Empathic listening
Often, when I’m annoyed or upset, I vent to Brad, and often when I do this he tries to solve my problem for me, and often that just really annoys the hell out of me. Usually I just want to vent, to be understood and to have my feelings validated. Validate my feelings damn it!
So today when I heard about a little thing called empathic listening, I thought Hey, this could work for us. Through my job, I’m enrolled in a Leadership Academy in which, each week, some ‘expert’ or another tries to teach us some skill or another of effective leadership. You know, think win/win, synergy, that kind of thing. Today we learned about empathic listening, in which one tries to understand what another is saying without evaluating or asking a lot of questions. The point, basically, is to truly understand what someone is saying because really, isn’t that what we all want in the end? To be understood?
You’re supposed to repeat what the talker says without probing or analyzing or interpreting. Just repeat, or maybe offer silence and a gentle head nod, and allow them to continue talking. After the explanation in class, they gave us a few phrases to use (”What I’m hearing is…”), coupled us up, and instructed us to role play.
My conversation went something like this:
Anonymous Partner: I’m just really unhappy at work lately, and I’m thinking about getting out of it to try something new. I got into this business so I could create, and lately it’s become so administrative that it no longer feels creative. And I’m just really frustrated about what to do.
Me: So it sounds like you’re frustrated at work because it’s become more administration and less creative.
AP: Yeah…
Me: …
AP: [blink]
Me: [blink]
Me: Okay that was fun.
It was not effective at all. Nobody felt understood, nobody felt validated, and everybody felt like robotic morons.
I see the value of what empathic listening is trying to accomplish, but the techniques it suggests seem artificial. Nobody feels good when you nod at them in silence or regurgitate the words they’ve said. Yet, I thought I’d try this out with Brad, see how it goes. So I asked him to tell me about something we had talked about many times: the obnoxious instructor in one of his courses. Normally when we talk about this, we have great conversations. There’s ranting and raving, there are questions and answers, suggestions on how to approach the problem. Very productive. Witness the effect empathic listening had on the situation:
Brad: She’s just such a bad instructor. She has no control over the classroom, she lets a few select students dominate the conversation, letting them ramble on and on about nothing that pertains to the class. And the rest of us just sit there, frustrated that we’re not learning anything.
Me: So it sounds like you’re frustrated with your instructor because of her classroom conduct.
Brad: Um… yeah.
Me: Well okay.
Nothing. No validated feelings, no understanding, and definitely no solutions. Now you may think that perhaps we’re just doing this wrong and that’s why it’s not working. But the ‘expert’ demonstrated for us in class, and her conversation went about the same. Except after the talker said “Um, yeah” the instructor silently nodded until her head fell off.
In the end, I don’t think empathic listening is for me. All I really want is to be understood and validated, but it takes a little more than silent nods and regurgitated words to accomplish that. I need something a little more, something like: “Well that is just absurd! I will kill the person that made you feel this way. You are precious and beautiful and the most important person on earth, and you deserve nothing but happiness. Come here baby.”
January 18th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
The book that I’m reading…still…”Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” talks specifically about these two subjects. I say “two” because you speak of empathetic listening and, then, a woman’s need to feel validated when she is venting and frustrated.
I found a definition, if you will, of empathetic listening that, I think, gives better insight to the idea. “Empathic listening is focusing on a person’s local behavior and periodically summarizing your empathic sense of what they think, feel, and need at the moment without judgment. Here empathic signals that your present communication aims are to (a) sense as well as you can nonjudgmentally what it’s like to be the speaker now. Then (b) summarize your impressions of this from time to time as they talk, without comments, interpretations, or questions. Stay aware that you’re not “giving in” or agreeing with the speaker by doing this! Doing this to ensure clear understanding can be called a “hearing check.”
To me, you aren’t just nodding and summarizing. You are trying to empathize by placing yourself in that person’s shoes and trying understand their pain or frustration. You may not agree with their perceptions, but you can still remain unopinionated and unbiased.
As for a woman’s need to feel validated, I so think you should put this book on your “To Read” list. I have learned that, when I don’t get the response from Trint that I’m looking for, especially when I feel the need for someone to be on my side, I tell him so. “Honey, the response that I really needed from you was….” That way, next time, he’ll know. Or I’ll start out with my expectations. “Hon, I really need to vent and I would appreciate it if you would just listen and not take it personally. I am just really frustrated right now.”
Men are fixers and tend to take it personally when we vent even when we are so not blaming them. They feel responsible. So just letting them know that they aren’t and that all you really need is an ear helps.
On the other end, women have a tendency to offer up advice when a man is blowing off steam about his frustrations. I’ve learned that this is, technically, unwanted advice. Women do this with other women so we assume that that is what we should do with our men. I’ve learned that this is just not so. I’ve learned to only offer advice when asked for it or I ask if he wants my advice first.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I wasn’t necessarily talking just about my interactions with Brad, but since I admit that’s how it sounded, here’s my response to Jess’ comment: I often try not to categorize myself and Brad into “man” and “woman” and then try to learn how to interact based on those generalizations. I try to understand me for me, him for him, and us for us. However, since generalizations are often true, I do allow myself to accept that most of the time we’re going to interact the way most men and women do, and why not use skills and techniques that others have suggested for male/female relationships?
And so yes, I do all of those things. I tell him that response I need, hoping that he’ll better understand me and my needs. I try to help him in the way he needs, not in the way I want to help him. Etc etc. And we’ve come a long way baby in the way of communication!
As for empathic listening, I’m still not convinced. Like I said, I can see the benefit of what it’s TRYING to accomplish (the understanding without judging or even necessarily agreeing), actually that’s exactly what I need and want most of the time. However, the skills that I was taught (whether correctly or incorrectly) seem very articifical and therefore ineffective. I’d rather have a real conversation with someone, than something that feels so scripted.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I have to laugh because I totally agree with you on the empathetic listening thing. I was just trying to shed new light in hopes that someone would find it useful and something worth implementing. It’s hard to do. The only time I’ve found it useful, and I’m not sure this can actually be considered empathetic listening, is when helping an irate student who has been torked off by someone other than myself. After listening to them rant about something that I had nothing to do with and have no control over, I offer my, “I can completely see how that could be very frustrating. Here is what I can do to help…..” in the current situation type thing.
Ok, I’ll shut up now. I’m of no help. LOL
January 19th, 2007 at 1:51 am
So you’re saying that Brad doesn’t always listen to you the way you intuitively want at that point in time, and you took a class through work to try to learn how to listen empathically. You’re saying that listening empathically didn’t work as well as the teacher told you it would, and instead just resulted in a lot of awkard conversations.
Interesting. I’ll give this empahtic listening a try.
January 19th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
maybe emphatic listening is for sociopaths in order to integrate them into the world and teach them how to fit in … lol …
i don’t know ~ i prefer the banter of discussion and arguing can be productive when done right and sometimes i want someone to fix it for me and sometimes i want to hear solutions even if i don’t use them …