Empathy is big word in counseling. It is also foundational in how counselors and pastors help others heal. One of the biggest misnomers of counseling is the counselor fixes the person and details the agenda a person must follow to heal. This is farther from the truth. Emotional pain is not so easy to heal as if a recipe in a cook book. Instead it is a messy, usually not outlined path of progress and regress, emotions, and time. The counselor is more a beacon that guides than a drill sergeant who commands. Empathy is one of the key skills that serves as a way to help the client heal and become resilient. This does not mean that confrontation is not sometimes needed when maladaptive ideas and practices are destroying a client’s life but it does mean that empathy gives room for mutual sojourning and walking together in the feelings of the situation. This allows for self awareness and real conversion within the person instead of superficial direction and forced change that never lasts. So why counselors would on many occasions love to tell the client this is what the you need to do and how to do it, the science of psychology and counseling suggests otherwise.
In this short blog we will take a closer look at the role of empathy in the therapeutic counseling relationship. Please also review AIHCP’s Healthcare Certifications and see which ones best match your academic and professional goals.
Empathy vs Sympathy
Carl Rogers emphasized in counseling the critical importance of genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard. While these may seem like fluffy and soft terms that overlook right and wrong, they are critical to counseling in helping individuals discover right and wrong without scolding, admonishing, or ridiculing. Those in trauma or pain need a non-judgmental caring ear to listen and through that listening, foster change. The traumatized, mentally ill, and emotional unstable face a cold world already where they are marginalized, ridiculed, and judged. While abuse destroys human bonds, empathy can restore them. Counseling is a therapy that is not meant to make judgements but to help individuals discover healthy and good ways to heal. Instead of the dogmatic voice that says this is right or wrong (and it has a place), the counseling session looks to heal via listening and understanding and helping the person come to self actualization of the correct course. The counseling room is not the pulpit, but is a healing modality that looks to guide via a different route. Counseling understands empathy best produces change rather than lectures that only create more anger and disobedience and resistance. Ultimately empathy in counseling can lead a client to higher self-awareness, self experience and find a true joy in connecting and continuing the communication and connection with the counselor (Cochran, 2021, p. 64-67).
According to Cochran, empathy is not a thought process (2021, p. 56). Instead it is a natural connection with a person. It permits the counselor to feel what the other person feels. So when a gay man traumatically describes abuse at a young age, a counselor who is heterosexual does not see different sexual orientations, but the feeling of rejection and pain with their fellow human being. Likewise, a Caucasian counselor, can find empathy with a African American client who discusses the trauma of being racially profiled by the police. One does not need to share the event, or even agree with the client but they share the emotions felt by the client. This is the key difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy does not share in the feeling but it feels sorry for the person. Sympathy is good to have for someone but in counseling it is counter productive. Clients are not looking for someone to feel sorry for them but for someone to help them. They are looking for someone to feel what they feel and help them move forward. Empathy is hence walking with the person not just merely observing and offering condolences (Cochran, 2021, p. 57). Rogers states, empathy means to “sense the client’s private world as if it were your own but without ever losing the “as if” quality” (Cochran, 2021, p. 58). Of course, this does not mean, one who is empathetic must agree with the person’s choices, life styles or past actions, but it allows the counselor to help the person at a deep level to find healing and change.
This closely ties into Unconditional Positive Regard which is another key concept of Rogers which demands counselors fully accept the client in all their complete wholeness and shower them with unconditional understanding. Unconditional Positive Regard retains the autonomy of the client to learn how to change on their own terms. Rogers listed warmth, acceptance and prizing as three key elements of UPR. Warmth represents the care of the client and genuine empathy. It is the fertile soil that produces a an atmosphere of trust and disclosure. Acceptance is the ability of the counselor without bias to accept the immediate emotions of a person in counseling-whether illogical, angry, hateful, confused or resenting (Cochran, 2021, p. 103). Prizing involves raising the self esteem of the patient by accepting them with praise as they are but also highlighting their strengths and weaknesses in a honest and genuine way. Again, this type of emotional connection does not mean counselors accept statements, values, or actions of a client, but it does mean the regard is sincere and grants the client a sense of trust that if they make a mistake or trip and fall emotionally, there is no condition. When conditions are placed for approval, then the healing process becomes manufactured. It is through this type of positive regard that a client can flourish and heal because the client knows someone has their back in the good and the bad. This type of positive relationship in fact helps the client at an internal level look to become better intrinsically based not on reward but because it is the right thing to do. Once a client believe it is the right path without being told, then the client begins to truly transform and change. Through empathy, genuineness and employment of unconditional positive regard, the necessary emotional seeds can plant natural and self employed change at the guidance of a gentle counseling hand.
Displaying Empathy
Sometimes the hardest part for empathy to flourish in a counseling relationship is the counselor. Whether lack of practicing it or lack of patience for its fruits to develop, the counselor is ultimately responsible for establishing a secure and trusting environment where difficult emotions can be felt and discussed. One element is the fear of letting go. Some counselors may feel the need to control and direct a session and conditionally expect certain behaviors and decisions. They lack an empathetic skillset to confront a client with an emotional situation. It is hence important for counselors sometimes to allow the session to develop as the client dictates and to attempt to understand the client by what is revealed.
In expressing empathy, counselors need to match emotions with tones, expressions, movements and words (Cochran, 2021., p. 79 to 80). Sometimes naming the emotion and restating it to a client can help reflection but also show empathetic listening. This is also true when expressing empathetic confrontation which looks to indirectly help a person reflect on a statement. When stating a statement about what the person is feeling, state in in a declarative statement, but if uncertain, express it in a tentative declarative tone that is open for correction. In these reflections, a counselor can also reflect themes in paraphrasing one’s feelings. Themes that keep appearing in a person’s story or how one feels can be expertly restated and paraphrased to an individual to again not only show the counselor is listening but also to emphasize. This can be done in a statement but also in an attempt to empathetically confront a particular feeling (Cochran, 2021, p. 81-82). Empathetic confrontation eliminates the fear to allow clients to be confronted with some of their own statements. Counselors should be prepared to be corrected at times, if they misstate what a client said, or if their tentative declaration is misspoken. In these cases, this should not be seen as an affront but for a better opportunity to understand and help heal. Most clients will not be offended by this but thankful the counselor is listening and trying to understand. This can open to further and deeper exploration of the topic. Of course, it is also good to use appropriate questions to better understand. The questions must be natural however and not in the probing nature that looks to pick. This can make a client feel as if he or she is being interrogated.
Within empathetic counseling, it is important as the counselor to avoid making assessment statements or make the client feel as if he or she is being assessed. In addition, the counselor should not have a surprise hidden agenda that the counselor hopes to reveal and have the client realize. This leads to an unnatural direction that is void of truly listening and feeling. Counselors should also avoid doing most of the speaking and talking in these types of sessions, as well as avoid “me too” or “must feel” statements that can assume or take away from the client’s expression of feelings (Cochran, 2021, p. 82).
Counselors hence need to be able to employ empathy in multiple ways. Compton lists numerous ways, counselors can better express empathy and utilize it in counseling. He suggests becoming attuned with the client. Through attunement the counselor resonates the feelings of the victim/survivor (2024, p. 181). In addition Compton emphasizes the importance of co-regulation where the counselor is better able to help the client manage emotions. This is accomplished through mirroring and reflecting back, modeling after the client’s tone and motions and checking in on the level of distress a victim/survivor is feeling (2024, p. 182). The counselor enters into a posture of curiosity that portrays a genuine desire to understand the client (Compton, 2024, p. 183). In helping with emotions, counselors can also via prizing help highlight strengths of clients and adopt a perspective that looks how those strengths helped them survive and continue to survive.
Counselors also need to practice humility with empathy. Humility realizes that not all the right answers or skills are found within oneself but to look to the client as well as other professionals to find the needed solutions. This leads to not becoming over defensive if one is wrong with assumption, as well as being humble before a person’s experience as well as a person’s cultural identity (Compton, 2024. p. 183-184). Through this humility, the counselor looks to empower the victim/survivor to take an active role in healing and working with the counselor to find it.
Counselors in empathy must also display patience. The healing process is not linear or fast. It takes time to help someone find healing. When in empathy, feelings are not rushed but felt as they truly are and experienced until resolution and healing is found. During this process, empathy shares in the small victories and joys of self actualization, self worth and healing as the person transforms (Compton, 2024. p. 185).
Of course in all empathy, one finds that all important circle of trust. Within that trust comes a no-judgement zone and unconditional positive regard. However, trust is earned. Individuals suffering from abuse and trauma may not trust at first and be wary of words and especially physical touch. Through time and patience, confidentiality will be restored but again, empathy demands to feel what the moment dictates and the state of being currently within the client (Compton, 2024, p. 187).
Conclusion
Empathy is critical to helping people change because it is not authoritarian or dogmatic. Counseling is a healing modality and through empathy, one heals but also is guided through an empathetic ear with unconditional positive regard and genuineness that permits the person to see him/herself and come to conclusions that are healthy and good for his/her feeling. Counselors must be willing to let go of control, face hard feelings, eliminate personal judgement and bias, and allow the person to learn about oneself as the sessions continue. This does not mean the counselor can disagree internally, or not confront negative thoughts and emotions in an empathetic way, but it does does mean it gives the client a driver seat in pushing forward in self discovery, healing and a future way of living. Counselors need to facilitate the environment for this by displaying certain skills of empathy, unconditional positive regard and genuineness as espoused by Carl Rogers to achieve these results. Ultimately empathy in every venue of care is essential. It not just a counseling issue but also in all venues of healthcare itself.
Please also review AIHCP’s Healthcare Certifications, especially in Crisis Intervention, Grief Counseling, Christian and Spiritual Counseling and Trauma Informed Care programs.
Additional Blogs
Counseling When Trauma Emerges- Click here
Rogerian Counseling- Click here
Resource
Cochran, J & Cochran, N. (2021). “The Heart of Counseling: Practical Counseling Skills Through Therapeutic Relationships” 3rd Ed. Routledge
Compton, L & Patterson, T (2024). “Skills for Safeguarding: A Guide to Preventing Abuse and Fostering Healing in the Church” Intervarsity Press.
Additional Resources
The Role of Empathy in Effective Counselling. (2024). Mental Mastery. Access here
“Accurate Empathic Understanding: A Core Component of Client-Centered Counseling” (2024). Psychology Town. Access here
Sutton, J. (2021). “Unconditional Positive Regard: 17 Worksheets & Activities”. Positive Psychology. Access here
Cherry, K. (2024). “Unconditional Positive Regard in Psychology”. Very Well Mind. Access here