Empathy

Here I am trying to write my reflective journal for the week. I am stumped and I dislike writing it via the university platform.

As per usual, I go on a bit of a procrastinating tangent… I make myself feel like I am studying, but not directly by watching videos on the topic that are not listed in the module or by reading articles about the topic. Tonight, I thought I would take a deeper look into the ‘Rogerian Perspective’.

This led me down the Carl Rogers rabbit hole.

For those of you who do not know who Carl Rogers is, he was one of the founding therapists of person centered practice. This is a practice that helps the client figure out what they need to do, to better themselves with the aid and guidance of a therapist or counsellor. Instead of telling the client what is in their best interest and what to do, this is a way to help he or she realise, they are responsible for everything that they do in their life.

Rogers came up with three core necessary conditions; empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard (UPR). These three skills, will help you build the trust that is needed within the client-therapist relationship. They all link in with one another and you really cannot have one without the other. But tonight, I am really focusing on empathy.

I have listened to the video on you tube about Rogers on Empathy numerous times this semester. But tonight, it really sunk in. The most potent key for change in a therapeutic relationship is to have a high degree of empathy.

Here is the transcript from his video recording on empathy:

The way of being with another person, which is termed empathic, has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other, and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive moment to moment to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing.

It means temporarily living in his life, moving about in it delicately without making judgements, sensing meanings of which he is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which he is totally unaware since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensings of his world, as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he is fearful.

It means frequently checking with him as to the accuracy of your sensings and being guided by his responses. You are a confident companion to him in his world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his or her experiencing, you help him to focus on this useful type of referent to experience his meanings more fully and to move forward in his or her experiencing.

Now, to be with another in this way means that, for the time being, you lay aside the views and values that you hold for yourself in order to enter his world without prejudice. In some sense, it means that you lay aside yourself, and this can only be done by a person who is secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and can comfortably return to his own world when he wishes.

Perhaps that description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong, yet subtle and gentle way of being.

Have you ever heard such poetic words?

In a world that is full of so much hate at the moment, I think we could all try a bit harder to work on our empathetic side. Try to understand where the other party is coming from. Try and to understand what they are going through and not be so quick to judge.

P xx