Reflection vs Repeating Techniques

Child Psychotherapy - Critical Review
What is the difference between the technique of reflection and simply repeating back what the client has said?
Reflection is an important therapy component and therapeutic technique frequently used during psychotherapy sessions for most psychotherapeutic models, and it is the only technique utilized in client-centered therapy. It is a technique for communicating therapeutic empathy to clients by distilling the core or real meaning of what the clients talk about and reflecting back to them. Reflection is very different from simply repeating back what the client has said, which only serves the purpose of ensuring the correct intake of verbal information. Reflection includes the basic component of repeating information in order to check for accuracy, but it is much more than that. In order to do reflections well, one has to listen closely to the client’s words (kind of like listening between the lines), observe the client’s body languages and facial expressions, as well as using what the therapist already know about the client in order to more fully understand the client’s experiences emotionally and intellectually.
Conveying empathy to clients through accurate reflections of what they are really trying to say can encourage their self-awareness, expression of their emotional selves, and personal growth, which is often what psychotherapy is about or trying to achieve. This is what makes reflection therapeutic and different from simply repeating someone’s words back to him or her. Good reflections communicate to clients that their therapists can adopt the clients’ perspectives and understand their situations and emotions in their shoes. This sense of being heard, understood, and accepted generates a good feeling in the clients and fosters development and deepening of therapeutic relationships between clients and their therapists. If one only simply repeats what the client has said the whole time without doing any reflection or