What is empathetic listening?
Empathetic listening is hard to do. Here are some tips
Seek to understand, before being understood
Empathetic listening is an essential skill that involves fully understanding and connecting with someone’s feelings and perspective without judgment or the urge to offer solutions. It’s a deeper form of listening that requires putting aside one’s own thoughts and opinions to truly hear and empathize with another person. This kind of listening is particularly important when someone needs to feel heard and understood, rather than seeking immediate solutions.
Let’s understand what’s not empathetic listening
The concept of empathetic listening can be contrasted with other forms of listening that may seem helpful but don’t embody empathy. These include giving unsolicited advice, explaining one’s own situation in response, correcting the speaker, consoling, sympathizing, interrogating, evaluating, and trying to one-up the speaker’s experiences.
- Giving Advice like “I think you should …”
- Explaining your situation “But I didn’t mean to …”
- Correcting the person “Wait! I never said that!”
- Consoling the person “You did the best you could …”
- Telling a story “That reminds me of the time …”
- Shutting down feelings “Cheer up. Don’t be so mad.”
- Sympathizing “Oh you poor thing …”
- Interrogating “How come you did that?”
- Evaluating “You’re just too unrealistic.”
- One-Upping “That’s nothing. Listen to this!”
While these responses can be valid in some contexts, they do not foster empathetic listening.
What’s the need or purpose of empathetic listening?
The need for empathetic listening arises from the human desire to be understood and validated in our feelings and experiences. This poem (source unknown) beautifully encapsulates this by expressing the frustration when someone offers advice or solutions instead of simply listening and understanding.
When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me ‘why’ I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen; Not talk, nor do — just hear me.
And I can do for myself — I’m not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me, that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you and can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
When that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice. Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.
Perhaps that’s why prayer works sometimes for some people; because God is mute, and doesn’t give advice to try to ‘fix’ things. He/She just listens, and lets you work it out for yourself.
So please listen, and just hear me, and if you want to talk, Wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.
Anon
It highlights that sometimes, all that is needed is an empathetic ear rather than action or advice.When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice, You have not done what I asked.
Empathetic listening is hard to do
Empathetic listening is hard to do. It means getting over ourselves, our needs, our opinions, and essentially our attachment to ‘I’. Here are some tips that have helped me:
- Creating a Safe Space: Create a safe space for the person/s who needs to talk
- Paying Attention to Non-Verbal Cues: Use attentive posture, comfortable eye contact, and gestures, expressions, and intensity that match the speaker’s
- Asking Open-Ended, Empathic Questions: Use thoughtful, open-ended, empathic questions to invite deeper thought and consideration: “What were you feeling when that happened?”
- Reminding Yourself to Listen Respectfully: Remind yourself that respectful empathetic listening is a gift you may give, and it does not mean “I agree with you”
- Reflective Summarizing: When the speaker pauses, you can briefly summarise what you heard in your own words, without solutions (this is the hardest part). When you need to say something: introject, don’t interrupt
Imagine a butter knife inserted into a stream of water
Peter Gerlach gives a great analogy to keep in mind and course correct while empathetically listening: Imagine a butter knife inserted into a stream of water.
If you need to introject, for example, summarize or clarify something the speaker said, use words and body language that keeps the blade parallel to the flow (empathy) such that inserting it doesn’t disturb the flow (your partner’s focus and thought stream).
If you are framing a response when the other is speaking, you are not listening
Refrain from inserting your needs, opinions, or thoughts, or simply put interrupting. This is like turning the knife-blade sideways in the water flow. Doing this signals that your awareness bubble is excluding the speaker and breaks effective communication.
Empathetic listening is a skill that demands patience, openness, and the ability to truly connect with another person’s experiences. It’s a powerful tool in building stronger, more understanding relationships and fostering effective communication.
