10. Essentials of AcknowledgingEmpathic acknowledging--a blend of empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments--sometimes affects the emotional intimacy of two people involved in a conversation. Before proceeding with this chapter, here is some information which you may find useful at this point:
These will be presented by referring to the interaction between Tanya and Anita. During this interaction, Tanya discloses that she loves her new man friend, Ben. The excerpt which includes this disclosure follows this paragraph. Notice that descriptions of Anita's acknowledgements are enclosed in brackets [ ]. Excerpt:ooo Five minutes later, Tanya concludes with her announcement "Last Tuesday he told me he loved me" followed by her exclamation "I couldn't believe it!" After listening for the entire time without saying a word, Anita says "Wow!" [acknowledges Tanya feeling overwhelmed] "I still can't believe it," Tanya says. "I didn't know what to say. I still don't know what to tell him." "I don't understand," Anita says. "Did he expect you to say how you felt about him?" "I didn't think so but I wanted to say something and yet I didn't want to," Tanya says. "I'm confused." Her face changes from pink to pale and she stops talking. "It's hard for you to talk about this." [acknowledges Tanya's experience of struggling] "I didn't think it would be so hard but I do want to tell you," Tanya says. "I, uh, I feel strongly about Ben." She struggles to speak but again stops, and her face turns paler. After waiting ten seconds, Anita says "And what else?" She then resumes being quiet and waits for Tanya to regain her ability to speak. Sixty more seconds pass and then Tanya's jaw tightens as she says, "I want to tell you how I really feel about him. He's a wonderful man and I'm, uh, I'm very fond of him." She pauses. "I'm more than fond of him. I, uh, I, uh, I love him. There, I finally said it. Whew!" As she listens to Tanya open up emotionally, Anita develops a lump in her throat and a warm feeling in her chest. She gulps, pauses to collect her thoughts, and softly says, "It's hard for you to talk about your love for Ben." [acknowledges both Tanya's struggle and words]
Discussion:ooo Anita's statement "It's hard for you to talk about your love for Ben" acknowledges both Tanya's experience/feeling ("hard for you") and words ("love for Ben"). Another way of stating this is that Anita's acknowledgment consists of two parts. One is acknowledging the nonverbal communication--Tanya's struggle to push out her words. The second is Tanya's verbal communication--the words which state her love for Ben. A second way of acknowledging Tanya's last statement is by acknowledging only her experience/feeling, for example, "It's hard for you to talk now." A third way is by acknowledging only Tanya's words, for example, "You love Ben." When acknowledging words, there are many options. In the excerpt above, Tanya talked for five minutes, without being interrupted, about her recent experiences with Ben. You can summarize this long statement using, say, 10 sentences or 2 sentences. Or you can summarize only a portion of the statement, for example, the last 30 seconds or you can paraphrase a key sentence. An example of responding only to one sentence of the five-minute statement is Anita saying "Now you know Ben loves you." You might want to try all three methods to see how your conversation partners respond and how comfortable you feel using each method. I have found that all of these methods can be useful to the talker. It often depends upon the feelings and the state of mind of the other person at the moment. To follow the unfolding of this website on empathy, listening skills, acknowledgments, and emotional intimacy, read Chapter 11. When to Acknowledge next. NOTE: Reading the table of contents will help you understand the following links, which appear on every page of this website:
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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. Empathy and Listening Skills illustrates the difference between understanding the information the other person is saying to you versus understanding the meaning to her of saying the information. Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D. |