Qualified Empathy – a key element for an empowerment professional
Eija Raatikainen,
Leigh Anne Rauhala and
Seija Mäenpää
Studies have shown that when clients experience empathy during their interactions with empowerment professionals, the results of the work are better (Gerdes & Segal 2011).
.Empathy has also been shown to reduce burnout and protect against secondary traumatic stress in professionals (Wagman, Geiger, Shockley & Segal 2014).
This analysis examines and asks what an empowering professional is and what ”qualified” empathy is all about? How can it be learned and taught effectively in higher education contexts? In this paper, we will describe how teaching and learning to use empathy has been a part of studies for Social Services students.
We argue that professional empathy can be approached in multisensory ways when studying empathy (e.g. Austring & Sørensen 2006).
There are many methods and ways to learn, develop, measure, and assess acquired empathy skills, such as self-evaluation scales (i.e. The Empathy Scale for Social Workers, ESSW) (King & Holosko 2011);
outside classroom studies (i.e. in Service Learning projects,
Engaged scholarship, see Trad 2013);
movie review,
or based on reflection (Briggs, Fox & Abell 2012);
literature and poetry readings (Shapiro, Morrison & Boker 2004),
learning communication/encountering skills (Winefield & Chur-Hansen 2000)
or through creative methods (Austring & Sørensen 2006).
Empathy and finding solutions to people’s everyday challenges may be a key target and source of innovation in the future (Kiiski Kataja 2016).