Empathic acknowledging--a blend of empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments--sometimes affects the emotional intimacy of two people involved in a conversation. Before proceeding with the introduction, here is some information which you may find useful at this point:

• The table of contents contains a brief description of every chapter.
• There is a short version of this website on empathy and listening skills.
• I, Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D., am the author of this website.
• I run a discussion board on the subject of this website.

The first goal is to motivate readers to begin using their empathic acknowledging skills more often. Although some space in this website is devoted to learning new skills, the emphasis is on using existing skills.

The second goal is to raise readers' consciousness about empathic acknowledging so they will be more likely to think of using their skills at some points in some of their conversations.

Shortness of this Website   oooooooo

The length of this website was influenced by the following beliefs:

• A website which emphasizes motivating people to use empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments more often does not have to be as long as one which emphasizes helping them learn new skills.

• This relatively short website is long enough to attain its goals.

• People are more likely to read a short than a long self-help website.

• Readers are more likely to use the information from a website which provides them with the essentials as compared with one which drowns them in details.

I changed their names, ages, activities, and other identifying information to protect their privacy. Sometimes I combined information about two or more people into an anecdote about one person. Other times I made up the anecdotes.

I tried to modify the anecdotes so as not to distort their psychological validity and tried to have my fictional creations portray authentic human experiences.

One of the people in this website is I.

To follow the unfolding of this website, read Chapter 1. Empathic Acknowledging next.

Reading the table of contents will help you understand 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

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 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, and 2005 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D.