GEORGE C.

BAYWONG III EDCO 101

09-62076

Reflection on the Role of Empathy in Counseling

Counseling a friend proved to be more complicated than it previously seemed. Reconsidering

my position from a rather directive stance to one that neither imposes one’s opinions is one that I had
not taken into experience for quite a while. Seeing that my experiences served me well in the past, I felt
the responsibility to pass on what I have learned. Counseling using empathy introduced me to the
pragmatic art of listening. Truly, every individual differ in inexplicable odds and before forming
conclusions, we must know the whole story. One cannot really impose the light of his own experience to
others because tendency is, she/he might react violently or come to eventually realize that it isn’t
applicable. Still the most efficient way for a person to develop and grow is to realize his/her own
mishaps and weaknesses in order to individually deal with them accordingly to their own liking.

I guess what you should begin to consider when counseling is the situation. Considering that my
subject was a friend of mine, I knew her quite well. And because of the method of empathy, I came to
know her better. This was a friend who just recently poured her heart out just last week. Apparently, she
is experiencing some conflicts with her family. Since joining a particular organization in UP, she has been
under strict surveillance. Her father, being the major personality in her life, was sceptical with the idea-
blaming her observed complications in her academic performances as associated to joining the
organization. On the other hand, she endures rejection from her nine cousins (both abroad and in the
Philippines) as another effect of her joining the organization. Her affectionate cousins had been
previously sending weekly allowances and gadgets to her. However, due to conflicts of interest (her
wanting to pursue a life under the organization and her cousins wanting her to quit), their relationship
had been driven to a sort that she is being ignored and neglected. She tells me that her previous actions
(refusing to quit the organization) were due to her belief that she doesn’t want to be controlled.
However, she feels that she hasn’t done anything wrong to elicit those kinds of responses.

Empathy is the counselor’s ability to sense the client’s world the way the client does and to
convey that understanding. Using the techniques and methods discussed in class, I was able to bring out
the two faces of my friend’s problem. That is, through certain empathetic listening techniques such as
those that encourages the client to continue like “go on” or some nonverbal cues like nodding of the
head were enough to make it a point to my friend that I was listening and we have all the time in the
world to talk about what she wanted to talk about. As a result, she really (surprisingly) opened up. I saw
the help of verbal encouragement like “I’m really curious about…” and “Nandito lang ko”. Seeing that I
have and earned her trust by showing interest, verbal encouragement really became helpful in learning
more about her. She even said “this is the first time I told this to anybody.”- which made me feel wanted
and greatly appreciated.

As I came to realize, empathetic listening really does require you to put aside your own values
and views that you hold in order to go into a person’s world ideally without prejudice. In the course of
the discussion, it is very amusing to note that there were some instances that she herself recalls that,
“why haven’t I thought of this before”.

There were some questions that made me wonder in the whole sharing process. That is, “how
and can I really enter “fully” the world of my friend’s personal meanings and feelings so that I can see as
she does? “ In the act of entering to my friend’s world, can I enter enter it considerately without
stepping on those meanings that are important or precious to her? And, could I capture what she means
in a way that I can also see through what seems to her as confusing and ambiguous in order to
understand the dilemma?

Though the discussion was rather “emotional” I had to stick to the importance of empathy. That
is, instead of sympathizing which just aims to alleviate my friends dilemma, I posed to understand it so
as to feed a sense of experience to the person. Since I presented myself as someone who was open,
regardless of what and how her words came out, I felt the responsibility to keep myself in tact in that I
will not be able to fully merge with the clients feelings and merge. Or else, it will come down to two
persons being emotional. How am I able to make the person understand herself if I myself am not
naturally sound in thinking? This psychological distance enabled me to objectively evaluate my friend’s
“felt experiences”. In the course of the discussion, I tried my best not to praise. I found out from the first
part of the discussion, when I praised her, it seems as though her next words were posed with a certain
level of reluctance. But still, this was a person whom I’ve known for quite a while. My praise would
probably be misinterpreted as a joke or that I was mocking her. As a result, I kept mum and just
continued by just giving verbal and nonverbal cues.

In the process of knowing a person, we should have time. In counseling, it’s not a matter of your
opinion, but the person subject to counseling. The art of listening requires patience and a show of
interest. We should always reflectively listen because each person is not always like you. Thus, some of
us don’t have similar experience. Rushing to a world of the client without knowledge of her experiences
and the meanings and feelings carried by it to it is a form of arrogance and lack of respect to the person.
Every person deserves to be understood and to be listened. Problem is, in a world of technologically
advancing cultures, we are deprived of this opportunity. Rarely do we view of the liberating effects of
sharing and listening. Since we always want our voices to be heard, we sometimes neglect the fact that
there are small voices also waiting to be heard. I realized that we should always take time to listen
others (especially when under stress). Most probably, the reason that they are not sharing is because
they see you as someone who doesn’t listen. People do appreciate people who listen, not just those
who talk, because it is in listening that we can truly learn to understand people.

Yes, it is sometimes stressing when people present problems that to you, seems to be have an
obvious answer. Still, we should know by now that people differ and so is their answer. Everyone have
their own means of coping and living their lives.