Reflection Paper On Empathy

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The skill that I am the best at or at least would give myself the highest score in would be showing empathy. I am not sure why I am skilled in this it just seems to come naturally to me. I have always found myself to be a very empathetic person who is able to understand the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and, attitudes of others almost as well as my own. One way that I have shown empathy is by being open to learning about the experiences of others including other cultures, races and religions. Learning about struggles of others and the impact their struggles have on the world as a whole has increased my ability to show empathy. I think that my empathetic nature has both helped me and hurt me in my life. It has helped me as a counselor, as …show more content…

It took me a long time to fully understand how to do this. I had to learn that respect goes beyond the basic definition and into really learning and understanding about another culture. I have shared before about my experiences working in the Job Corps program and this is where I really had to become skilled in showing respect. I realized that part of respect to the individuals I was working with involved really taking the time to learn about their different cultures and how this has shaped their worldview, and what role their culture played in their development as an individual. This was where I first really learned about the effects of stereotypes, prejudice and racism on individuals over time. I learned that the best way to show respect to an invidual was to allow them to talk about their culture and their experiences, and to take in what they were saying and understand what had value to them. I learned that even if you might know something about a culture you do not always know the specific influence that culture had on the individual you are working with and the most respectful thing you could do is to allow them share with you. This was huge learning curve for me and I definitely struggled and made mistakes on the path to getting where I am. I will be honest and say at times I made assumptions, fell victim to stereotypes and, even made judgements, but over time I have learned and gown and can …show more content…

I have really good attention to detail and I think this coupled with my sense of empathy helps me to actively listen and observe carefully. I am able to read the cues a person may be giving out verbally, through body language, tone, and facial expressions to develop a sense of what is going on with the person as a whole. I am also comfortable addressing when say the tone and expression don’t match the words that are being spoken. I have always found myself to be skillful in this with adults and adolescents and now in my work with children I am finding it even more important. I am finding those little clues in actions are so important to understanding what is going on with that child. While I feel that in some ways I am still developing this skill now with a different population, I can say that I feel it is really an area I am competent in and the skills I had previously are helping me learn new skills

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