Empathy, Listening Skills,
and Touching Another Heart |
Appreciations
To my wife, Louise Gratson Bookbinder, the light of my life.
In loving memory of my parents, Irving Bookbinder and Miriam Bookbinder Billig, who encouraged and helped me with my struggles to become educated.
Before proceeding with the thank you's, here is some information which you may find useful at this point:
Thank You's oooooooo
I am grateful to the late distinguished psychologist Carl R. Rogers, creator of Client-Centered Therapy (later re-named the Person-Centered Approach to Therapy), whose research and writings inspired me and laid the foundation upon which I built this website.
The time I spent with the people who consulted me for help with their troubles was invaluable. Their responses to my empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments deepened my understanding of the beneficial power of this special way of being with people.
Being listened to with empathy by Sheila Hill Munger contributed as much as her other psychotherapeutic skills to my healing and growth. One of its contributions was emboldening me to reveal "shameful" secrets to her I believed I would never be able to reveal.
I thank The Learning Annex in San Diego for sponsoring some of my workshops. My former T'ai Chi Chih teacher, Susan Patterson Haymaker, also contributed by publicizing additional workshops and permitting me to conduct them in her studio.
Marshall B. Rosenberg's workshops on his method of Nonviolent Communication inspired me and enriched my knowledge of empathic responding.
I improved my public speaking skills from my involvement with the Golden Triangle Toastmasters Club, which enabled me to conduct empathic acknowledging workshops, which in turn helped me write a better website.
The interest expressed by Susan Patterson Haymaker, Jonathan Kramer, Gean Lasche, Winifred Mattes, Jayne Prager, and Muriel Smith contributed to strengthening my motivation to labor on this website.
Reading and re-reading Sol Stein's Stein on Writing and William Zinsser's On Writing Well helped me improve this website. Reading Writer's Digest magazine also helped.
I thank the people who read previous drafts of this website and made useful comments: James A. Ayers, Don Bower, Virginia L. Gibbs, Roy King, Janet McCrorey, Diane G. Stelley, and especially Robert Scott.
Most of all, I am grateful to my wife, Louise Gratson Bookbinder, for her steadfast encouragement, incisive critiques, and good-natured sharing of my attention and time with this website.
For information about my qualifications to write this website on empathy, listening skills, acknowledgments, and emotional intimacy, read the Author page.
NOTE: Reading the table of contents will help you understand the following links, which appear on every page of this website:
If you liked this site, e-mailing me your thanks will reward me for creating it and help sustain my motivation to keep it going for future visitors.
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 Professional 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, and 2005 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D.
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