I’ve been reading about empathy over the past year or so, and a chapter from the book On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers caught my attention.
The full chapter title is: “Dealing With Breakdowns in Communication – Interpersonal and Intergroup”.
Notes
- Rogers suggests a rule for debates and arguments: each person can present their own views, but only after restating “the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker’s satisfaction”.
- The deepest, most effective forms of empathy require courage, because if we understand another person’s point of view that well, we may be changed by it, and we can (consciously or unconsciously) see this as a risk to our sense of self.
Reflections
On the first point above: I’ve heard similar advice elsewhere, but usually the focus is just on restating the other person’s ideas. I think Rogers’ suggestion to restate both thoughts and feelings is important.
Rogers’ discussion of empathy reminded me of the three types of empathy mentioned in On “The Empathy Effect”. Seeing these types of empathy as separate may be a cause of confusion – I think they can work together, and the deepest, courage-requiring empathy will be combination of all three modes working together.