Empaffifc Listening

The final type of listening is empathic listening. As the term suggests, the listener tries to demonstrate empathy for the speaker. All of us like to feel that a person is being sympathetic during times of difficulty. In fact, in some cities "Dial a Friend" or "warm lines" have been established for just such a purpose. Charles Kelly contrasts critical with empathic listening in Figure 6.1.

Empathic listening can also be described as listening "between the lines." When we listen between the lines we heighten our awareness and interpersonal sensitivity to the entire message a person may be trying to communicate. Consider the following example from a managerial consulting interview:

If a person tells me ... that his desk is too small, I do not try to convince him that the size of his desk is sufficient for his purposes; I am thinking of the social setting in which desks appear in his work situation. What human relationship does the desk symbolize for him? It may be that in his organization the higher in the business structure the person goes, the bigger the desk becomes. It may be that the person who is talking to me is a college man with a burning desire to succeed. He may be indulging in a little wishful thinking; by getting a bigger desk he may think he is elevating himself in the company. When he complains that the desk is too small, he may really be telling me about his dissatisfaction with his advancement in the company. If so, I get him to talk about that. (Roethlisberger, 1955, p. 95)

Both empathic listening and deliberative listening seek the same objective: accurate understanding of the communication from another. The model suggests that the motivation to receive information is superior to the motivation to use critical skills. The empathic listener lets his or her understanding of the speaker determine the modes of evaluation, which are automatic; the deliberative listener's understanding of the speaker is filtered through his or her predetermined modes of selective listening, and this listener actually spends less time as a communication receiver. The empathic listener is more apt to be a consistent listener and is less susceptible to internal or external distractions. This theory is correct only if the assumption is true that persons can and do think critically without deliberate effort—while listening. (Of course, if persons do not make the effort to listen per se, little or no understanding will occur.)

(Source: Charles M. Kelly, "Empathic Listening," in Robert S. Cathcart and Larry A. Samovar, Small Group Communication: A Reader 2d ed, Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1974, p. 341. Charles Kelly is Manager, Training and Development, Fiber Industries, Celanese Fiber Organization, Charlotte, NC.)

A good definition of this approach to listening is illustrated by the following point of view. Empathy is perception and communication by resonance, by identification, by experiencing in ourselves some reflection of the emotional tone that is being experienced by the other person.... Empathy continues throughout life as the basic mode of significant communication between adults" (Pearce and Newton, 1963, p. 52).

"Empathy" comes from the word Einfiihlung used by German psychologists; it literally means "feeling into." One friend who was having a problem with his girlfriend talked for over an hour without our saying much more than that we knew how he felt and we sincerely hoped he could work things out. By the end of the hour he had seen a way to resolve the difficulty and left saying, "Thanks so much for helping me figure this thing out!" We really had been concerned, and we really had listened, but we hadn't offered any suggestions on how to solve the problem. Yet our friend needed someone to talk to, and this opportunity to share his problem with a concerned listener helped him gain a new attitude toward the situation. Empathic listening serves as a reward or encouragement to the speaker. In communicates your caring and acceptance and reaffirms the person's sense of worth. This style of listening seems to be most important in terms of strengthening or improving a positive interpersonal relationship between the parties involved.

Empathic listening is often an important part of any client-counselor relationship. One such relationship exists between the patient and the psychotherapist. Theodore Reik (1948), a psychoanalyst, coined the phrase "listening with the third ear" to symbolize this type of listening. Actually, it refers to being as sensitive to visual cues as to vocal cues, but it represents another way of thinking about this style of listening. He describes listening with the third ear in this manner:

The analyst hears not only what is in the words; he hears also what the words do not say. ... In psychoanalysis . .. what is spoken is not the most important thing. It appears to us more important to recognize what speech conceals and what silence reveals, (p. 125)

One college student joined two friends and asked them what they were doing on Saturday night. They replied that they were going to the basketball game. Then the topic of conversation shifted for several minutes. Just as they were about to go their separate ways, one of the young men said, "Say, Tom, would you like to go to the game with us on Saturday?" Tom replied, "Oh wow, that sounds like it would be a good time. Yeah, I'd like to go." He admitted later that he wanted to go all along but didn't want to come right out and ask for fear of intruding on their plans. Luckily, the other student was "listening with the third ear" and realized that Tom would enjoy being included in the group.

One difficulty with trying to practice empathic listening is that it often requires the opposite frame of mind from that required for critical listening. Empathic listening implies a willingness not to judge, evaluate, or criticize but rather to be an accepting, permissive, and understanding listener. Thus, what might be the proper way to improve listening in one context may be the very opposite of what is required to be a good listener in another context. The difficult task for the listener is to determine which skills are most important in which situations.

Two psychologists from Harvard University offer some excellent guidelines on how to use empathic listening (or what they refer to as the reflective response):

At the most general level, we can describe reflective responses by several simple characteristics:

• A greater emphasis on listening than on talking.

• Responding to that which is personal rather than abstract.

• Following the other in his exploration rather than leading him into areas we think he should be exploring.

• Clarifying what the other person has said about his own thoughts and feelings rather than asking questions or telling him what we believe he should be thinking, seeing, or feeling.

• Responding to the feelings implicit in what the other has said rather than the assumptions or "content" that he has talked about.

• Trying to get into the other person's inner frame of reference rather than listening and responding from our own frame of reference.

• Responding with empathic understanding and acceptance rather than with disconcern, distanced objectivity, or overidentification (i.e., internalizing his problem so that it also becomes our own).

Although these brief generalizations may appear to suggest that reflection requires passive and generally inactive behavior on the part of the person who is trying to help or understand, quite the opposite is true. The reflective technique requires very careful and focused listening. It also requires a high degree of selectivity in choosing what to respond to in what the person has said. (Athos and Gabarro, 1978, p. 417)