This website discusses empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments, and their effects on the emotional intimacy of two people involved in a conversation. To illustrate empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments, here is a description of one of my conversations.

Before I present the conversation, I will give you information to help you decide if you want to continue reading. The following are some of my qualifications for writing the material of this site: I, Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D., am a former psychologist who retired after over 30 years of practicing clinical psychology. For more information about my qualifications, go to the last page of this site.

The Disappointed Man:ooo After I finished eating my salad at a salad-bar restaurant, I walked up to the frozen yogurt machine. Vanilla was available but, alas, chocolate, my favorite dessert, was not. I noticed an employee nearby, whose nametag read "Manager", and asked her, "What happened to the chocolate yogurt?"

"They didn't deliver it today," she replied.

I had asked my question in a voice which expressed disappointment. I am sure my face also expressed disappointment because my feelings usually register on my face. Although the manager had politely answered my question, I, an expert on empathy and listening skills, again felt disappointed because she had not acknowledged my feeling. I thought that if she had added to her reply a sentence such as "I see we disappointed you", it would have eased my disappointment.

Discussion:ooo The manager did not acknowledge my disappointment because she probably did not empathize with it. Another way of stating this is that she was listening to my words but not "listening" to my feeling of disappointment.

Employees of businesses I have patronized had rarely acknowledged my concerns. My guess is that my experience is shared by 99 percent of us. These omissions are bad for business because I believe that we usually stop patronizing a business because we either have a major problem with it or suffer an accumulation of minor problems, such as no chocolate yogurt and no acknowledgments to ease our disappointments or frustrations.

Empathic Acknowledging:ooo I have labeled the blending of empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments as "empathic acknowledging."

Before continuing with this page on empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments, here is some information which you may find useful at this point:

• There is a short version of this website.
• The table of contents for this website briefly describes each chapter and indicates which ones are in the short version.
• There is a page which presents my qualifications for writing this website.
• I run a discussion board on the subject of this website.

Comparison of Empathy with Sympathy  oooooooo

Because of my observations that many people do not know the differences between empathy and sympathy, I will present my understanding of the subject before continuing my discussion of empathy and listening skills. My presentation will be clarified by the use of an example.

If the friend uses sympathy, she might think, for example: He is remembering his father with pain. Poor Roger. If the friend decides to verbalize her thoughts, she might say to the grieving man words such as: "I feel your pain."

If the friend uses empathy, she might think, for example: He is remembering his father with pain and also the pleasure of his love for him. If the friend decides to verbalize her thoughts, she might say to the grieving man words such as: "I feel your pain and also your great love for your father."

This sharing of the painful feelings of another person is characteristic of both sympathy and empathy. However, the person using sympathy would pay more attention to the pain than to the love for the father whereas the person using empathy would pay equal attention to the pain and love.

If the friend added "I'm sorry for your loss," this statement would also be characteristic of sympathy, but not of empathy. The person using empathy would share the grieving man's emotional pain, but not necessarily feel sorry for or pity him. Of course, one can use both sympathy and empathy, for example: "I feel your pain and also your great love for your father. I'm sorry for your loss."

For more information about the differences and similarities between empathy and sympathy, read my more detailed comparison, which includes another example.

After more than thirty years of pursuing my hobby of observing people, including myself, conversing, I have concluded that we rarely use empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments with each other. I believe that this neglect is one of humankind's tragedies because we deprive ourselves of the potential of these skills to improve our relationships and deepen our emotional intimacy. A second tragedy is that most of us are not aware of this neglect.

NOTE: The table of contents indicates which pages are in the short version of this website and describes the following links, which appear on every page of this website:

HOME

CONTENTS

WARNING

INTRODUCTION

1. EMP. ACK.

2. PSYCH. HUG

3. BENEFITS I

4. BENEFITS II

5. URGE TO HELP

6. URGE TO TALK

7. BASIC SKILLS

8. EXPLN. SKILLS

9. DIFFICULTIES

10. ESSNL. ACK.

11. WHEN ACK.

NOTES

ADDNL. READING

APPRECIATIONS

AUTHOR

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My Other Websites on Empathy and Listening Skills

Empathy, Listening Skills, and Relationships is a short version of this website.

Listening Skills and Relationships is a discussion board which includes messages from me and my responses to messages from others. To read or post messages, you do not have to register. Visit the board to read questions and answers, ask or answer questions, share experiences, etc.

Empathy contains a description of a conversation with a United States Copyright Office representative during which I used empathy.

Listening Skills contains a description of listening to my wife talk about her grocery shopping trips.

Communication Skills illustrates my use of nonverbal "listening skills" during a conversation to assess whether the other person is receiving my message.

Listening Skills Professionals Listen Empathically -1 explains why I advocate that society establish the profession of empathic listener as a profession separate and independent from that of psychotherapist.

Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D. and last revised on September 12, 2006. I also have websites on prostate cancer and on the noncancerous enlarged prostate (BPH).