In this fictional chat you shadow a listener called Morinda taking a general request.
Morinda types the replies. All you have to do is press the Send button to send each reply.
Morinda also adds comments to tell you what’s going on.
- 2I To get started, greet the member on behalf of 7 Cups.
- 1L Hi! Welcome to 7 Cups! I’m Morinda.
- 1I And wait to see if there’s any response.
- 6M Hello
- 0I Reflect the member’s greeting.
- 1L Hello!
- 0I And ask an open question to get started.
- 0L What brings you here today?
- 2I Let’s wait and see if there’s a reply.
- 6M Depression.
- 0I React to this.
- 0L Oh no!
- 0I And follow up with another open question in the hope of moving things along.
- 0L What’s been happening?
- 2I Again, wait and see if there’s a reply.
- 4I The conversation might be stuck, so try a closed question.
- 0L Have things been bad?
- 2M Yes.
- 0I Follow up with another open question to get some detail.
- 0L In what way?
- 0I Now be patient again.
- 4M My son hates me.
- 0I Reflect this immediately.
- 0L Hates you!
- 1I And summarize what we have so far.
- 0L You’re depressed because your son hates you.
- 0I Patience…
- 6M He has every right to, I suppose.
- 1I Show curiosity.
- 0L Why is that?
- 2M I left his mother, married someone else with her own kids, turned his world upside down.
- 1I Reflect the feeling implied by that.
- 1L You can see it from his point of view.
- 1M Yeah.
- 0I Keep being curious about the feeling.
- 0L With some guilt?
- 2M Yeah, a lot of guilt.
- 2M Rationally it was the right thing to do for all of us.
- 0M But getting a kid to understand that
- 0M You know
- 0I Jump in and validate the feeling
- 0L Impossible to get a kid to understand that
- 3I Resist the temptation to rush the chat
- 4M When I was his age I didn’t undstand much either.
- 0M *understand
- 0I Try to put that all together.
- 0L Is history repeating itself, in that sense?
- 2M Not really.
- 0I Oops, bad guess.
- 0M My dad never made the effort.
- 0I Reflect the implication.
- 0L You make the effort in a way he never did.
- 2M Yeah
- 0M That has to count for something, don’t you think?
- 0I Resist the temptation to judge. Reflect instead.
- 0L You have a sense that making the effort your dad never made with you has to be worth something.
- 2M He doesn’t see it, though.
- 0I Clarify and reflect.
- 0L Your son doesn’t see what you can see.
- 1M No.
- 1M It’s been tough for him.
- 1M It’s been tough for all of us.
- 0I Reflect.
- 0L A tough time for all of you.
- 2M Yeah
- 4M Thank you for understanding.
- 0I Sounds like we’re done.
- 0I Say some standard things now.
- 0L We are always here for you.
- 3I Wait a bit for a reply…
- 3I Nope.
- 1L If you’d like to chat some more, just come back here and send me a message.
- 2M OK
- 0M Thank you.
- 1L Take care.
- 1M You too.
People sometimes use the word “depression” simply to mean there’s something they’re unhappy about. It doesn’t mean they are actually depressed, just that life is hard.
At 7 Cups, originally, one of Our Key Values was: We recognize that life is messy, unpredictable, hard, and surprising.