Empathic Listening

brokensoul

I am studying psychotherapy at the moment and i have been advised that i need to work on my empathic listening. Probem is that i am not really certain how to do that!

Any tips?

krankykitty

What course are you doing, Broken Soul?

Did they give you any pointers of anything specific you should improve (or indeed give you examples of where they think you weren't doing so?)

I am going to presume in my answer that you are doing counselling/psychotherapy type course as you mentioned empathic listening - if you're doing psychoanalysis or anything like that, disregard my comments as I don't really know much about the training there.

For me, I think empathic listening is trying hard to actually really hear what the person is saying (even if they aren't saying it directly) if you know what I mean. Is the feedback you got to do with "fishbowl" type practice sessions, with other students acting as client? If so, I can totally empathise as they can be very anxiety provoking - which takes the focus off listening to the practice client, and puts it back onto yourself. I always found doing some deep breathing beforehand would help me to listen better as I'd be less focused on myself. Hope that helps!

Odysseus

krankykitty wrote: »

I am going to presume in my answer that you are doing counselling/psychotherapy type course as you mentioned empathic listening - if you're doing psychoanalysis or anything like that, disregard my comments as I don't really know much about the training there.

We have no time for the concept, the op's name is useful here as it hurts my soul when I hear that concept and the importance placed on it.

Trying to be helpful to the OP, is the concept being used/described as having the ability to "walk a mile in their shoes"? and being able to reflect that back?

I have problems with this in terms of how should this concept fit into say working with major criminals and working with the consequences of their acts, or working with a sex offender.

However, OP as KK metioned tell us a bit more about your situation and we should be able to help.

brokensoul

krankykitty wrote: »

What course are you doing, Broken Soul?

Did they give you any pointers of anything specific you should improve (or indeed give you examples of where they think you weren't doing so?)

I am going to presume in my answer that you are doing counselling/psychotherapy type course as you mentioned empathic listening - if you're doing psychoanalysis or anything like that, disregard my comments as I don't really know much about the training there.

For me, I think empathic listening is trying hard to actually really hear what the person is saying (even if they aren't saying it directly) if you know what I mean. Is the feedback you got to do with "fishbowl" type practice sessions, with other students acting as client? If so, I can totally empathise as they can be very anxiety provoking - which takes the focus off listening to the practice client, and puts it back onto yourself. I always found doing some deep breathing beforehand would help me to listen better as I'd be less focused on myself. Hope that helps!

The course is the diploma in counselling and psychotherapy in CIT, im in second year.

That is the exact situation i am in, a fishbowl type situation. Deep breathing might help alright - i just find the concept of "empathic listening" quite wooly. I am not sure how to show that i have "really" heard the client, apart from reflecting back to them.

Arrrgggg!!

krankykitty

@Odysseus - I don't think it's necessary to "walk a mile in their shoes" rather, to be able to imagine what it might be like for them in their shoes, while remaining firmly planted in your own!

@brokensoul - Youre right, it is a wooly concept. In my own course (which focused on person centred/psychodynamic theories) it wasn't talked about much as a concept on it's own but more so as part of the "active listening" skills. I used to find when doing the fishbowl things when I got a bit stuck or whatever, if I just reminded myself to go back to those skills I usually did Ok. Perhaps some new books on the subject might help, which ones are you currently using?

I think one of the issues with training too is that it's hard to know the criteria on which they are assessing you. Perhaps it would be useful (if you haven't already) to ask them to give you some concrete examples of where they think you are going wrong/right, and ask them to explain?

stuf

brokensoul wrote: »

The course is the diploma in counselling and psychotherapy in CIT, im in second year.

That is the exact situation i am in, a fishbowl type situation. Deep breathing might help alright - i just find the concept of "empathic listening" quite wooly. I am not sure how to show that i have "really" heard the client, apart from reflecting back to them.

Arrrgggg!!

I suppose it depends what you're reflecting back. Simple paraphrasing of what the client says won't necessarily convey your empathy although in cases it can if you choose the correct points to latch on to. You need to try to get to the nub of what the client is trying to say to you including the subtext of there concerns. This is what you need to reflect back to convey your empathy. What you're expressing is what you understand about the client's situation.

Worth going back to the books too - any of the Mearns and Thorne books and the different "in action" books - Culley and Bond or Jacobs talk about listening and empathy in detail. Also "The Gift of Therapy" by Irvine Yalom is a great read - about 100 short chapters with tips on technique - lots of good examples in the chapter on empathy.

hotspur

I think the essence of empathy is having a felt sense of the person's feelings, even if they are outside of the other person's current conscious experience.

If you look at the physiology of it you see that we have cells in our viscera - around our heart and in our intestines - that are activated by our perceiving certain feelings in others, and these cells have connections right through to our prefrontal contex. This is why we talk about having gut feelings and something breaking your heart. Take a look at Dan Siegel describing it in this video, jump to 33:50 (and then I recommend looking at the whole video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr4Od7kqDT8

The purpose of my mentioning this is that empathic listening is not merely a technique to be learnt. Your very ability to do it is dependent, inter alia, upon how embodied you are. If you are not very in touch with your own moment by moment physical sensations and feelings then all the mirror neurons in the world aren't going to produce empathy for the feelings of others.

So some useful advice for someone wishing to increase their capacity for empathic listening is to start by developing their capacity to listen to their own primary experiences first. This is why mindfulness is so popular at the moment within the therapy world. It is an extremely effective method of developing this awareness. Check out the work of Kabat Zinn if you wish to learn how to do mindfulness.

brokensoul

Thanks for all the replies. I am very interested in mindfulness, but i find that i struggle hugely to give it the time it needs. I am working full time, and have college and other family committments.

Hotspur, are you a mindfulness practitioner? If so, how much time do you give to it?

krankykitty

Hi Brokensoul. i'm sure Hotspur will be able to give you a better answer, but from my own experience of mindfulness, you don't necessarily have to develop a practice where you are meditating for hours every day. Jon Kabat Zinn who was mentioned has a variety of guided mindfulness meditations on CD, some of which are only 10 minutes in lenght. Without doing any of the reading or meditating, you could possibly get into the spirit of mindfulness starting small by just taking a moment in the day to just check in with yourself - see how you are breathing, how your body is feeling, noticing and listening to what is happening for you in the present moment, without judging whatever thoughts or feelings you have. Empathy begins with yourself

Odysseus

krankykitty wrote: »

@Odysseus - I don't think it's necessary to "walk a mile in their shoes" rather, to be able to imagine what it might be like for them in their shoes, while remaining firmly planted in your own!

Yeah, it's the imagining part I have issues with, I'm not saying it does not help people or attacking other modalities, but very simply Lacan describes three orders of reality. The Real, that which outside of language, hence the emphasis on putting words on things in my way of working; the Imaginary such as fantasy which is where we are with this concept, and the Symbolic which is the type of speech we aim for. Now these are very complex concepts, so as with anything you try to describe in a few words, my above description of them is poor.

Now I know it's used in many ways, but at it's simplest such as "that must be very difficult for you " type response I find very patronising for client's as they know that already. Now as you know I may be a Lacanian and we speak of psychoanalysis as referring to the clients subjective truth experience of life, but at the same time I am not saying we have the corner on that area of the market.

I am just saying that because it may come across that way to others who don't know me as well, most regular posters here know I that whilst I may believe that my way of working [psychoanalysis] works well, I don't think or believe it is the only way to work with people. Fundamentalism, whether it's about CBT or psychoanalysis is wrong; different modalities suit different people and there is no ultimate way of working with people. It's just a long winded way of making sure I don't get seen as saying that.

metrovelvet

krankykitty wrote: »

Hi Brokensoul. i'm sure Hotspur will be able to give you a better answer, but from my own experience of mindfulness, you don't necessarily have to develop a practice where you are meditating for hours every day. Jon Kabat Zinn who was mentioned has a variety of guided mindfulness meditations on CD, some of which are only 10 minutes in lenght. Without doing any of the reading or meditating, you could possibly get into the spirit of mindfulness starting small by just taking a moment in the day to just check in with yourself - see how you are breathing, how your body is feeling, noticing and listening to what is happening for you in the present moment, without judging whatever thoughts or feelings you have. Empathy begins with yourself

This is interesting I think.

I know a couple of people who are incapable of empathy. It's like a disability or something and when dealing with them it can seem like they are unintentional accidental sadists. Now, Im not sure if its some brain defect with them, or if by avoiding other's sufferring, they avoid their own. Or that empathising can put you right back in touch with your own pain, so it can be convenient to sustain the disconnect.

hotspur

brokensoul wrote: »

Hotspur, are you a mindfulness practitioner? If so, how much time do you give to it?

My answer is the same answer you will get from 99% of people who are into mindfulness - I don't give enough time to it. The aim is for a meditation session every day of 20-25 minutes, depending on the meditation. Mindfulness of the breath takes 20 minutes to do, but probably closer to 30 in preparation and getting settled. Loving kindness mediation (which is great for developing your brain's compassion system and increasing empathy) takes 25 minutes.

But it's like exercise, no matter how beneficial or enjoyable it is it still tends to lead to a metamotivation (wanting to want to do it) rather than a primary motivation to do it. That's one of the problems with pleasure being opiate based and desire being dopamine based - they can be out of whack like with exercise with pleasure > desire to do it or like with addiction where desire to do it can be > actual pleasure.

metrovelvet wrote: »

This is interesting I think.

I know a couple of people who are incapable of empathy. It's like a disability or something and when dealing with them it can seem like they are unintentional accidental sadists. Now, Im not sure if its some brain defect with them, or if by avoiding other's sufferring, they avoid their own. Or that empathising can put you right back in touch with your own pain, so it can be convenient to sustain the disconnect.

Psychopaths lack the ability to empathise and some studies put the prevalence rate of this at 1% so I'm sure we've all met some, and those who have contact with certain groups such as prisoners would have met a lot.

Less extremely I would suggest that a far greater percentage of people are sufficiently experientially avoidant that they cannot access what is necessary for strong empathy. I think you put it very well Metrovelvet, we have to connect with our own feelings before we can connect with it in others. And that may be thought too painful.