Empathy: Emotion and Emphatic Listening Empathy Essay

Submitted By rtippell
Words: 334
Pages: 2

Unit 3 - Using Counselling Skills
1.3 – Emphatic Listening Empathy is one of the most important skills to learn in counselling.When we empathize with another person, we try to see the world through their frame of reference. We try to understand how the situation we see is seen by them, what meanings they give it and what values they place on it.

Sympathy and empathy are both acts of feeling, but with sympathy you feel for the person; you’re sorry for them or pity them, but you don’t understand what they’re feeling. Sometimes we may only feel sympathetic because we really can’t understand the plight or predicament of someone else.Empathy can best be described as feeling with the person. To an extent you are placing yourself in that person’s place, have a good sense of what they feel, and understand their feelings to a degree. It may be impossible to be fully empathetic because each individual’s reactions, thoughts and feelings to tragedy are going to be unique. However, empathy is a much more active process. Instead of feeling sorry for, you’re sorry with and have clothed yourself in the mantle of someone else’s emotional reactions. It is fairly easy to feel sympathetic to someone else’s difficulties. We can pity others who have lost a loved one, undergone significant trauma, or faced terribly difficult times.
In a counselling relationship with a client, empathy can create a rapport that enables the client to trust you. You can then lead them towards possible solutions