The Need for Empathy in a Therapeutic Relationship

Rogers worked with many others in developing the idea that clients could heal themselves, if only the therapist provided ‘facilitative’ or core conditions of, ‘empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.’

The whole reason for a therapeutic relationship is to facilitate a successful patient outcome. Each person is unique and has different needs.

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.

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

The procedure for conducting this reliability study was based upon the procedures followed in existing research to validate other scales related to person-centered therapy competency. Truax and Carkhuff’s (1967) Scales for Therapist Accurate Empathy, Nonpossessive Warmth, and Genuineness were created to measure therapist traits and competencies through live observations or recordings of therapy sessions. Waltz et al. (1993) further advised that therapy sessions of practitioners be recorded so as to facilitate treatment integrity checks. This has been used most notably in investigations of Rogerian therapeutic relationships (examining empathy, unconditional positive regard, and

In a research done in mental health, it was noted that clients placed substantial focus on the therapist ability to build a therapeutic relationship. They focused on the relationship being built on care, trust and respect. There are many aspects to building a rapport with service users, with the importance on maintaining a professional behaviour in the healthcare system.0

Bohart, A. C., Greenberg, L. S., Elliot, R., & Watson, J. C. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy , 48 (1), 43-49.

Empathy provides the nurse with the perspective that is necessary to consider the most appropriate actions and interventions significant to a patient’s individual experience (Boggs. 2011, p.107). Failure of the nurse to empathize with a patient can result in a strained therapeutic relationship as a result of providing inadequate emotional support and client education (Boggs. 2011, p.107). In providing empathetic care it is important to mentally picture the client’s situation and perform self-checks, thereby assessing for personal bias and stereotypes (Arnold. 2011 p. 84). Additionally, there are multiple barriers to providing empathetic care, which include lack of time, lack of trust, lack of privacy, and lack of support, amongst others (Boggs. 2011, p.115).

Healthcare leaders are focusing on people by attracting, engaging developing and retaining the world’s best personnel in building a quality patient center care organization. In viewing “real people,’ it is not only important to understand what they go through as our patients it more important to empathize and recognize their concerns when encountering adverse situations and by setting precedence limit these experiences by instituting a commitment to creating an atmosphere of tranquility. However, how do we start to figure out all our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats Module 6 (2017), of course in the way of providing annual educational training for the staff in empathy, teaching on understanding the emotional needs of our patients as well as the physical, need.

There are many values this writer wishes to incorporate into a counseling relationship. The fundamental values this writer wishes to incorporate are: flexibility, self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy. The ability to be flexible and alter what one does in order to fit the client’s needs is crucial to establishing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship. Flexibility can be demonstrated in many different ways, such as the way the therapist interacts with the client, the tone of voice that is utilized, down to the way the therapist provides material to the client. In being flexible, treatment is able to remain focused on the client and his or her needs (Egan, 2014).

A therapeutic relationship is a professional, inter-personal alliance in which the nurse and client join together for a defined period to achieve health-related treatment goals (Chauhan & Long, 2000), which may only last for a short period of time but

There are many variables that influence the success of therapy for the client, none more so than the therapeutic relationship. The therapeutic relationship is defined as the strength and collaborative relationship between the client and therapist that emphasises mutually agreed goals and tasks within the context of a strong affective bond (Horvath, 1994.) In the therapeutic relationship, the clinician offers care, touch, compassion, presence, and any other act or attitude that would foster healing, and expects nothing in return (Trout, 2013.) Some clinicians believe that the “therapeutic relationship is a precondition of change, others as the fertile soil that permits change, while others see it as the central mechanism of change itself” (Norcross, 2010.) This is not to devalue other variables that impact the success of the therapy such as client involvement and the treatment method.

Empathy is viewed as an essential aspect of the counseling relationship. Discuss the difference between primary and advanced accurate empathy. What barriers exist to the development of empathy? How might these barriers be overcome?

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).

According to Counseling Resources(2015), Carl Rogers describes the important role of empathy in counseling as a therapists understanding the client 's feelings and thoughts according to the client 's own perspective. Empathy is an important element in counseling between a therapist and the client. The therapist has to make the client feel respected and understood. According to David Martin(2011), an empathetic therapist sees the client as the source and problem solver. An empathetic therapist can help a client with past experiences and develop a better understanding of the experience and their feelings. Ed Neukrug(2013) describes Robert Carkhuff 's Five Level Empathy Scale: Level 1- reflections are inaccurate, Level 2- feelings or content not quite accurate, Level 3- accurate feelings of both feelings and content, Level 4- reflections of feelings