Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Research paper on empathy
Empathy in the patient-therapist relationship
Outline the nature of emotions
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Research paper on empathy
Empathy has a major role to play between a therapist and the patient. It helps the therapist/counselor to strengthen his relationship with the patient and help him with his current scenario.
Empathy has been derived from Einfuhlung, and was discussed in the works of Aesthetics by Robert Vischer (1873). Later Theodor Lipps used this concept to explain how people come to know their mental state. For him Einfuhlung meant ‘feeling into’ referred to the process of inner resonance and inner imitation1. Edward Titchener introduced the term Empathy in 1909. By this time Empathy had become an important part of Psychology, Aesthetics, Philosophy. Initially Empathy was connected with understanding.
According to Carl Rogers, an American Psychologist, empathy refers to the process in which therapist senses the feelings of the patient which he is experiencing and communicates the acceptance of the same to the patient. For him it was really powerful to listen to a person to empathize. Carl Rogers was one of the primary people who understood the importance
…show more content…
Delicacy is required as it is sensitive for the patient. If a patient for example is going through a divorce, the therapist cannot directly ask the patient to give him a divorce and live separately, he has to frame things in a manner that the patient can handle the situation by consoling her, pleasing her, listening to what he or she says. Therapist should be careful, shouldn’t disclose this about which the patient is unaware. Higher degree of empathy is important factor so as to bring in change and learning. Therapist has a major role to play as he actively manipulates situations for the benefit of the situation. The therapist should be a confident companion who is available for the
In “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy” by Paul Bloom, Paul want’s his readers to understand that empathy is not very helpful unless it is fused with values and reason.
Empathy is used to create change in the world by reaching out to the emotions of people and attending to them. It is used to help others learn and decide on matters that would not be reasonable without feelings attached to them. Empathy helps bring together communities that would have long ago drifted apart, but instead welcomed all who were different. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This attribute of human-beings really allows us to not only attend to situations as if they were our own, but it allows us to feel most of what others feel because humans are very much alike in some ways. In many of the articles and novels that we have read this quarter, characters from different pieces of context have portrayed empathy whether it was toward
Burton defines empathy as the ability to not only recognize but also to share another person’s or a fictional character’s or a sentient beings’ emotions. It involves seeing a person’s situation from his or her own perspective and then sharing his or her emotions and distress (1). Chismar posits that to empathize is basically to respond to another person’ perceived state of emotion by experiencing similar feelings. Empathy, therefore, implies sharing another person’s feeling without necessary showing any affection or desire to help. For one to empathize, he or she must at least care for, be interested in or concerned about
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
Empathy, is a self-conscious characteristic human beings hold that allows them to understand another individual’s situation and feelings (Segal, Cimino, Gerdes &Wagaman, 2013). In regard to ho...
Empathy is the term used for emotional understanding. Empathy is a special skill that many characters in To Kill a Mockingbird possess or develop throughout the course of the story. Harper Lee shows the importance of empathy throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Atticus being empathetic, Atticus teaching the kids to empathize or them empathizing themselves in certain situations. Empathy is truly the great gift of humanity.
... be shown that we care about him and want to provide stability in his life. It’s importance for a therapist to share things about themselves and give their honest opinion in order to make the patient comfortable and trusting of them. (Comer, 2011, p. 43)
To be able to understand how empathy works between a certain group of people, it is necessary to know what empathy means. I found an interesting definition of empathy, as a crucial component of the helping relationship, a need to understand people ' distress, and to provide supportive interpersonal communication. Empathy is the ability to recognize the emotions of others. Empathy does not mean that we live other people’ emotions, but it means that we understand other people ' emotions from our experiences. Empathy does not mean to cancel your personality, but to understand how people perceive the reality. It is the ability to read information coming through nonverbal channels. In this
Research has shown that a strong therapeutic alliance is necessary for establishing a beneficial contact between the therapist and the client. If the therapist does not encourage the creation of a reliable therapeutic alliance from the beginning of the treatment, it will be hard to develop a constructive relationship with the client later. Establishing the therapeutic alliance will increase the chances of achieving the goal of the treatment because the clients will be willing to cooperate if they trust and respect the therapist. Clients are not likely to cooperate with therapists who impose their authority aggressively. Instead of imposing their authority on the patient, therapists should develop work with their patients by building a mutual relationship based on trust, understanding, and respect for the client.
... properly interact and communicate well with their clients, they need to be emotionally intelligent, self aware, create a therapeutic relationship and develop reflective practices. All of the above contributes to an individual’s health and so it’s very important that we are able to control our emotions, correct and learn from our mistakes, examine and balance our life and create a therapeutic environment so that our clients feel comfortable, safe and trust us enough to live their life in our hands.
Another noteworthy feature of this approach is the chance to empathize. In most forms of therapy, empathy is not used: why would you want to add more conflict to an already difficult situation? Well, as counterintuitive as it may seem, it does have standing. By definition empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of another person. In this context empathy serves as an indirect way for readers to relive and recall their own experiences.
Being a therapist is not only sitting in a chair listening to your clients’ problems all day. It is also not “reading-minds” as many people think and it is not giving advice or solving each clients’ issue. Therapists have many qualities that define the effectiveness of their treatment and their competence in the field. The important qualities that a therapist should have are empathic and great listening skills. In addition to, the therapist must be knowledge in their skills and in the different mental disorders in order to prevent a misdiagnosis. Furthermore, the therapist should have other qualities such as interpersonal skills and the ability to build rapport with the clients so they can feel secure and continue to come to therapy.
Empathy has a biological base, as how we feel empathy comes from a person’s brain. Rizzolatti (2004) studied mirror neurons in order to find out how empathy works. These mirror neurons have been discovered in the premotor cortex of monkeys that show when individuals act out a given motor act and when they are observing someone else who is also doing the same motor act. Further evidence shows the existence of these neurons in humans. The human mirror neuron system involves understanding other people’s action and the reason behind them, which is essentially what empathy is about. (Cattaneo & Rizzolatti, 2009).
Before reading these chapters, and listening to the lectures I had thought empathy was the same thing as sympathy. This brought me back to my first counselling session. It was about ten years ago, and I was telling the counsellor all about my problems at the time. When I looked over to see what she had to say, she was bawling her eyes out beside me. I had always assumed that is what empathy looked like, because I never understood the difference between the two, until now.
He condensed the psychological conditions needed down to six conditions and proceeds to explain each of them in more detail. Along with the detailed description, Roger also includes clinical examples for emphasis. The conditions the Rogers describe align with the humanistic approach in that Rogers determines that empathy and positive regard by the therapist towards the clients is necessary for the psychotherapy to be effective. The therapy described by Rogers is relevant today, nine years after the article was written. Clients more than ever today want to know that their therapist understands and has compassion for them and their condition.