The place of empathy in my counselling and therapy process is key. Why? And what even is empathy?

Well, firstly, I’m sorry to say that what empathy isn’t is sympathy.

If I’m just being sympathetic, I can simply give a learned socially acceptable response to someone else’s story or experience. For example, a sympathetic response to, “I’m really anxious today”, might sound like, “that’s awful”. This response shows I’ve heard the other person, great, and it might also make me feel good to have at least said something that seems supportive. Yes, sympathy can help a relationship to build. But sympathy doesn’t in any way really suggest I’ve experienced or understood what the other person is going through. So, for sympathy, think ‘social nicety’, not real understanding.

Sympathy can often be emotional, yes, but we are likely experiencing a different emotion to the original sufferer, e.g. I might feel pity that you feel anxious. Showing sympathy can often be a way of making ourselves feel better and more comfortable when someone else is suffering! That’s OK. It’s how the world works day-to-day. Have you ever noticed this?

Some clients might experience the exact opposite. Maybe you’ve been dismissed by a friend or colleague as ‘soft’ for struggling with anxiety? Or you’ve even been the one tell someone to “relax, it’s nothing to worry about”. 

But let’s assume we’re wanting to help… By adding compassion to sympathy, it might mean we start to experience the same suffering emotions as the sufferer. Now, I can feel the same sadness as you, in response to what’s happened in your sad story. And being compassionate means I might even try to do something to help. Now we’re starting to share the experience of being you. But we haven’t thought about it too much, yet.

Where empathy comes in is with some thinking about what the other person is feeling. Cognitive empathy would mean I have figured out that you having a cold might mean you’re feeling tired, irritable, frustrated, bored etc., and then adapt. It’s largely a learnt process which we pick up from an early age, “A + B = C”. We can make ourselves look very safe to another person by figuring out what it might feel like to be them and then behave and relate to that supposed feeling. But, you can perhaps see that this is still a bit of a construct. I’m still not really getting or feeling the other person’s experience.

A friend or colleague might show great cognitive empathy, and it might help you feel accepted. But it would not be the depth of understanding that should happen in a truly therapeutic relationship. But at least they’ve heard you, thought about it, if not understood you.

Conversely, some people may even use this learned cognitive empathy, dripped with sympathy, to both win you over, understand your patterns, and manipulate you into feeling grateful that they’ve seemingly understood you. These sorts of games go on all the time. Again, have you noticed you doing this yourself? Or noticed someone has done this with you? It doesn’t even have to be conscious.

To really get the other person’s experience, and make sense of it with them, I’m going to need some elements of sympathy, compassion and cognitive empathy, and it will hopefully become deep emotional empathy. When I have emotional empathy,  I can not only feel the same emotional response as you to your situation, but I also understand how you got to feeling that emotion, how it feels to have that emotion and I can sit alongside with you in that emotion. I can feel and understand what it’s like to “walk in your shoes”, to use an analogy. It’s almost impossible to do this ‘down the pub’. But when we have a dedicated hour together to work through this then we can start to make sense of what you’re experiencing, together, and then we can unpack it in trust and find a way forward. One step at a time.

I have to get out of my own way here as well, i.e. I can’t have my own judgments and experiences clouding how it is to be you. This is why counsellors and therapists need to have done their own therapy, and regularly revisit anything that gets in the way with their own therapist and/or supervisor. In 99% of situations, your counsellor or therapist won’t say, “oh yes, that happened to me” (sympathy), they’ll maybe say, “tell me more about how it felt”, “when you say anxious, where do you feel that in your body now?”, or “it sounds like you’re saying…?”. We’re trying to deeply understand how it is to be you. That can then really help you see your own way forward, objectively.

Your counsellor and therapist could use emotional empathy. If I am doing this it might feel like a clear and kind mirror is being shone on your experience. Without the decades of history and stories you come with, I might be able to experience and understand your own experienced emotions. And maybe no-one has ever done that with you before? Maybe it feels validating to be witnessed? This is all confidential, and between you and your counsellor or therapist.

So, maybe next time someone tells you how they’re feeling, get curious. Ask, don’t tell. Or if a friend just sympathises, perhaps they’re just doing their best?

And if there’s something you want to share and figure out, maybe speak with a professional qualified counsellor or therapist.

If you’d like to learn more about empathy and how it can work in therapy and counselling, try reading Empathy, Why it Matters and How to Get It (Roman Krznaric) and pages 53-57 of On Becoming a Person (Carl R. Rogers).

Angus