Box of delight

This explanation follows in line after the Awareness Wheel.

Before we explain the Listening Cycle, here are some simple ground rules for communication in general:

Rules for the both of you:

The speaker has the floor. Don't cut off the speaker or finish his or her sentences.
Share the floor (take turns)
No problem solving

Via Edwin Rutsch

Empathy and sympathy are two very different things: sympathy involves feeling sorry for someone, and comes from your own frame of reference, while empathy involves trying to understand the other person’s situation and experience, putting yourself into their frame of reference as far as possible.

Empathy is like walking in the other person’s shoes – but it’s really important to keep your socks on! In other words, the counsellor must be able to separate themselves from the client again at the end of the session. Another useful image here is that empathy is like entering the client’s room, but without forgetting where the door is so that you can return to your own world later. While in the client’s room, it’s important to go gently and tread lightly.

Carl Rogers proposed that therapist empathy is one of the six necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic personality change. Empathy must be circular – in other words, for it to be real and effective, it must be fully perceived by the client. Being truly heard is often a huge relief for clients.

Via Edwin Rutsch