Empathy In The Working World

Empathy is a central theme that runs through the entire book. Dr. Bromfield highlights the importance and significance of empathy, understanding adolescents while balancing the need to challenge and push them. Empathy is an emotion, I value highly as a future humanistic counselor as I believe it can be a very potent tool in therapy. “ As to this day I am awed at empathic understanding’s near miraculous power to soften children’s and adults’ defensive resolve” (p48), he describes the miraculous power of empathy and how it can allow persons in therapy to uncover those other emotions that they may have suppressed quite well.

Empathy gives us as clinicians the ability to understand and connect with the client’s emotions. By building a relationship with a client it gives the clinician a better perspective of the client’s thoughts and feelings. Emotions are not something you can leave at the door and pick up later, it reflects on the individual’s performance. By simply asking how their day is going can create a conversation, this way the client can express themselves and not keep their emotions bottled up. Empathy can be cognitive or emotionally based. Cognitive empathy is being able to know what another person feels and what he/she might be thinking.

When assessing clients a specific skill that I identify with is empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings of others. To effectively display empathy requires certain characteristics. Some of the characteristics of empathy that I employ are; having the innate ability to put myself in the other people’s shoes. This allows for a better understand toward the experiences the family has gone through. For empathy to be displayed accurately, effective communication is essential. Effective communication is asking the right questions and providing reflective listening so the family knows the professional truly understands their circumstances. Effective communication allows for an accurate assessment of the family. Effective communication is a vitally important component of empathy. Empathy can be displayed though effective communication, such as, effectively

In reference to the case study, empathy could have be used to ensure a better understanding of Mr Lawrence concerns by actively listening to him with genuine understanding, keeping positive body posture, showing emotional concerns towards his feelings and not discounting them, maintaining direct eye contact at all times, nodding or asking relevant questions all goes to endorse empathy and generate the feeling of worth. This would help him develop understanding of his own situation and reduce is anxiety and

Empathy and caring is an essential part of human health. We love because we can empathize (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). Empathy underlies everything that makes society work; such as altruism, collaboration, love and charity. Failures to empathize are a key part of social problems, such as crime, violence, war, racism, child abuse and inequity. Although we are genetically predisposed to care for others, the development of empathy requires a lifelong process of relational interaction (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). More importantly, the first relationship humans experience, the

Empathy is therefore a vital link in the process of Emotional Intelligence. (Ioannidou, F. 2008). In relation to Nursing, it enables nurses who have well developed empathetic listening skills to establish a rapport with a patient which can assist in establishing effective solutions and building a trusting professional nurse/patient relationship. By using effective skills in empathetic communication, Nurses have the ability to divert a potential highly emotional situation into effective and positive interactions. (Halpern, J. & Ebrary 2001)

The importance of empathy in any helping profession, medical or social, cannot be overstated. The workers that exemplified it in their practice did the best that they could with their limited resources.

Hannah, B.B. & Virginia, T. (2012). The use of empathy in human services: Strategies for diverse professional roles. Journal of Human Services, 32 (1): 72-84

What goes wrong, thus bringing a client into therapy? Rogers considers the problem to be lack of

Healthcare professionals who should learn to exhibit empathy range from doctors and nurses to therapists and pharmacists. While it has been established that a

We talk a lot about empathy at Moz, and that’s because the value of empathy cannot be overstated — in marketing or in life. Empathy is a super power. Dr. Brené Brown describes that super power as “feeling with people,” and it creates a spark of connection for the person being empathized with. That spark can be fanned into the burning passion

     Today many people seek professional therapy or counseling for a limited amount of time in order to deal with different life crises. Others seek professional help for the majority of their lives in order to deal with a psychological disorder. After reading this chapter on Therapy, I learned that this was not always the case, and that the way our society views therapy, and the meaning of therapy, has changed dramatically of the years. This chapter not only explains the evolution of therapy, it explores the different therapeutic approaches.

After reviewing the article written by Lisa Moore, I began to reflect upon how I would incorporate empathy in my interactions with a client during the assessment phase of therapy. Empathy in a nutshell is attempting to match your feelings or current state of mind with that of another individual. In our field, empathy is of the utmost importance. It allows the speech-language pathologist (SLP) to meet clients where they are, to enter their world, and truly understand what it feels like to be them. SLP’s must not only view the client from an external frame of reference, but they must attempt to extract the client’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and values before and whilst administering an assessment protocol. There are several ways in

Social Justice is defined as “the equal distribution of opportunities, rights, and responsibility despite differences in physical traits and/or beliefs and behavior. It is an international and multifaceted issue that fights for better treatment and equality of people.” (“Pachamama Alliance,” 2017). According to this definition, my understanding of social justice is that it is a way to advocate for other individuals in order to assist their needs in society. For example, I would want to advocate for Hispanic mothers and children who have been through abuse. My empathy towards this group started because of my personal history with an abusive father who suffered from alcoholism. “Empathy involves thinking about a person and the challenges he or she is facing and coming to understand what it is like for that person to have that experience.” (Cameron & Keenan, 2013, p. 72).

Most definitions of empathy are based on the same core idea - empathy is the ability to understand and identify someone else’s thoughts and feelings, as if they were one’s own (wordreference online dictionary, 2016). Although it’s been said “there are probably nearly as many definitions of empathy as people working on the topic.” (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006, p.435) suggesting that there is no singular way to even define empathy, let alone explain its impact on our behaviour. Due to the sheer depth and complexity of empathy it’s understandable that each discipline within psychology presents it’s own explanation for why we experience it, and how it can affect our interaction with the world around us. Psychologists have been exploring empathy for decades, in hope of gaining a complete grasp of what it means and how it can vary between each person, therefore its important we look at different psychological perspectives to try to understand it’s many dimensions.