling (‘‘you’ve got ahandle on this’’) while again dropping his intonation to invite Sid’s response. Sidoffered an ‘‘acknowledgment token’’ (Jefferson, 1984), his assent (um-hm, nods) forJohn to continue articulating his question. Building from Sid’s assent (hisoverlapping ‘‘right’’) John reformulated what ‘‘ten’’ might mean (‘‘balance . . .

nothing but helpful’’) as the scale’s ceiling over exchanges occurring between lines 5through 15 which are more firmly taken up in Sid’s line 16 ‘‘Yeah . . . yep’’. These firstsixteen lines show how much conversational work can be required to introduce ascaling question and to establish one the ceiling for the scale. The actual scalingquestion is still lines away from being adequately posed.

Midway through line 17 John proposes a floor for the scale (‘‘one’’ where‘‘fretting and worry’’ feature). But, here further conversational work is requiredbefore the floor and earlier ceiling are sufficiently developed for John to ask Sid ascaling question and use ‘their’ newly constructed scale to quantify his problem. Thisquestion follows fifteen turns at talk between John and Sid, hardly a simple case ofJohn’s ‘‘popping the question’’. Sid’s ‘‘probably a 6 or a 7’’ on line 23 isn’t the end ofthings as John’s ‘‘6’’ or ‘‘7’’ might differ from Sid’s ratings. So, John tentatively‘‘checks-in’’ with Sid on line 26 regarding his satisfaction for the ranking offeredusing several discursive devices: (a) repeated words (that’s, that’s, that’s); (b) a pause(.); and (c) a change in his inflection in the last word of the sentence (good?). It isimportant to see such tentativeness as a way of trying to elicit and privilege client’stalk on delicate matters (Silverman, 2001). A more definite counsellor response about

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what a ‘‘7’’ should mean might close down the client on the discussion topic at hand.Instead, John’s tentative probing of Sid’s ranking, is rewarded with 5 lines ofevaluation between lines 27–31.

Overall, this sequence demonstrates the conversational work of John and Sid asthey collaboratively work up and answer this ‘‘scaling’’ question. An intricate effortis involved in first co-constructing a jointly understood and usable scale, beforeasking a question using that scale to arrive at a mutually understandable answer. Letus now shift to a different passage where an earlier constructed scale could be usedfor a different kind of scaling question.

Exemplar 2 – Deke and Dawn (making use of an earlier scale)

1 Deke: Looking back at that last spring then(0.3) ah¼on that motivation2 {brings both hands parallel in front of his chest} scale for {leaning

toward client}3 exercise, (0.3){places one hand at waist height) one 4being like low5

and4 {raises the other hand to hairline} ten. being just *the highest*"5 4Where were you then#?5¼6 Dawn: ¼AH(.hhh)#,(0.3) 4maybe a 7" 57 Deke: mmhum".[8 Dawn: [yah9 Deke: Uhm. arrh What other 4what other5 times has your

10 mmmotivation for exercise mmaybe {raise hand up to hairlinewith

11 further upward waving motions} even been higher#?12 Dawn: 4Oh¼my¼gosh5, in my early undergraduate year.13 Deke: Mmm humh".14 Dawn: (0.3)Yea, {head nod}yea. (0.3) My early undergraduate year I was

working out15 a lo::t (.2)like religiously for pretty much the whole year (0.8). Uhm (0.3),16 4I mean5 I was working out at the gym with a friend at the University gym17 with a friend three times a18 week, we played racket ball once a week (0.2) and my husband and

I would run.19 Deke: Mmm humh"{nodding head}20 (1.2)21 Dawn: Yea::", and I got, even in the summer I worked at a law" firm and

to get a gym22 membership I took on a job at the world health club on Saturday’s just doing23 reception to get a[24 Deke: [Sure"[25 Dawn: [free, free gym membership.26 So I was working out there a lo::t.27 4I was just working out a lo:t¼I was in5 rea::lly, rea:lly28 good shape#¼then[29 Deke: [4How did that feel5 {, (.3) then#?30 Dawn: OH (.hhhh /0.2){head slightly nodding}, AWEsome#.

The exemplar above shows Deke (the counsellor), in line 1, making reference to ascale constructed earlier with Dawn regarding ‘‘motivation’’. While he reintroduced

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this scale, with gestures and numbers, he did so with a scaling question about Dawn’smotivation ‘‘last spring’’ (line 5: ‘‘where were you then?’’). Building on Dawn’s line 6answer, Deke then inquired about exception-oriented contrasts in a questionarticulated between lines 9 and 11. We feel it is particularly significant to highlightthe turbulent delivery shown in how his question was posed (note the stammers,repeats, and uhms). Unfortunately, transcription conventions do not capture thekinds of simultaneous relational dynamics we associate with this delivery. For us, theturbulent delivery is not a reflection of the speaker’s competence, but is a highlyrelevant bit of facework reflecting how Deke utters his question based on how itmight be received. The more ‘‘delicate’’ (Silverman, 2001) or risky the utterance, theless it tends to be made straightforwardly. Exception questions in solution focusedcounselling, like this one, ask clients to shift from talking about problems, to talkingabout solutions thus proposing a significantly different conversational focus theclient might not want to take up. So, particularly relevant, then, is what Dawn doeswith Deke’s question. Here her ‘‘uptake’’ (ten Have, 1999) is quite evident in how sheresponds (‘‘Oh my gosh’’) by identifying a concrete exception of motivationexperienced in her undergraduate years. Having been asked this question, she thenprovided a detailed elaboration while Deke contributed only a few acknowl-edgements, followed by a question, 17 lines later, to which Dawn respondedaffirmatively.

For solution-focused counsellors, lots of potentially useful things came out ofDeke’s question and Dawn’s response. The exceptions that were talked intosignificance might serve as further reference points (e.g., ‘‘if you could do those thingsand be motivated then, can you do any of that now?’’) for building solutions. It tooka prior constructed scale, and a search for exceptions cued up by Deke’s firstquestion about when Dawn’s motivation was ‘‘higher’’, to turn on her resourceful-ness tap, so to speak. But, it should also be emphasized that what, at first glancemight seem like awkwardness in Deke’s posing his question across lines 9 to 11, mayin fact show a deft packaging of his question to be optimally taken up by Dawn. Forus this illustrates an often overlooked aspect of dialogue: that people not onlyexchange information, but they co-manage their relationship through how they talk(Watzlawick, Bavelas, & Jackson, 1967).

The final scaling question and answer sequence shows a client and counsellorconcluding their dialogue by referring to where the client sees herself on an earlierconstructed scale. Prior counselling dialogue has helped bring both to a shared, andranked, experiential reference point (‘‘the bubble . . . being at six . . . is okay’’). Havingthis linguistically constructed reference point, Anne, the counsellor, can invite Sherryto reflect on the session’s outcomes.

Exemplar 3: Anne and Sherry (evaluating progress using an earlier developedscale)

1 Anne: Yah (0.2) and it also sounds like that (0.9) ahh (0.5) thethethebubble2 being at six (0.7) is o:kay because you know that you’ll be able to

bring it3 closer" when thesignposts tell you its time to do that#¼4 Sherry: ¼Yes [ (.) I think so yah {nods}5 Anne: [Is that a (0.6) a fair () {nods} summary of that (.) *yeah*6 Sherry: Yah7 (.)

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8 Anne: Okay9 (1.3)

10 Sherry: .hhh Yah I think that you know that overtime and and I guess ()that’s

11 that’s either a mature thing or a learning cu::rvething (0.4) tha:t that12 we all do get better at that sorta or we hope to get better at that sorta13 thing along the way. (.)14 Anne: Uhm umm

Anne’s tentativeness in the first three lines suggest that she is taking conversa-tional risks (Guilfoyle, 2003; Lobley, 2001) in not only what she paraphrased, but,quite likely, in working up to her embedded suggestion made in line three (‘‘when thesignposts tell you . . . ’’). Such tentativeness can invite agreement, contest, or furthernegotiation of meaning and, used rhetorically, can serve as a conversational resourceto foster collaboration (Kogan & Gale, 1997; Weingarten, 1992). What Sherry doeswith Anne’s tentativeness is instructive; she responds with her own tentativeness(imagine how a counsellor’s more certain pronouncements on her experiences orintentions may have fared). Not surprisingly, then, on line 5, Anne further checks in,tentatively, with Sherry on her proposed understanding (‘‘is that a fair under-standing’’). An awkward next few lines follow, but the silence afforded in line 9provided an opening for Sherry to expound on her meaning in response to Anne’sinitial utterance.

Worth noting is that Anne’s initial paraphrase was not an explicit scaling questionbut an implied one. She could be seen as proposing the earlier constructed scale andranked experience as having instructive purposes for Sherry. Seen as a suggestion,however, one can overlook the implied question and its related assumptions (e.g., canthese scaled signposts tell you to do that?). Sherry’s response – both after Anne’sinitial utterance and in her eventual elaboration on line 9 – indicated that she relatedto Anne’s utterance as a question, taking her answer where she wanted it to go (e.g.,Vehvilainen, 2003). Her line 9 elaboration only obliquely refers to Anne’s initial‘question’ and speaks more generally to this question and their prior discussion.

For a sequence of conversation like the above to occur, both speakers need todraw from a ‘‘common ground’’ constructed from prior conversational work (Clark,1996), and to propose extensions from it. Forays into new conversational territory,whether proposed in a question’s assumption or via other possible directions for thediscussion, are developed as speakers try to co-manage their relationship (Roy-Chowdhury, 2006). Any such proposal is a relationship management challenge aswell as a rhetorical one. So, conversation analysts, examine how speakers observablyattempt to manage their talk in ways that extend rapport - in how utterances arepackaged and responded to. Line by line transcription of conversation obscures thesimultaneity of talk – listeners are not inert while speakers talk. Instead, as oneperson talks, and if they attend to their ‘listener’, managing their utterances as theysay them based on how they are being received (Bavelas, Coates, & Johnston, 2000;Vehvilainen, 2001). Such talk is also packaged given how the speaker anticipates itwill be received (Pomerantz, 1984; Shotter, 2006). Thus, much of the tentativenessshown in this passage shows conversation constructed ‘‘on the fly’’ based on how thespeakers attempt to manage their utterances and their part in their relationship.Scaling questions can involve a lot of conversational work in terms of how they areposed and answered to both parties’ satisfaction.

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Retrospective comments on these passages

Hearing from clients and counsellors added further understandings, but retrospectiveinterviews held two to four weeks after these consultations, elicited experiencesdifferent from those encountered in the immediacies of the original videotapedpassages of dialogue. Talking about dialogue retrospectively differs from talkingwithin the original dialogue.

Moving on, the counsellor in Exemplar 1 described working hard to invite theclient to join his articulation of the scaling question. He tried to ‘‘package’’ (hisword) his question so that she ‘‘could latch onto something and run with it.’’However, his sense was that his attempts had not been successful, a sense borne outin similar comments from the client. The client in the second segment mentionedthat, while the counsellor’s solution-eliciting question was helpful (it created‘‘motivation’’) for highlighting exceptions when the problem was not there, it didnot actually solve the problem. Normally, more work is involved in building from aclient’s answer to a scaling question to articulate an actual solution, something notdone in this passage. The client exceptions elicited needed to be mapped on toenactable solutions for addressing her present concern. Further questions can help inthis mapping process (e.g., ‘‘You spoke of exercising religiously in your undergrad-uate years – are there ways you can get that ‘religion’ back now working for you?’’).In the final segment, the counsellor posed the question in a way that the client saidnot only left her feeling understood, but in a position to affirm what mattered to her.Likewise, the counsellor reported experiencing a sense that the question helpedsolidify a shared understanding about what the client wanted. The rating given to theearlier constructed scale offered a kind of orienting point from which both the clientand counsellor could speak, or the ‘‘6’’ might otherwise have found no sharedreference point. Retrospective accounts such as those obtained here can serve as ameans to supplement understandings such as those gained through our discursiveanalyses.

Conclusions

Our aim in this preliminary study has been to shed some light on how scalingquestions are asked, answered, and experienced. As social constructionists, we seethe constructive claims made by solution-focused counsellors (Berg & de Shazer,1993; de Shazer, 1994) as empirically researchable features of dialogue. To this end,we used conversation analysis (CA) to examine how scaling questions were askedand answered. We also asked clients and counsellors to retrospectively comment ontheir participation in such question and answer sequences.

The talk of counselling as it is commonly depicted in textbooks is a relativelyunproblematic and linear activity. Participating inside the immediacies of counsellingseems an entirely different matter. As our analyses show, what counsellors andclients bring to and do with those immediacies, in their responses to each other,involves the deft use of features of communication that are largely taken for granted.These features are clearly not just words and involve more than formulatingutterances inside one’s head to transmit, already completed, to a receptive listener.There are stakes to be managed in such interactions: how one is understood, how onestays relevant and goal-oriented with respect to one’s conversational other, and howthe relationship itself is managed through how speakers talk (e.g., Kozart, 2002).

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In this regard, scaling questions are of interest because these are conversationalinitiatives proposed by counsellors via their questions. Asking clients to quantifytheir experience implies this can be done yet may be the first time clients willarticulate their experiences in such a manner.

The three passages analyzed offered glimmers of the pragmatics we feel arerelevant to asking and answering scaling questions. Introducing these questions forthe first time can be clearly a lot of work for clients who are new to them and, notsurprisingly, counsellors are attuned to how clients interpret such questions in howthe questions are carefully ‘‘packaged’’ when and as the questions are posed. Whatcan at first look like messy conversation (pauses, mmhms and ahs), may actually saya lot about a counsellor’s responsiveness to clients’ reactions as scaling questions areposed. Clients also co-manage the dialogue through how they answer, indicatingtheir preferences in proposing not only answers but ways forward in talking withtheir counsellor. Returning to an earlier established scale with a later question,permits an elegant way of building on prior constructed experience for yet-to-bearticulated experiences.

Scaling questions ask clients to linguistically construct new understandings andexperiences for viable solutions clients can take beyond counselling. Asking a how aclient will move from a 6 on a scale to a 7 requires a linguistic ladder of sorts to beconstructed and serve both client and counsellor in constructing still-to-bearticulated solutions. This is something fascinating to behold, conversationally.Testing such solutions, however, was beyond the scope of our modest study. Whatwe feel is most useful from this study is that social interactions, where newunderstandings and actions are constructed, can be empirically analyzed. Howscaling questions are asked and answered can construct, or put to words, newexperiences useful in addressing clients’ presenting concerns. Part of our interest iswith how such counsellor contributions to the counselling dialogue fare – in terms ofwhat can be learned from what clients do with those contributions (Strong, 2003).Another part relates to our hopes for counsellors in becoming more mindful andresponsive with their part in the actual pragmatics of the interview (Schon, 1983;Strong & Sutherland, in press). In our view, these pragmatics are often put down totherapist ‘‘radar’’ or ‘‘wizardry’’ when they can be quite useful to co-managing theimmediacies of dialogue in intentional ways. Seen as conversational practices,question and answer sequences are relational matters to be worked out with clients –hopefully constructively for them.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jerry Gale and Don Zeman.Funding for this study was made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Council of Canada.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone areresponsible for the content and writing of the paper.

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Appendix

Table A. Transcription notation.

Symbol Indiates

(.) A pause which is noticeable but too short to measure.(.5) A pause timed in tenths of a second.¼ There is no discernible pause between the end of a speaker’s

utterance and the start of the next utterance: One or more colons indicate an extension of the preceding vowel

sound.Underline Underlining indicates words that were uttered with added emphasis.CAPITAL Words in capitals are uttered louder than surrounding talk.(.hhh) Exhalation of breath; number of h’s indicate length.(hhh) Inhalation of breath; number of h’s indicates length.( ) Indicates a back-channel comment or sound from previous speaker

that does not interrupt the present turn.[ Overlap of talk.(( )) Double parenthesis indicate clarificatory information, e.g.

((laughter)).? Indicates rising inflection.! Indicates animated tone.. Indicates a stopping fall in tone.** Talk between * * is quieter than surrounding talk.45 Talk between 45 is spoken more quickly than surrounding talk.{} Non-verbals, choreographic elements.

Source: Kogan, (1998)

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