The Importance of Empathy

The Importance of Empathy 

Caption: Make Empathy Great Again

URL: http://i65.tinypic.com/124alcn.jpg

My first reading journal focused on the importance of listening. In this reading journal, I want to focus on a key ingredient of listening. That ingredient is empathy. Not only have we been reading about the importance of empathy, and ways to communicate empathy (such as reflecting feelings), but additionally there is much research about the importance of empathy in the counseling relationship.

Empathy is frequently associated with Carl Rogers and person-centered therapy, but all counselors should employ empathy and strive to create an empathic relationship with their clients (Clark, 2010).  According to Kwon and Jo (2012), counselor empathy can even counterbalance a lack of experience. If a counselor is new to counseling, empathy can overcome the challenges of inexperience and is correlated with positive outcomes of the counseling relationship (Kwon & Jo, 2012). So not only is empathy important for counseling as a whole, but it can even make up for new counselor’s lack of experience. This fact struck me, specifically because as an emerging counselor to-be, I know that I will have virtually no experience when I enter the field. While there is no way to get experience except to do the work, it was encouraging to find out that there are skills I can focus on that will help those early years of learning.

Empathy is being able to see or feel from someone else's perspective, even if you disagree with them. It's especially important today, because oftentimes culturally speaking, we would rather refute people than understand them.  Empathy allows us to step away from ourselves and see through the eyes of another. It opens up lines of communication. Empathy is crucial if we are going to be counselors that listen well to their clients.

References

Clark, A. J. (2010). Empathy: An integral model in the counseling process. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD, 88(3), 348-356.

Kwon, K. I., & Jo, S. Y. (2012). The relationship among counselor experience level, empathic accuracy, and counseling outcome in the early phase of counseling. Asia Pacific Education Review, 13(4), 771-777.