I believe the “empathetic relationship” is what creates for a growth climate, the bettering of communication, a respect and interest for others, and it teaches children how to handle conflict and relationships in adulthood. Some children, however, will never be able to get that empathetic connection at home and that should be of great concern to all of us. This is also the reason why teachers are so important for some children, all of whom are both impressionable and malleable.
When children interact with teachers who show an interest in their development and demonstrate patience for their learning needs, I believe it enables them to accomplish more, but, more importantly, it imprints the importance of trying to understand others instead of shutting them out. Providing children with empathetic figures in their lives can enable them to prepare for the social tensions that people experience in adulthood, where people sometimes give way to the dangerous thinking of “I am right. You are wrong. That makes me good. That makes you bad.” and that people with different opinions become your “enemy”.
Despite how Freud believed that man is wild at his core, I think each of us is far more constructive at our core, and once we are able to get past the surface defences and superficiality then we can reach a person’s positive core, which is where I think we find the innate desires like being social and collaborative. Given this, it would then be fair to conclude that people are inherently good, and it is their environments combined with circumstances that drives them off track and away from the good life, into a spiral. However, even when that happens, they should still be able to be guided back on track, but it would require empathy, mutual understanding, and communication.
Carl Rogers – Empathy, Mutual Understanding, and Communication
Carl Rogers was a master psychologist and is responsible for championing the importance of empathy in the grand scheme of the psychologist-patient interaction. Rogers describes empathy as the key ingredient necessary for someone to overcome their challenges, where empathy turns into somewhat of a mutual understanding during the psychologist-patient interaction and allows for the continuance of communication between the two parties. Rogers’ approach focused on guiding people towards self-realizations, coming to terms with things as they were and not as they had been perceived to be, but, more importantly, it was a self-empowering approach that would show clients that they had it within themselves to find the answers to many of their challenges.
It is important to note that Rogers did have experience with other therapeutic approaches, and he was not against applying other therapeutic approaches during psychologist-client interactions. However, these days, we tend to see those working in the field of psychology and psychoanalysis pushing back against Rogers’ school of thought as well as wrongly labelling him as someone who was hellbent on his methods and nothing else. Outside of psychology circles, many other fields have found practical applications for Rogers’ approach, including high stakes hostage negotiations. In short, empathy is a healing agent, and it should only be viewed as such, and not as a violation of another person or anything that is sinister.
Empathy has no paradox.
A lot of today’s psychologists seem to critique Carl Rogers’ focus on empathy and his version of “therapeutic services”, which are based on a few videos where he is interacting with patients and some interviews where he is talking about his approach. Most of these same psychologists seem to buy-in to the idea that “empathy is a paradox” and they make jokes about Rogers’ approach, how it is reflective listening rather than a form of “talk therapy” and where the client leads the session. It is unlikely that every single session that Rogers had with his clients only revolved around “listening”, but it is far more important to address the inconsistency with the claim that “empathy is a paradox”.
The entire argument behind “empathy is a paradox” seems rooted in the oversimplification of empathy and the negative assumption that a practitioner is not going to be able to be effective with Rogers’ approach: that it was the literal repetition of a client’s words, that Rogers’ was on record stating that his approach was imperfect, and that nobody could “exactly know” how another person felt. The problem with this view is that it assumes that an empathetic approach has been proclaimed as the golden ticket to all of peoples’ problems when it is just one of many tools that a practitioner can utilize during their session with a client.
While it can be difficult to “know” how someone feels, an empathetic approach is not rooted in assumptions, rather it attempts to understand whatever feelings may be present and the drivers behind those feelings. To conclude, practitioners are trained to avoid using words like “know” in their responses, and “understanding” is not meant to calculate or quantify emotions, but rather to act as a starting point that acknowledges their existence and go on from there.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s Interaction with a “PPC-Supporting” Student
Canada is one of the few countries where elected officials are able to interact with the general public at public events and in close proximity, and the video filmed of the up-close interaction between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a student at the University of Manitoba was a classic example of empathy and understanding, but it also helped uncover far more than what got reported on.
The youngin’ who seemed to be in attendance to protest Prime Minister Trudeau, told Prime Minister Trudeau that he supported the “PPC” and that he was against “abortions”. Instead of Prime Minister Trudeau telling the youngin’ that he was wrong or that there was nothing else for them to discuss, Prime Minister Trudeau did the opposite. Prime Minister Trudeau had a meaningful interaction, probing the youngin’ for more context, staying with him when others would have walked away, and to some extent, getting to the depth of his feeling. To the youngin’s credit, he was able to articulate his position quite well and with respect, however wrong it was. Thanks to Prime Minister Trudeau’s approach, we were able to learn far more about the youngin’ beyond the immediate, and it left me feeling as though the youngin’ was a classic example of someone buying into an idea so that they could fit in and be accepted by their peers.
A quick analysis of the situation would indicate that the youngin’ came with friends who wanted to protest Prime Minister Trudeau. He continued to film Prime Minister Trudeau, and I believe he may have tried to trigger him into a response by saying how he was against abortion because it failed to hold women accountable for “sleeping around”. All of it sounded to me like something a youngin’ would say to impress his boys and as an excuse for struggling with girls. However, the reason I believe the youngin’ knows better than the ignorant remarks he gave has to do with his inability to provide a direct answer to Prime Minister Trudeau’s basic ask and his own acknowledgement that “abortion is complicated”. Someone that was deluded or brainwashed would have made no concessions on their ‘beliefs’, and it is important for us to recognize the youngin’s doubt as positive sign and as the starting point to begin working on the intellectual error.
Every one of us has the ability to understand needs and problems, to gain insights, to reorganize ourselves, and to take constructive action. For some people, they might not be self-starters, and they may require a boost to get back on track—–not judgement, interpretation, or advice from experts. That boost is done with a Carl Rogers-like, people-centered approach, where we support and work with people to help them re-examine their preconceived ‘notions’. When people are able to come to their own conclusion or realization regarding an intellectual error they may have had, that leads to lasting growth because self-realized outcomes result in both stronger beliefs and behaviors.
What we need to remember in all of this is that it is very common for people’s philosophies to outgrow their immediate environment and, despite the stagnation around them that may be affecting their friends, families, and communities. Despite knowing better, people will still relent and embrace “group think” even when they know that the “group’s conclusion” is wrong, since the social consequences of going against the group can far outweigh the moral reward of saying what is right. And there lays the real challenge in all of this.
In the end, some people might disagree with my position, but I am sure that all-or-nothing approaches and blaming others for unmanaged emotions and extreme behaviors does not work. Sticking to all-or-nothing approaches is the equivalent to not trying, and we always want to get caught trying.
Helping people grow.
Much of our airwaves are dominated by buzz words and buzz lines, and people seem entirely focused on going viral. That is also why we tend to hear talk of “We have to hold this person accountable” when something goes wrong in our society, and when people go off the rails. Naturally, this leads us to the questions of, “What exactly does holding someone accountable really mean, and what does holding them accountable do to ensure that the issue will not reoccur?” Although certain situations can get us riled up, especially when those incidents involve communities that we directly identify with, we should move away from “activist talk” and toward “psychologist talk”. We should be asking questions like, “Why is this person acting the way they are and how do we address the core of the issue so that we ensure that it does not occur again?” It may be more difficult, but whatever happened to us doing things not because they were easy, but because they were hard?
During one of my Harvard programs, there was a section that touched on the idea of “accountability”, influencing, and the importance of dispute resolution. When it came time for feedback, once again, I had to disagree with almost all my peers. My position was that if we wanted people to change their ways then we needed to do more than just holding them “accountable”, and it involved guiding them to the necessary realizations, but realizations that they would come to on their own terms. Once you help someone come to one realization, like a limited way of thinking about others, it can have a snowball effect that leads them to challenge other ‘belief’ systems they may have. Demonstrating empathy for someone, an understanding of their being, that is the driver that leads them to want to continue with you, and the only way to do that is from a point of respect, open-mindedness, and tolerance.