Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding

by William R. Miller

Empathic understanding is not merely something that you have, but something that you do and experience.

empathy is innate, but accurate empathy is not.

Empathy (literally feeling in) is not the same as sympathy—feeling for or pitying someone.

empathy is not the same thing as identifying with a person. It does not require having had similar experience

If anything, identifying with someone because of similarity with you can interfere with accurate empathy: what they are expressing lies too close to home for you to understand how it may differ from your own experience.

empathic understanding over time becomes part of who you are.

It is like the difference between practicing an instrument and being a musician.

Once learned, accurate empathy really is a precious gift that you can give to others.

I believe that practicing accurate empathy over time also changes the listener. With ability in empathic understanding can come greater acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, and humility.

They are twelve ways in which people often respond instead of listening well,

the barriers to listening

So What’s the Problem with Roadblocks?

Phew! Agreeing; Probing; Reassuring; Analysing are NOT empathic responses!!