Another aspect of empathy can be identified as a ‘here and now’ or ‘moment to moment’ style of client interaction. We strive to be in the client’s shoes in total, as the psychiatrist R.D. Laing voiced. Laing even embraced this deep type of empathy for use with his psychotic patients. To merge with another using a ‘here and now’ approach we are aware of a client’s movements, postures, gestures, facial expressions, comments, and pauses in communication.
Several human growth impromptu approaches also embrace verbal and non-verbal sensitivity to a client’s total presentation. These include J.L. Moreno’s Sociodrama and Psychodrama, Fritz Pearl’s Gestalt Therapy, and Daniel Glaser’s Reality Therapy.
‘Here and now’ micro practice is most suitable for experienced professionals. We think and feel our way into a client’s inner world and undertake their journey as partners. As practitioners we grasp our client’s struggle and help articulate and explore their concerns through empathy. Reflection on a client’s comments takes place yet content, feelings, and interpretations may all help promote client development.
Conclusion
As mentioned, the approaches to empathy explored above may in part overlap. Here and now empathy however is best applied in a therapeutic context, while the other two forms may be most useful with coaches and organization consultants. Some approaches may be useful in tandem and not applied exclusively. Nevertheless, the goal is client recognition that they are understood and that their problem solving and/or growth occurs. We must use empathy with positive intention, and never use it with negative intension (as a means to psychopathic, sadistic, or other selfish ends).
Other forms of empathy remain unexplored in this essay such as self-empathy and societal empathy for national and/or global epic conditions such as mass shootings, Covide-19 deaths, wars, starvations, threats to democracy, etc. In all its forms empathy challenges us to a higher level of humanness. We remain to ourselves and to others in praise of empathy as a vehicle for humanizing people’s lives.
References
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. Bantam Books.
Kohut, H. (1984). How Does Analysis Cure? University of Chicago Press.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. Houghton Mifflin Company.
