Having worked as a social worker, I am already familiar with the technique of paraphrasing and always found it very useful. In fact, I even use this technique in my daily life and at work. For example, when I moderate a team meeting, I always try to paraphrase what one party says, to ‘confront’ the person with what he or she just said, give the opportunity to clarify, correct, but also reflect by hearing it with other words. This helped me from preventing misunderstanding in many cases. Especially when a party tends to present a lot of information in more extended monologues, it might also be helpful to gently ‘interrupt’ a person, ask for breaks, to summarize the content just said.