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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
Exercise
listening is a key component in the relationship between client and practitioner (Meyers,
30-60 min 2000). Empathy can be defined as “a specific, moment-by-moment response to the client’s
immediate experiential field” (Bohart et al., 1993, p. 20). Rogers (1975) further stressed the
Group
importance of listening: “being listened to by an understanding person makes it possible
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for [a person] to listen more 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 clients identify the practitioner’s careful listening, attendance
to and remembrance of details, and nonjudgmental acceptance 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 help
them practice 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
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? 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 they
are feeling misunderstood?

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■ How does being heard promote a sense that the practitioner has empathy for the
client’s experience?
■ How does being heard by an empathic listener foster self-understanding?

References

■ 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. Houghton MiThin.

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

Psychologist, 5, 2-11.

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Practicing Empathic Listening

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 keywords
■ Remaining focused on the speaker
■ Considering the speaker’s perspective (listening to understand fully)
■ Sustaining eye contact
■ Providing non-verbal encouragement (nodding, subvocalizing)
■ Identifying/reflecting feelings

Feel free to use the “Listening Skills Assessment - Practice Worksheet” in Appendix B 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 I’ve 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.

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The observer times each of the pauses and records the length of each pause in seconds. The form in
Appendix A 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?
■ What strategies might you use to make use of pausing?

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 person’s 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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s intention.
■ It does not mimic or parrot the speaker’s words, but it might draw upon their essential words and
imagery. It does not insert new concepts or imagery.

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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 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 his/her interest and attention as you were speaking?
■ What do we want to remember about paraphrasing?
■ What opportunities do you have coming up that would allow you to practice this skill further?

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 labeling or naming
the feeling, “You feel upset,” “You are worried,” “You’re excited because...,” and matching the speaker’s tone
of voice and pace of speech. Nonverbal reflection means matching the speaker’s gestures, posture, facial
expression, breathing, etc.

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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 the paper 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 schoolwork and a part-time job. You are
working almost every day after school and feel very tired by the time you get home. It is hard to feel
motivated to start homework or to study when it’s 9 or 10 o’clock. 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 in 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 from the first person
perspective, conveying the feelings nonverbally so that the paraphraser can practice “listening between
the lines.” The paraphraser’s task is to try to label the emotion(s) and to reflect nonverbally the speaker’s
feelings. 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 three roles. Invite descriptions of how
paraphrasers demonstrated nonverbal paraphrasing.

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Appendix A: 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 B: Listening Skills Assessment - Practice Worksheet

Name:

Dates observed:

Comments:

Attentive listening

Faces speaker

Leans forward

Maintains eye contact

Nods, smiles

Does not interrupt

Encourages the speaker to continue speaking

Pauses

Other:

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Empathic listening

Asks relevant questions which helps the speaker

clarify ideas

Accurately identifies the speaker’s feelings

Accurately paraphrases the content of

the message

Reflects speaker’s feelings nonverbally

Pauses before/after speaking

Appears comfortable with silence

Demonstrates a desire to understand

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