True Empathy
What it means and why it is important
We know what common empathy is—identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives. Empathy is a powerful way to connect with another person. To hear someone empathically is to understand them at a deep level and, as a result, both people feel better.
Well, sometimes they do. Look at this example.
Imagine John said, "I handed in this great proposal for growing the business, but my boss didn’t want to hear about it. He said it was ‘far fetched.’"
As an empathic listener you might respond, "Sounds like you’re frustrated because your boss rejected your idea." And John would probably agree. Unfortunately John is thinking of himself as a victim and his relationship with his boss has not been enhanced.
You made an empathic response, but it supported John’s negative judgment of his boss, encouraging John to see his boss’s behavior as the cause of his frustration. You have reinforced his feelings of rejection and bitterness.This is inaccurate and unhelpful. Let’s take a closer look.
John blamed his boss for causing his frustration. But his boss’s behavior was not the cause of his frustration. John’s thinking was the cause of his frustration. Our thinking causes our feelings, not other people’s actions. We can see this by altering the example.
Imagine the "great idea for growing the business" originated with Frank, who asked John to hand the proposal to the boss. John's boss received the proposal with the same negative reaction. But this time John was thinking that its acceptance would mean a lot of extra work for him, without any positive return. So, when his boss rejected it, John felt relieved rather than frustrated.
The boss’s behavior was exactly same, but John had a different feeling reaction this time. So it wasn’t the behavior that caused John’s feeling. It was how John thought about it; whether he interpreted the behavior as good or bad.
How John thinks about something is up to John. He may, however, not be aware that he has this choice. It is important to understand how our judgments of good or bad are made.
Social psychologists have recently proven that, in the first instant of perception, our unconscious mind judges everything we encounter as good or bad. We are consciously unaware that the judgment has been made and it may very well be mistaken.
The judgment, however, cues our eyes and ears to seek data that confirm the judgment. If our unconscious mind happens to judge someone as "bad," our senses will select only data that supports badness, so we won’t even see another side to it. In this way our negative judgments lead us into unnecessary conflict with others and damage our relationships.
Knowing that this unconscious judging process occurs, that we are easily and unwittingly mistaken about other people, we can learn to override our mistaken negative judgments. To do so we consciously choose to listen for the positive. Conscious thought overrides the unconscious.
True empathy involves listening for the other person’s positive intention or "hope." Hopes are the universal positive qualities and values that motivate our behavior. For example, we hope to connect with others and be understood by them. We also hope to have the freedom of our own thoughts and feelings.
An amazing thing happens when we help another person get in touch with their motivating hope—they become conscious. The nature of their thinking shifts away from blaming people and events. Instead their thinking becomes positive. They think about the good things they want and begin to think about how to bring them about.
Let’s see how true empathy would work if we used it with the John who enthusiastically submitted his own proposal. When he said, "I handed in this great proposal for growing the business, but my boss didn’t want to hear about it. He said it was ‘far fetched,’" you might reply,
"Are you frustrated because you want your idea to be heard and appreciated?"
John’s mental energy is no longer focused on blaming the boss. Rather it is searching to see if having his idea heard and appreciated is what he is hoping for. In the process he discovers what he really wants, and his mind begins to automatically come up with ways to bring it about. John can be heard and appreciated by people other than the boss. Or perhaps there is another way to present it to his boss. Resources now begin to appear for John to help him get his hope met that he hadn't thought of before. He is no longer focused on seeing his boss as the bad guy.
True empathy involves seeking a person’s positive hope rather than supporting their negative judgment. When we ask them to clarify what they are hoping for, they switch their thinking away from blaming and toward discovering their positive intention. This is a powerful shift.
Where common empathy frequently supports negativity and blame, true empathy supports positive possibility. It makes a world of difference.
©
Andrew LeCompte 2000
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Definition of empathy, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
To read an article on the unconscious mind and the process of conscious override "A Better Way to Communicate."
To learn about Andrew LeCompte's new book Creating Harmonious Relationships: A Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy