'Empathy provides more than just information about relationships. It is an expression of being in relationship. It is not just a means to better healing relationship, but because it recenters relationship as a central organizing feature of psychic life, empathy itself is healing. The experience of being known and accepted deeply by another, being aware of another being aware of you, what Jordan calls "mutual empathy"(Jordan, et al., 1991), is among the most psychologically important human experiences.
There is ample evidence that without a clear sense of connectedness, human beings, especially infants and children, cannot thrive. It is through mutual empathy that we we develop a sense of ourselves in relationship, the security of knowing that we belong, the knowledge of who we belong to, and how we must participate if we are to be loved, and recognized by our community/"
"The healing benefits of empathic connections are not something that the therapist can provide for the client, the way the physician gives medicines. For the full healing potential of therapeutic relationships be contexts in which human beings can heal and become fully themselves to be realized, relational empathy must be two-way. "