The second basic counseling skill is “Empathy”. Empathy is often confused with the word “Sympathy” which pertains to sharing the feelings of others or to be affected by the nature of the problem. Unlike Empathy, Sympathy is felt on a deeper level. Once again, this information is basic and can be used or applied as you see fit. You can also improve your communications with everyone you meet by learning these skills.
Empathy: Intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another person. (Webster’s) In other words, the helper gets into a person’s world and looks from inside out rather than outside in. When you empathize with someone, you walk along side him or her instead of pushing or pulling them regardless of your own feelings. Empathy means understanding another person so well that you identify or feel like him or her. The Indians expressed it as: “Walking a mile in another person’s moccasins.” It is listening so intently and identifying so closely that you experience the other person’s situation, thoughts and emotions. Good therapists do this, so do good friends (Berger, 1987).
A good listener must respond, letting the talker know he/she was understood. This responding is empathy. It is even more complex than listening; no one is perfect. You don’t have to be perfect, but the more accurate an empathizer you can become, the better. Often, when we are upset, we want to express and share our feelings with an understanding person. So, the good empathizer focuses on the talker’s feelings, not on his/her actions or circumstances.
Let’s look at some of the purposes of empathy and why it is so important yet difficult to master.
1. It shows you care and that you understood the other person. Thus, people will enjoy talking to you and willopen up more. Imagine what this will do in your personal relationships!
2. If you have misunderstood, the talker can immediately correct your impressions. You learn more about people and what is holding them back from telling them the whole story.
3. It usually directs the conversation towards important emotional topics. It opens the gate!
4. It lets the talker know that you (the listener) accept him/her and will welcome more intimate conversation.
5. It invites him/her to tell his/her story and vent his/her feelings. This is the essence of reminiscing.
6. Since it is safe to talk about “deep” subjects, the talker can express feelings and self-explore, carefully considering all his/her deep-seated emotions, the reasons for those feelings and his/her options. Thus, it is therapeutic. You are beginning to get it!
7. It reduces our irritation with others because we understand. To understand is to forgive.
8. It may even reduce our prejudice or negative assumptions about others because we realize we now have ameans of finding out what another person is really like. Furthermore, we discover everyone is understandable. Do not assume you now have the power.
9. It fosters more meaningful, more helpful, closer friendships. People can actually trust you.
Empathy is one of the more important skills you will ever acquire especially when you are listening to someone with Dementia. It is amazing how few people do it well. If you can teach your children this, you will raise incredible people!
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1. Attending: to be present and ready to serve. (Webster’s)
Examples of good attending: Sharing a meal together, Prayer, Listening to anything they have to say. Non-Attending communicates disinterest, disrespect, abandonment, rejection, and arrogance. Communication is 55% facial, 38% verbal, and 7% non-verbal. Too often, we find ourselves wanting to jump right in and solve the problem. The moment you speak, you change that person’s agenda. Good attending communicates respect, availability, and reinforcement. The consequences of this are contentment, fulfillment, healing, togetherness and a collection of needed information to find, explore, and understand the problem. A note: If the person has dementia, good attending will often require you to listen to the same story over and over again. It is critical that you listen each and every time as though you have heard it for the first time. Things can become compounded when the person has poor hearing that cannot be remedied with a hearing device. Or what do we do when the person cannot see us?
Good attending is inherently designed to move the person from where they are to where they want to go. You can best accomplish this by being relaxed, have an open posture that conveys your intent, leaning slightly forward especially if they are hard of hearing, have consistent eye contact, and sit squarely. Something that’s very difficult for people to do is to allow for pauses no matter how long. Allow for strong feeling’s including tears, even if they are your own. Touch is critical to all of us. Our world of political correctness is killing us. If you are afraid of giving someone a hug or holding someones hand, ask for their permission. Think about the infant babies who die from the lack of touch.
So many people have such a difficult time just being with someone even though nothing is being said. Some of the best times I have had with friends and family are times when very few words were spoken. Just being present conveys to the other person that you desire to be with them because they mean something to you.
These are the 12 most common blocks to good listening: Comparing, Mind Reading, Rehearsing, Filtering, Judging, Dreaming, Identifying, Advising, Sparring, Being right at any cost, Derailing, and Placating. Avoid these pitfalls and you will be on your way.
Next time we will learn what the second skill is to socializing. It might be easier though to ask your grandparents.
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The world is no longer as it should be. People use to sit on the front porch and visit one another 1 on 1 or as a group. Where I grew up in the Midwest, people rarely left their house unlocked. You could walk in with out knocking and even help yourself to the fridge if you were hungry!
I am saddened by the number of people who have no one to visit with on a frequent basis. Even worse is the fact that some people enter into care facilities because they are lonely, especially in rural communities. The article that follows was published in 1998. How many people could have lived longer since then if they had been visited more often? Studies are now showing that socializing with others may help to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease or other types of Dementia. We already know that socializing helps to slow the progression down for those that already have it.
Many of the families I work with say that they have lost all of their friends since being diagnosed with Dementia. I believe the reason for this is out of fear. Fear of hurting their own ego or fear of hurting the other persons ego because they may just make some mistakes. Well stay tuned because help is on the way! In my next blog, I will begin to lay out for you some simple concepts of socializing. Interestingly enough, these were the same concepts we were taught in one of my first graduate level classes. How did we get so far from where we were?
One final thought for now. Did you realize that by allowing someone else to help you, you are giving them a gift!
Loneliness Health Hazard for Elderly
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Loneliness can raise the risk of nursing home admission for the elderly, according to a new study.
“Extreme loneliness was a significant predictor of admission to a nursing home among rural older men and women,” conclude researchers at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City.
Their study, appearing in the current issue of the journal Psychology and Aging, focused on the four-year histories of over 3,000 rural, elderly Iowans averaging 74 years of age at the beginning of the study (1981). The researchers used standard psychological questionnaires to assess levels of loneliness, depression, and social interaction in each of the participants.
Study subjects were then re-assessed once a year over the next four years.
They discovered that “individuals who were the most lonely… at the time of the (original) interviews were more likely to be admitted to a nursing home over the subsequent four-year period,” compared with their less-troubled peers. This effect remained even after the researchers adjusted for the incidence of other known predictors of nursing home care, including age, income, depression, mental and/or physical health status, or extent of social contacts.
The study authors speculate that loneliness might hasten nursing home admission in a variety of ways.
They point to research that suggests that “loneliness may hasten the deterioration of an individual’s health status through its (negative) impact on the immune system.” The Iowa team say chronic loneliness may also help trigger depression, “demoralization and (the) associated effects of neglect of self-care.”
Alternatively, they speculate that nursing homes may offer hope to some of the lonely elderly. Especially in rural areas (where nursing home residents and staff may already be familiar to newcomers), “those who are extremely lonely may enter a nursing home to seek companionship with others,” according to the study authors.
Study senior author Dr. Robert Wallace of the University of Iowa says “interventions to prevent loneliness should be explored in order to keep older people independent.”
He and his colleagues believe that many of elderly living in rural areas need better access to transportation so that they can more easily stay in contact with relatives and friends.
Community groups need to be encouraged as a means of bringing still-independent individuals together. Regular involvement in group activities seems to help ward off a dependence on nursing home care. For example, the investigators discovered that elderly churchgoers experienced much lower rates of nursing home admissions compared with those who did not regularly attend services.
SOURCE: Psychology and Aging (1998;12(4):574-589)
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