“I don’t ask hard questions. I ask honest questions.” – Krista Tibbet
Being a therapist carries an occupational hazard of becoming allergic to small talk. Most of us can’t help it; we’re primed for depth and revelation in conversation. We like to go there.
We spend much of our days inviting people to open themsleves a little bit further, to help us to know them and them to know them. There are traits that make some folks better at this – like curiosity and openness, but there are also skills that help support the process. One of those skills is the ability to ask a really good question.
I adore a good question. You might have noticed, because I love to create questions that people can ask each other. (I made a set of 100 questions for partners and another for deepening your relationship with yourself.) But I got to thinking recently about what actually makes a good quesiton, and how we might use any answers to that to help all of us – not just therapists – to have deeper connections.
It proved an interesting exercise for me, and I want to share with you what I came up with. After some principles, I’ll also share some of my own favorite questions for going beyond surface-level conversation (and what makes them interesting).
What makes a good question?
I should define that what I’m calling ‘good’ here is a question that invites the one answering to share something real and true. It’s one that lets you as the questioner learn something that you wouldn’t – even couldn’t – have otherwise known.
A good question starts to peel back a layer. It doesn’t have to peel back all of the layers. But it gives the person an opportunity to reveal gradually more honest parts of who they are.
Being mindful of the situation and the person’s comfort is of course a priority here. A good question doesn’t need to be evocative or challenging to be interesting. In fact, staying within the right zone of intimacy and comfort is really important.
Formulating a good question
1. Stay close to experience.
Questions that stay on the surface or end up flat often fail to ask for specific experience. Invite someone to tell a story in their response, and encourage as much experiential detail as possible. When someone needs to draw back in their memory and elicit more sensory and specific details, they are more in the experience itself – and the answer will be so much richer.
Examples:
- Tell me about a time when you realized you knew more than you thought you did.
- What’s a moment in your life that you hope you can always remember the details of?
- What did (insert experience) feel like when it was happening?
2. Invite them to talk about an evolution.
One of the most interesting types of questions are those that ask people to reflect on a process of change they’ve undergone. You end up learning as the questioner about both their history and their present self. It might also reveal something about how they think about change and what that evolving looks like for them,
Examples:
- What is something that you understand about yourself now that you didn’t before?
- What’s a relationship in your life that’s changed over time?
- What’s an issue you’ve found your perspective has changed on? How did that happen?
3. Avoid binaries and ‘why’s
Most of us have heard to avoid closed-ended questions when you want someone to open up, but it can be surprisingly hard to avoid. Still, being careful to not set up your question with contraints is foundational if you’re going for more open exploration. (If you need to help ground someone or need specific information, that’s different, obviously). It’s also helpful to avoid asking why something is true or happened. The word itself tends to be a threat-activator for many of us, shutting down more expansive thinking. Replacing ‘why’ with ‘what’ is often helpful in eliciting a greater number and range of ideas.
Examples:
- Instead of “Why did you…?” → “What was going on for you when you…?” or “How did you land there…?”
- Instead of “Did you like it?” → “What was your experience of it?”
4. Tap into what’s not yet here.
Inviting people to imagine a future can help to reveal some deeper and more personal parts of them. Ask about what someone wants for themselves (and what makes them want it), what they fear (and what makes it scary), or what they hope for. These can sometimes be tender and need to be treated with gentleness and respect.
Examples:
- What is something that feels a little out of reach right now, but important to you?
- What’s something that you are working on growing in yourself these days?
- If you could wave a magic wand, what’s something you’d like to instantly change?
5. Avoid getting intellectualized.
Even if you are interested in what someone thinks about something – such as their opinion on a matter – you can often have a much richer conversation by asking them more about the ‘how’ instead of the ‘what.’ Instead of what their perspective is, inquire about how they came to believe what they do. Go back to inviting stories, experience, or evolution so that you get a richer sense of their beliefs.
Examples:
- Was there a moment or experience that shaped that perspective for you?
- How has your lived experience led you there?
- How do your ideas about _______ show up in your day-to-day life?
6. Allow for different levels of self-disclosure.
In my opinion, the best questions allow people options for how to answer them. They can let someone you are close to share more deeply and vulnerably, and someone you are just getting to know stay as private as is comfortable for them.
Examples:
- What’s felt like the biggest thing on your plate recently?
- What has most of your energy these days?
- What has it been like to _______?
- What stands out when you think about _______?
7. Given plenty of space for the answer.
It may sounds obvious, but we need to make sure we aren’t jumping in or rushing a response. If a question feels like it’s lingering, we might have the impulse to modify it or dismiss it, but it may just be that someone needs a chance to sit with it. We also don’t want to quickly give our own answer to the question, even if we have the best intentions of relating. Good, interesting questions need to breathe.
A few of my favorite questions
There are a few questions I’ve found myself returning to because they always seem to elicit interesting response and good coversation.
- What is something people tend to get wrong about you and what is more true?
- What’s something you’ve wanted to change about yourself but haven’t yet been able to?
- Where do you find that you feel most at home?
- What do you wish will be different for (your) children as compared to something you’ve faced or experienced?
- What’s something you used to care a lot about that you don’t as much anymore?
Again, it’s important to gauge your conversation partner – and this isn’t about being anyone’s therapist. This is simply about going one step beyond the comfort zone we typically stay in to have more meaningful and interesting conversations.
I’d love to hear some of your favorite questions! Happy Asking!
