One of my weaknesses is to fear of interrupting or hurting people. Cutting off is an important skill need to be learned by group leader to stop, block or intervene someone from talking in group when necessary. The purpose of stopping someone from talking is not aim to dominate the group, rather is want to protect other members from attacking or negative comment, give chance for other members to share or to move the group in better direction. There are two common situations that leader to cutting-off, whenever member is storytelling which not related to his or her personal thing and saying something inappropriate.
There are 4 consideration while using cutting-off, namely timing, use of voice, clarifying and nonverbal signal. Leader should stop him/her in right timing, which is before the clients ramble too long or giving unhelpful advice. Due to every situation is different, so there is no exactly timing for leader to stop the conversation. Rather, the cutting off skill is learned from the experience and feedback from member. After cutting off, leader should explain immediately or after the session about why they cut off in order to avoid client misunderstanding such as perceived that they are not allowed to share or their opinions are not important as well as eliminate their anger and confusion.
Moreover, leader can use either verbal or non-verbal to stop member from talking. With using verbal, leader should caution their tone of voice while cutting-off. Leader should remember that most of the members will give unhelpful advice is because they might not understand or have not yet learned how to give constructive advice. So, leader should remind himself/herself about this as well as the purpose of cutting off is not aim to criticize or humiliate the member. I believe that this mind set will indirectly enable leader to avoid use of voice that seems critical or angry while stopping the member from talking. On the other hand, leader can use their non-verbal to stop client from talking by avoiding eye contact, using his hand as signal to stop client or slight gesture.
Through the role play in class, I have learned and more understand how to apply 3 techniques of cutting off in different situation such as when someone is storytelling rather than expressing his/her own feeling or when the member is saying something hurtful. The techniques include cut and stay with person, cut and stay with topic, or cut and leave the person and topic. 3 techniques have different functions in different situations. These techniques are allow leader to be effective in helping client go deeper to his feeling and thought, rather than keep stopping at the surface of problem.