Foundations

Foundations of Empathic Listening and Empathy Circles

I want to give some explanation to the historical foundations on which the Empathy Circles are built. Here are some references.

(source http://j.mp/1SipQHI )

Carl Rogers and Empathic Listening

Carl Rogers was one of the most influential American psychologists. (Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud. wikipedia). He was one of the founders of human potential movement in the 60s, and person centered therapy.

While Carl gives others credit for developing the basic empathic listening process, he used, developed and wrote about the process extensively. He also did very in depth documentation of the process and the emotional landscape of empathic listening and empathy. You can see videos of him using the process on this webpage. His work is very foundational in all current empathy work. This paper and video captures a synthesis of his findings, ‘Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being’.

Empathic listening in a therapist-client relationship.

Carl used empathic listening in a therapist-client relationship. A client, who is having any sort of problem in their life, comes to the therapist who listens to them. Carl used empathic listening with the intention that the client could work out solutions to their own problems just by the therapist offering their empathic presence. This is really the core or foundation of most therapeutic processes.

I have talked with his daughter Natalie Rogers and have interviewed Gay Barfield. With Carl Rogers, Gay co-directed the Carl Rogers Institute for Peace, applying person-centered principles to real and potential international crisis situations, for which Rogers was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.

Gene Gendlin and Focusing

Eugene Gendlin is an American psychotherapist who developed ways of working with the bodily felt sense. Gene was a grad student of Carl Rogers and later became a work colleague of his. Gene's insight was that people who had the most positive movement in the therapeutic process were people who spoke from their on going and in the moment felt experience, rather than in a detached intellectual or analytical way.

He developed a process called Focusing, where the speaker focuses on the ongoing emergent feelings that arise in them from moment to moment. There is also a listener who supports the speaker by reflecting back their understanding of what is said.

Marshall Rosenberg and Nonviolent Communication

The empathic listening is core to Nonviolent Communication process which was started by Marshall Rosenberg. Marshall was a grad student with Carl and build on his foundational work. Marshall added some tools and processes on this basic empathic listening foundation. He got more nuanced about what was being empathize with, such as, observations, guessing of feelings and needs, posing requests, etc.


Leah Green and Compassionate listening Project.

It is foundational to Compassionate listening Project.


Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles

Empathic listening is also core to the mediation process developed by Dominic Barter. It uses empathic listening, in the Restorative circle process. Dominic was the keynote speaker at the last 2015 Restorative Justice conference in Florida. In his process, a facilitator begins by individually listening to all the state holders in a conflict. The facilitator then holds, basically, an empathy circle and has participants dialog with reflective listening. Different questions are posed at different points of the process to help move it along toward mutual understanding and finally action. See my interviews with Dominic Barter. When doing most conflict resolution, restorative justice and mediation processes, you will see that empathic listening is a core skill that is used.

Dorothy Della Noce: Transactional Empathy versus Transformational Empathy

An important concept with empathy is Transactional Empathy versus Transformational Empathy. Dorothy Della Noce wrote some interesting papers about this in relationship to mediation. The understanding transcends just mediation and is relevant to design and beyond. I am interested in supporting and growing Transformational Empathy with our work.. Transactional Empathy where people come from a position of everyone is in it for themselves, self-interest, getting one's individual needs met. Transformational Empathy is about fostering a relational and societal empathic way of being. It sees that we are all in an empathic relationship already, and we can improve that relationship. We dialog until we see our common humanity and transform our individual self interest and look to connect with our common humanity.

Transactional Empathy

“In problem-solving, empathy is seen as an instrument, valuable in so far as it helps the parties satisfy their (personal, pre-existing) interests. "Bargainers need only understand enough about the other's interests to get to a satisfactory deal."(p. 283) Empathy is also treated as a commodity for exchange, offered on the condition that the other party does the same. The author argues that "The mediator who privileges Individualist assumptions by adopting interest-based bargaining will filter the parties' communication through a transactional lens, which, in turn, will color what the mediator recognizes as an opportunity for empathy and deems a competent response."(p. 283) Empathy is used to uncover interests, and competent empathic responses are those which clarify interests.” (Source)

Transformational Empathy

In transformative empathy, a shared relational empathic way of being, is valued in itself. "With the focus on interaction rather than individual psychology, the communicative process of developing empathy is valuable in its own right, whatever the outcome, because empathy itself expresses the enrichment of interaction and personal awareness that embodies the 'good' in Relational ideology."(p. 285) Della Noce examines different mediators' responses to the same conflict simulation, and finds that "the mediators heard very different things from the parties as they interacted with each other, highlighted different aspects of the interaction as salient to mediation, and responded in different ways."(p. 294) These differences in mediator practice correspond with differences in their preferred mediation approaches, and underlying ideology." (Source)

David Kelly (IDEO and Human-Centered Design)

(pending)

Edwin Rutsch and Transformational Empathic Co-design

Edwin is to integrate all the different empathy building processes under Transformational Empathic Co-Design. This is using human centered design as a foundational framework to design for a transformative empathic way of being and culture. We use the person centered approach methodologies, mediation, therapy, arts, somatic practices, etc. etc.