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Counselling Skills
3. Empathetic understanding
Empathy is the ability to try to understand what the client is feeling. This refers to the
counsellor’s ability to understand sensitively and accurately – but not sympathetically
– the client’s experience and feelings in the here and now.
Empathetic understanding is shown by the way that the counsellor attends to the
client and listens and responds to them. It involves trying to see a situation through
the eyes of the client rather than their own.
In contrast, sympathy is where we feel pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.
For example, people with the experience of parenthood can sympathise with other
parents whose child dies because they are imagining how they would feel if it
happened to them. The emphasis here is on the feelings of the sympathetic parents,
not the parents who have lost the child. This is particularly important for bereavement
counsellors who must demonstrate empathy – not sympathy – where the focus is on
the parents who have suffered the loss.
R Further Research: Empathetic understanding
Use the link below to find out more about empathetic
understanding. Make notes in the space below.
www.improveyoursocialskills.com/empathy
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