The role of an empathic listener is to be supportive, kind and caring. Listen carefully and without judgment. Interject occasionally to show that you've understood what's being said. Where appropriate, repeat key phrases to encourage the speaker to open up.
A focus on both facts and feelings.
Empathic listening means being aware of, and understanding, the speaker's feelings and emotions, as well as the words that they are using. This means consciously trying to understand the meaning of what they are saying—but also what is behind the words, and what they are not saying.
Empathic Listening Example Phrases
“Thank you for trusting me with this information” or “thank you for sharing.” “I can relate to what you are going through.” “I understand why you may be feeling that way.” “I've been there, and I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this situation right now.”
Empathic listening is the practice of being attentive and responsive to others' input during conversation. Listening empathically entails making an emotional connection with the other person and finding similarities between their experience and your own so you can give a more heartfelt response.
The biggest mistake most people make when it comes to listening is they're so focused on what they're going to say next or how what the other person is saying is going to affect them that they fail to hear what's being said. The words come through loud and clear, but the meaning is lost.
An empathic listener works to keep the speaker from feeling or becoming defensive . To do this, avoid asking direct questions, arguing with what is being said, or disputing facts.
Do not interrupt, give advice, correct the person, shut down their feelings or do anything to stop them from speaking. Pay attention not only to the person's words, but also to tone of voice, body language and anything else that can help you understand their emotions.
The words empathetic and empathic mean the same thing. Empathic is the older word, but not by much—it was first used in 1909, while the first recorded of use of empathetic is from 1932. Both words are derived from empathy, and you can use them interchangeably.
Via The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You use your right brain as well as your left.
On this page you'll find 16 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to empathetic, such as: compassionate, sensitive, sympathetic, empathic, and feeling.
Empathetic Listening
Empathic listening is the highest level of listening and the one that requires that greatest amount of mental and emotional energy.
It: Builds emotional intelligence: When you practice empathetic listening, you become attuned to others' emotional experiences and can begin to understand their behavior more clearly and consider the best response. More specifically, it allows you to understand what your colleagues might need from you.
Because of our own centrality in our perceptual world, empathetic listening can be difficult. It's often much easier for us to tell our own story or to give advice than it is to really listen to and empathize with someone else.
What blocks empathy? Apathy blocks empathy, because empathy requires curiosity. If we don't care how others feel or are close-minded, we won't make the effort to understand. Apathy leaves us emotionally disconnected from others, which is bad for us.
The data from a growing body of research utilizing a wide variety of methods—including fMRI, lesion, and electrophysiological measures—indicate that the dorsolateral and frontopolar regions of the prefrontal cortex are involved in empathic processing.
A “deep feeler” is someone with sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). Another term for someone with this ability is highly sensitive person (HSP).
Empaths are individuals who are extremely perceptive of the feelings and emotions of people around them, which typically comes through some intuitive abilities.
The 3R's – Recognize, Relax and Reframe.