Empathy

Empathy is the heart of a helping relationship. Empathy is not a feeling or a state. It is a continuing process throughout the relationship. Empathy is a process of being with the client, to experience the world in their frame of reference; to accompany them on their journey, commenting on what I see as if we were taking a physical journey together. When I respond to the client, my responses have to be empathic ones.

I have to put aside my own way of experiencing and perceiving reality. Instead, I have to intensely and enduringly sense and respond to that of the client. I need to provide the experience for the client that I am willing to be close to them, even in their distress – here and now. I have to stay with them rather than pulling them away from their experience; I need to support them to be able to express it.

Empathy is probably easier to define when we think about the lack of it. When the listener shows no evidence of understanding; when they give irrelevant or judgemental responses, or even advice; when they are hurtful and rejecting. There might be some empathy, but a response still can be subtractive when something is clearly lost of the client’s experience in the response. Empathy drives the helper to give accurate or even additive responses: when the response reflects a deeper level of the client’s experience. The helper has to be sensitive to the client’s verbal and non-verbal signs indicating the significance of their shared experiences.

Those who have an externalised locus of evaluation are extremely vulnerable to the evaluation of others, in contrast to those who have an internalised one. The helper needs to be sensitive to the client’s locus of evaluation and respond accordingly.

The empathic process actively facilitates the client’s self-agency, so they will be able to initiate their own changing process in the direction they desire. The helper needs to show that they understand the feelings and thoughts expressed by the client, facilitating the process of deepening the client’s level of awareness. The helper’s job is not to answer the client’s questions. Instead, the helper has to ask questions of the client. We need to ask tentatively, continuously checking our understanding. We need to encourage and support the client to focus on their edge of awareness, to bring into light whatever else is still in there. Focusing on the edge of awareness means the recognition of the underlying feelings. The edge of awareness is between the readily available known and the unknown. Focusing on the edge is a door to the unknown. I need to listen and echo the client’s felt sense. I need to be a mirror, reflecting their current experiences.

Empathy strongly contributes towards the establishment and maintenance of relational depth; it focuses on getting close to the client’s current experiences. Even when, for some reason, it is quite impossible to understand the client’s actual words, for example if they are crying, the helper needs to focus on simply being with them and feeling what they feel.

We can reflect the client’s experiences in different ways: we can reflect the elements of the situation, such as their body language, for example, ‘You are crossing your arms’, or their facial expressions, e.g.: ‘You are smiling now’. We can repeat what they said word for word, or we can repeat the same reflections that were previously successful.

Some people assume that you were either born with empathy or not; others think empathy is wholly learned. In my opinion, it is learned through all the life experiences we had, all our observations and relating with others in many different contexts. Empathy is the helper’s emotional and intellectual sensitivity focused on the client. The helper has to be willing to empathise with the client, even if it would be much easier to stay in their own frame of reference and look at the client from there.

There are several possible blocks to empathy. The helper’s own theories about human behaviour, even if they are grounded in research, are quite useless for predicting the behaviour of that individual client. It is hard to set our theories aside because we have an emotional investment in their fulfilment, we need them to be correct. When working with a client, we have to challenge these. Common experiences with the client can initially help establish trust but they can become blocks to empathy. There is the danger of the helper identifying with the client, a feeling of false empathy, where the helper wrongly assumes that what they would feel in the client’s situation is the same as what the client feels. Another block to empathy can be the helper’s strong sympathy or antipathy towards the client. Also, the helper’s own needs and fears. Such as the need to feel ‘helpful’ and see the client ‘improving’; or to end each session on a positive note; or the helper’s own need to be liked or needed by the client; or to self-protect. When the helper lacks self-acceptance, they definitely cannot empathise with the client. The helper should be aware of their personal and professional abilities and limits. It is vital to be clear about our own personal blocks. We need to challenge some of those areas to overcome the blocks to empathy. Self-awareness and empathy are intertwined. We have to be clear about what drives our behaviour.

The helper must be careful not to empathise only with some parts of the client but with the client as a whole person. Empathy is to understand someone; to see the world through their eyes; to feel through their heart; to understand their situation from their viewpoint. In order to do this, the helper has to set their own opinions aside and look at the situation with the client’s values, past experiences and beliefs. Empathy requires effort, concentration and discipline. Attunement is a step even further: to be reactive to the client; the ability to pick up on nuances.

The helper does not only need to be empathic; they also need to be able to effectively communicate their empathic understanding to the client; that they are able to identify differences and similarities, we understand their social environment and cultural background. We have to use culturally appropriate communication skills. We have to be mindful of stereotypes and prejudices. We have to accept the client’s values and beliefs. We have to seek and investigate additional cultural information to better understand the client. Also, we need to keep in mind what psychological adjustments the client had to make if they moved to this country from a different culture.

Empathy is one of the three core conditions that facilitate change: the helper has to be congruent; they have to feel and communicate unconditional positive regard, acceptance, and non-judgemental warmth towards the client; and they need to feel empathy for their client. They should communicate their empathic understanding by listening actively and continuously challenging their blocks to listening. We need to work hard to understand our client. We have to challenge our assumptions, judgements or prejudices. Being empathic is to accurately perceiving the internal frame of reference of the client.