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 notes, 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.
  

ooo1. Although awareness of feelings is not always desirable, it sometimes, of course, facilitates personal growth. It is relevant to consider the role of empathy, listening skills, and acknowledgments in the growth-facilitating activity of psychotherapy. One system ["A Client-centered/ Person-centered Approach to Therapy", Chapter 10, in Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Land Henderson (editors), The Carl Rogers Reader (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989)] is organized around three therapist behaviors for creating a climate for client growth: being genuine, prizing the client, and empathic listening/ acknowledging. The second and third conditions are integral to what I have described as empathic acknowledging, which means to me that this way of relating has a powerful potential to promote the other person's well being.

ooo2. James W. Pennebaker, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Confiding in Others (New York: Avon Books, 1991). Discusses why people can alleviate psychological distress and health problems by talking or writing about troubling thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

ooo3. Michael P. Nichols believes that "We never outgrow the need to communicate what it feels like to live in our separate, private worlds of experience." This quote is the second sentence of his book The Lost Art of Listening (New York: Guilford Press, 1995), page 1.

ooo4. Gerald Goodman and Glenn Esterly, The Talk Book: The Intimate Science of Communicating in Close Relationships (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press, 1988), page 148.

ooo5. Book cited in Note 5, page 38.

To find a few suggestions for obtaining more information about empathy, listening skills, acknowledgments, and their influence on emotional intimacy, click on Additional Reading.

NOTE: 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 this site 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.