Empathic listening and its empowering qualities

Sep 16, 2011 Editorial

When individuals in a conflict situation, such as we often have in Guyana, cannot get their messages across to each other, a number of problems are generated.
For one, it may “lead to autistic communication — a state in which there is virtually no communication between the sides and each group becomes even more entrenched in its prejudices and preconceptions concerning the other, leading to a vicious cycle of inter-group silence and recriminations.”
There is, experts believe, a relatively simple technique that can assist in bridging this gap: empathic listening.
Empathic listening (also called active listening or reflective listening) is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding and trust. It is an essential skill for third parties and disputants alike, as it enables the listener to receive and accurately interpret the speaker’s message, and then provide an appropriate response.
The response is an integral part of the listening process and can be critical to the success of a negotiation or mediation. Among its benefits, empathic listening builds trust and respect, enables the disputants to release their emotions, reduces tensions, encourages the surfacing of information, and creates a safe environment that is conducive to collaborative problem solving.
Empathy is the ability to project oneself into the personality of another person in order to better understand that person’s emotions or feelings.
Through empathic listening the listener lets the speaker know, “I understand your problem and how you feel about it, I am interested in what you are saying and I am not judging you.”
The listener unmistakably conveys this message through words and non-verbal behaviours, including body language. In so doing, the listener encourages the speaker to fully express herself or himself free of interruption, criticism or being told what to do. It is neither advisable nor necessary for a mediator to agree with the speaker, even when asked to do so. It is usually sufficient to let the speaker know, “I understand you and I am interested in being a resource to help you resolve this problem.”
The power of empathic listening in volatile settings is reflected in one expert in communication (Madelyn Burley-Allen)’s description of the skilled listener. “When you listen well,” Burley-Allen says, “you: acknowledge the speaker, increase the speaker’s self-esteem and confidence, tell the speaker, “You are important” and “I am not judging you,” gain the speaker’s cooperation, reduce stress and tension, build teamwork, gain trust, elicit openness, gain a sharing of ideas and thoughts, and obtain more valid information about the speakers and the subject.”
To obtain these results, Burley-Allen says, a skilled listener: “takes information from others while remaining non-judgmental and empathic, acknowledges the speaker in a way that invites the communication to continue, and provides a limited but encouraging response, carrying the speaker’s idea one step forward.”
We can also follow these good listening ground rules: Don’t interrupt. Don’t change the subject or move in a new direction. Don’t rehearse in your own head. Don’t interrogate. Don’t teach. Don’t give advice. Do reflect back to the speaker what you understand and how you think the speaker feels.
The ability to listen with empathy may be the most important attribute of interveners who succeed in gaining the trust and cooperation of parties to intractable conflicts and other disputes with high emotional content. Among its other advantages, as Burley-Allen points out, empathic listening has empowering qualities. Providing an opportunity for people to talk through their problem may clarify their thinking as well as provide a necessary emotional release.
Every day, in our newspapers’ letters columns, call-in talk shows, we have evidence of our citizens burning desire to be heard. But for us to be really heard, however, we have to be prepared to listen.
We do believe that if we practice the skill of empathic listening our talking “at” each other can become talking “to” each other and in the ensuing dialogue created we can begin to solve some of our problems which have proven so intractable for so long.

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Empathic listening and its empowering qualities

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