This week we were asked to describe the meaning of empathy in our own words. Here are my words: Empathy is being aware of other people’s emotional responses and seeing things from their point of view, understanding how they react to problems or how they have reacted to problems. It could be likened to walking alongside someone, so that you see and hear the same things as them, and pick up on how they feel about those sights and sounds, but you keep your own independent frame of reference as well.
As a counsellor you demonstrate empathy when you reflect a client’s truth back to them, while picking up on their emotional state. By showing that you understand them and that you accept them, it allows the client to explore their emotions at a deeper level, get to the root of their problems.
We were also asked to describe the difference between an empathic and a sympathetic response. An empathic response shows that you understand the other person’s emotions. A sympathetic response shows you feel sorry for the other person. The difference is that you are relating your past bad experiences to their current bad experience* to show you understand what they are going through, rather than simply trying to make them feel better about their current bad experience because you feel guilt or shame that they are feeling some kind of negative emotion, or you feel like you should have a go at being supportive. A sympathetic response may make the person feel a little better in the short term, but it isn’t really very useful at all as it doesn’t move the situation forward much.
*Or if you have no previous experiences that directly relate to theirs, that you are using your emotional imagination to really have a go at understanding how they feel.
As an example, imagine someone had just broken up with their partner. A sympathetic response would be “Oh come now, there are plenty more fish in the sea, let’s go out clubbing and find you someone else even better”. An empathic response would be “You must be in a lot of pain right now, you seem very agitated. You clearly still care for her deeply”. Another example would be a child that has just fallen over and scraped their elbow. A sympathetic and a not at all very understanding response would be to the child, and say something like “Oh baby, baby, baby, my poor baby, let me kiss it better for you, come on be a brave soldier, stop crying now, do as you are told, it was only a little scrape, come on now, SHUSH!”. An empathic and supportive response, and one that I have personally found works much better, is to pick them up, dust them off and say something like “Hey now, that looked like it hurt. Your knee must feel raw right now. I’ll be here to wipe your tears away when you’ve stopped crying”. Children respond especially well to empathic responses, as they often don’t have a name for the emotions they feel. A grown-up helping the child understand their emotions, and letting them know that the grown-up will be there for them if the child really needs them, goes a long way to making a child self-sufficient.
In relation to a counsellor/client relationship, what does empathy provide? In the broadest sense it provides the basic framework of the entire relationship. Used correctly, empathy builds the relationship between counsellor and client, it builds trust, and can bridge gaps created by social status, race or gender. When a counsellor reflects a client’s feelings back at them, it usually makes the client feel justified, understood and encouraged to share more. Empathy allows a counsellor to understand a client’s emotional state, and by using positive affirmations, open body language and a non-judgmental tone, communicates to the client that their emotional state is accepted.
What if there was no empathy?
If there was no empathy in a counsellor/client relationship, counselling would be a very different experience. Displaying empathy is a key aspect of Unconditional Positive Regard, with which the counsellor shows that they understand and accept a client’s feelings. If you have an ounce of self-awareness and have ever talked to someone who was not displaying empathy, or was not really interested in what you were saying, you will have noticed their negative attitude – Likewise, clients can pick up a lack of empathy very quickly. A session with a counsellor that lacks empathy could increase a client’s stress levels, increase a client’s anxiety and increase their confusion; simply because the client would most probably feel that the counsellor didn’t really care about or understand what they were saying. If you were talking to someone that you didn’t feel was really listening to what you were saying, would you open up to them?
From a client’s point of view it would be hard to feel like you’re working together to form a trusting relationship with a counsellor that displays no empathy, because it could feel like the counsellor is just reeling off questions from a checklist with no regard to what the client is saying. This would be disastrous as a counsellor listens to the answers that a client gives, and uses the contents of those answers to form a later question. The relationship just wouldn’t flourish. In our group we could not think of one single positive aspect that a lack of empathy on the part of the counsellor would bring to a session. I don’t think anyone in the entire class came up with one.
Empathy is essential.
