It can be hard to hear the difference between affirmation (which we don’t “count” but take into account with our overall ratings) and reflections (which we count). If we too often mistake reflections and affirmations, it can influence the accuracy of our ratings. Affirmations convey a positive observation about the person and address self-efficacy or personal agency, whereas reflections convey our understanding of the person’s perspective – something related to what they have said or meant. Skillful complex reflections capture deep, significant meaning and, as such, elicit insights from the client that can come across as uplifting and supportive. Therefore, it can be tempting to hear that utterance as an affirmation; i.e., because it feels weightier than a simple reflection a coder may want to “prize” it more.  But when a coder erroneously counts affirmations as reflections, it skews both the total reflection count and the reflection-to-question ratio. Moreover, mistaken identification also negatively impacts inter-rater reliability (IRR), so an utterance (or verbal intervention) cannot be assessed as both a reflection and affirmation. The rule in coding is that if the statement does not clearly stand out as an affirmation, it should be coded as a reflection.