Hello again, 2 posts in one day — wow!
We had an interesting EQ workshop today where we discussed about empathy. It all sounded rather familiar and it sort of took me back to my psychology undergraduate and postgraduate days. The counselling course that I took which was quite intensive was also relevant for today’s context. I think the underlying message for the workshop was, be kind, be unassuming, empathise with what other people are feeling and if you are in a position to help them, be a good listener without imposing your opinion of their circumstances onto them. Ask questions. As a listener, you are reflecting what they’ve told you back to them, and you’d be amazed what that person could learn hearing their own words from another, sometimes coming to a realisation that they didn’t mean what they say.
It can come across as annoying, frustrating and sometimes condescending if the listener is fixed on the idea that their interpreting of your circumstances, or unsolicited advice is helpful — when it is not. If the person sensed any hint of judgement in the listener’s tone or response, how can they feel safe enough to have a genuine conversation with them? Suddenly it reminded me of something that quite irritated me. When someone explains to me why they think I’m feeling one way and this is why I’m doing this and so on, and there’s quite a rational reason such as this — well, that is in no way helpful and actually quite rude. It feels as though the person is analysing my behaviour and thoughts like I’m a science project. Then they may go on and say, oh I’m really interested in things like these so I’ve read so and so, and I know quite a lot about this subject. In my opinion, that still gives the person no right to make such statements.
Some people seem to have a misconception that psychologists or psychiatrists do that, which may be perceived as a clinical or therapeutic approach. Well, explaining someone’s behaviour for them is definitely not it (remember Freud?) and defeats the purpose of being empathetic. At that point, you are just hypothesising and stating a matter as fact that the person must feel X because of Y. I believe should a person be in a position where they require support and someone to listen to them, no one can help them but themselves. No one is ever qualified or have the authority to tell them exactly why they are feeling one way, no matter what academic or clinical background they have, or so-called life experience. In other words, no one can help you but yourself , until you are ready to.
That turned into quite a rant but I do think being a good listener is harder than one might think. One of the first counselling exercises we used to do was, speak to someone for 30 minutes without presenting any new information to the person, and you are only allowed to paraphrase the things they’ve just told you. It is incredibly challenging in fact to not go, ‘Well I think when this happens, you kind of feel this way… It’s not helpful to think like that… Have you thought about this?… I heard this would be helpful…’
We could only tell them the things that they’ve just told us, paraphrase it, and ask them if that is what they mean. That is counselling in a nutshell. But what does that mean in the real life when you’re just interacting with your friends, family and acquaintances? I guess it depends on how supportive you want to be, and it’s perfectly fine to step back and say, I’m not in the position to help or support this person. In which case, we can simply just be aware that the things we say to this person from then on can either have a positive effect, or bring more harm if we’re not careful.
I am glad to have listened to various views on the subject though and anything that makes people think about it more is always on the right side of being kind to each other.
