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Practicing Empathic Listening

Communication In general, clients come to work with helping professionals to be heard, to be understood, and
to understand more of themselves in the process. Research has shown that empathic listening
Exercise is a key component in the relationship between client and practitioner (Meyers, 2000). Empathy
30-60 min. can be defined as a specific, moment-by-moment response to the clients immediate experiential
field (Bohart et al., 1993, p. 20). Rogers (1975), further stressed the importance of listening:
Group being listened to by an understanding person makes it possible for [a person] to listen more
No accurately to him/herself, with greater empathy toward his/her own visceral experiencing, his/her
own vaguely felt meanings (p. 8).

Research has shown that the practitioners careful listening, attendance to and remembrance of
details, and nonjudgmental acceptance are identified by clients as contributing to the empathic
relationship that they share with their practitioners (Meyers, 2000). These aspects have been
found to contribute significantly to clients feeling cared for and safe.

Goal

The goal of this exercise is to practice three core components of empathic listening: pausing/
wait time, paraphrasing and reflecting feelings.

Advice

Empathic listening has been said not to be reducible to a technique or skill. Rather, it has been
suggested that it emerges as a relational, interactional variable unique to each encounter (Meyers,
2000). In this light, this exercise can best be perceived as a tool to familiarize individuals with
the concept of empathic listening and practice the essential skills. This tool is unlikely to replace
a genuine and intentional process. The evaluation of every part of this exercise can be done in a
larger group or in small groups, depending on the total size of the group and the time available.

At the heart of empathic listening lies the question: How does an effective practitioner
communicate that he/she is listening to and understanding the client? In order to increase
further understanding of the concept of empathic listening, it can be valuable to discuss the
following questions:

How does the client know that he/she is being heard?

What are the feelings evoked in clients when they are not heard or when feeling
misunderstood?
How does being heard promote a sense that the practitioner has empathy for the clients
experience?
How does being heard by an empathic listener foster self-understanding?

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Suggested Readings

Bohart, A., Humphrey, A., Magallanes, M., Guzman, R., Smiljanich, K., & Aguallo, S. (1993).
Emphasizing the future in empathy responses. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 33, 12-29.

Meyers, S. (2000). Empathic listening: Reports on the experience of being heard. Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, 40, 148-173.

Rogers, C. A. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications, and theory. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.

Rogers, C. R. (1975). Empathic: An unappreciated way of being. The Counseling Psychologist, 5,

2-11.

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Tool Description

Instructions

Before starting the exercise, briefly explain what empathetic listening means by mentioning the following key
ingredients:

Keeping comments and opinions to oneself

Pausing
Paraphrasing key words
Remaining focused on the speaker
Considering the speakers perspective (listening with the intention to fully understand)
Sustaining eye contact
Providing non-verbal encouragement (nodding, subvocalizing)
Identifying/reflecting feelings

Feel free to use the Listening Skills Assessment - Practice Worksheet in appendix 2 for the following practice
exercises.

Part 1: Practicing Pausing/Wait Time

Step 1: Organize participants into triads with these three roles

a. Observer: The role is to observe the dialogue between the speaker and interviewer. With detailed notes,
the observer can share constructive feedback.
b. Interviewer
c. Speaker

Step 2: Explain the procedure

1. The speaker shares a response to the prompt, Something Ive been thinking about recently....
2. The interviewer listens and after the speaker finishes sharing these initial thoughts, the interviewer pauses.
3. If the speaker remains quiet, then the interviewer paraphrases what the speaker has said.
4. The interviewer pauses again after paraphrasing.
5. If the speaker does not respond, the interviewer asks an open ended question and then pauses again.
6. The conversation continues in this way for 90 seconds.

The observer times each of the pauses and records the number of seconds of each pause. The form in appendix
1 can be used to register the pauses. Participants may then trade roles, so that each person has an opportunity to
practice pausing and to record wait time.

Step 3: Evaluate the exercise

After the practice session, prompt participants to respond to the following questions:

How was it for the interviewer/speaker/observer to do this exercise?

What is the purpose of waiting for 3-5 seconds before speaking?
What did you notice about the average time listeners waited before responding?
How did the speaker react when the listener waited?
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Part 2: Practicing Paraphrasing

Step 1: Review information about paraphrasing

Before participants practice paraphrasing, review the following information about paraphrasing with participants:
Paraphrasing means rewording of another persons thoughts and/or feelings. Paraphrasing says to the speaker:

I am listening
I am interested
I care about what you are saying
I am trying to understand what is important to you

What do I paraphrase?

The content of what was said

The emotion expressed in the speakers voice and gestures
Both the content and the emotion

What makes a good paraphrase?

It gets to the heart of what was said

It is shorter than the original words
It begins with You not I
It captures the speakers intention
It does not mimic or parrot the speakers words, but it might draw upon their essential words and imagery. It
does not insert new concepts or imagery.

What if I get it wrong?

Not to worry. The speaker will appreciate your sincere attempt to understand and will usually respond by giving you
more information or by correcting your paraphrase.

Step 2: Practice Instructions

1. Create pairs / dyads.

2. Each participant will have an opportunity to speak on the following topic for 60-90 seconds: Three things that
are really important in my life right now...
3. As the speaker shares, his/her partner listens.
4. When the speaker finishes, the partner paraphrases the content that was shared, remembering the qualities of
an effective paraphrase.
5. Reverse roles for the second practice round.

Step 3: Debrief the activity with the group

Use the following questions to discuss the activity with the group:

What strategies did you use to help paraphrase the content?

How did your partner show interest and attention as you were speaking?
What do we want to remember about paraphrasing?
What opportunities do you have coming up when you would be able to practice this skill further?
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Part 3: Reflecting Feelings

Step 1: Review information about reflecting feelings

Before participants participate in the activity, review with them the strategies for reflecting feelings. We can reflect,
or paraphrase, feelings both verbally and nonverbally. Verbal reflection means labelling or naming the feeling: You
feel upset, You are worried, Youre excited because... and by matching the speakers tone of voice and pace of
speech. Nonverbal reflection means matching the speakers gestures, posture, facial expression, breathing etc.

Step 2: Practice instructions

Organize participants in triads for three rounds of practice. Label them A, B and C.
Round A B C
Scenario 1 Speaker Paraphraser Observer
Scenario 2 Observer Speaker Paraphraser
Scenario 3 Paraphraser Observer Speaker

Hand out the following scenarios on paper form to each triad:

Scenario #1: You are very excited about your job placement. Your supervisor sets aside time to work with you
one-on-one and is very patient when you are learning something new. You can ask questions without being
embarrassed. Other workers are very friendly and invite you to join them for breaks. You are proud of the work
you are doing and feel you are learning a lot.
Scenario #2: You are feeling stressed trying to manage your work for school and a part-time job. You are
working almost every day after school and feel so tired by the time you get home. It is hard to feel motivated
to start homework or to study when its 9 or 10 oclock. However, you want to do well in your courses and are
afraid you are falling behind.
Scenario #3: You are upset with one of your friends. He has not been returning phone calls when you have left
messages. You have always tried to get together at least once a week since you both have a busy schedule.
He says he values your friendship, but the last couple of weeks, he has been too busy to spend any time with
you. When you tried to talk about it, he just brushed you off and said it was not a big deal.

Ask each participant to choose one scenario and read it. After every participant has read his/her scenario, the first
speaker takes on the role of the scenario and shares the content of the scenario in the first person, conveying the
feelings nonverbally so that the paraphraser can practice listening between the lines. The paraphrasers task is to
try to label the emotion(s) and to reflect nonverbally how the speaker is feeling. The observer records examples of
feeling language and nonverbal matches between the speaker and paraphraser. After completing this first round,
the participants switch roles.

Allocate 3 or 4 minutes for each round of role-playing. After each round, invite the observer to share his/her notes
with the paraphraser.

Step 3: Debrief the activity with the larger group

Ask the participants for feedback about what it felt like in each of the 3 roles. Invite descriptions of how paraphrasers
demonstrated nonverbal paraphrasing.

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Appendix 1: Pausing Skills Assessment - Practice Worksheet

Name:

Dates Observed:

Comments:

Pause no. Duration (in seconds)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

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Appendix 2: Listening Skills Assessment - Practice Worksheet

Name:

Dates Observed:

Comments:

Attentive Listening

Faces speaker
Leans forward
Maintains eye contact
Nods, smiles
Does not interrupt
Encourages speaker to continue speaking
Pauses
Other:

Empathic Listening

Asks relevant questions which helps the speaker clarify

Accurately identifies speakers feelings
Accurately paraphrases content of message
Reflects speakers feelings nonverbally
Pauses before/after speaking
Appears comfortable with silence
Demonstrates desire to understand

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