> Let's say someone is telling you they are fearful for their job, they think they will get fired soon, even though they have nothing specific to point to.
As a listener, are you agreeing with this or are you neutral nodding your head?
As a listener, I'm my goal is to create an environment for them to talk about what bothers them in the most vibrant, and exploratory way possible. I realize that's not exactly the most helpful explanation so allow me to go into more detail. There's a few conversational techniques that I pull from heavily when I'm trying to actively listen: conversational orienteering, and open ended questions, non-Sorcratic questioning.
For lack of a better term[1], conversational orienteering is actively being aware of the topic of conversation and its local topology. Given a topic, one should be able to generate several other topics: one that is more abstract, one more specific, and several adjacent. Over time, a listener gets a sense of where a conversation wants to go and uses the conversational topology to orient towards that goal. It took me a bit of practice to be good at picking topics not too far and not too close to the one at hand - too far can make conversations feel disconnected and random, and too close can make someone feel like they are being misunderstood.
Secondly, I don't think open-ended questions needs much explanation, but when someone is venting or needs support, hows, whys, and whens give the speaker much more room to express themselves than 'Do you...'s.
Thirdly, it's important to be non-Socratic in questions and responses. Leading the speaker is much much worse than telling them advice and should be avoided at all cost.
If you've ever worked a problem out verbally, you should be able to recognize that these principles work to cultivate a good verbal environment for the speaker. I don't see them as not helping, so much as creating an environment where they have the best shot at verbally processing their issue. I think it's important to recognize that emotions can get in the way of people being able to take action and that speaking can help diffuse strong emotions so that someone is ready to take a concrete step toward fixing their problem. I've seen that happen a lot. Even just feeling understood can help people feel better about making a real decision.
It's probably also important to point out that there are some people for which verbal processing works really well and some who can complain endlessly. It's important to recognize the difference. For the later, value your time. Maybe give them 15mins of listening and then decide to change the subject, for them verbal processing is not going to help. They probably need to work on issues in a clinical or therapeutic environment you cannot provide.
Hope this gives some insight, and even if it doesn't, feel free to tell me too.
1. If this actually has a term, please let me know. I'm coining one just to be able to talk about it.