Empathic failures are an everyday occurrence. We commit them
and others commit them with us. This raises a number of questions.
How can we commit them less? How can we help our loved ones
commit them less with us. How can we get better at noticing
when empathic failures have occurred? And how can we recover
from the damage caused when empathic failures occur? There
are multiple answers to all these questions. The thing to
keep in mind is that empathy is a learned skill. It can be
learned at any age. It is most easily learned as an infant
and small child. No one is born with empathy. Babies have
none. They just wail and piss and drool and the parents must
be the ones with the empathy. Gradually the parent's empathic
response to the child causes the baby to bond to the parent.
The bond causes the child to care about how the parent feels
and then the parent teaches the child what the parent likes
and dislikes, what pleases and does not please the parent.
And because of the parent's empathy and caring and the child's
consequent bond to the parent, the child develops empathy
for the parent. This is ideally what happens, but of course
it doesn't always play out this way. Parents being human and
some parents being more than a little flawed, the child's
learning of empathy often ends up flawed as well.
Obviously, we can learn to commit fewer empathic failures
if we can learn to be more empathic. At our advanced ages,
we do this by communicating with those we care about so that
they and we understand better what pleases and displeases
each other. Then, out of caring, we can follow this up with
a concerted effort to do more of what pleases and less of
what displeases. We can learn empathy by thinking more about
what the other might think and feel if we do or say this or
that. What tends to make this difficult of course is the fact
that we are each caught up in our own experience. This is
what makes it difficult for us to respond when someone else
commits an empathic failure with us and this is what makes
it difficult for us to notice when we are committing an empathic
error with the other person. Most of the time we just overlook
empathic failures. Maybe they hurt momentarily and we want
to say something, but that seems difficult and it is not our
problem. So we just move on. However, if we really care about
one another, we will not leave one another stranded in that
place of continuing to fail empathically with those they care
about. We will offer at least to give them some feedback.
And of course when someone offers feedback, most of us are
too curious to reject it and so an opportunity to learn and
grow is created.
With regard to noticing empathic failures, it is pretty easy
when it is the other person that has done it. It can be considerably
harder when we are the one that has committed the failure.
If we had known the empathic way to put something, we would
have put it that way. But we have empathic blinders. We see
the ones we see and we don't see the ones we don't see. Often
times we don't see things that are painfully obvious to others.
So, one way to get around our blinders, is to see the other's
pain. This may first appear to us in the form of a sense of
disconnect. We felt really engaged with them a minute ago
and now it feels like they aren't with us any more. They may
have fallen silent or grown restless or lost their smile or
begun to frown. It is a signal and we had best heed it.
Once we see that we have committed an empathic blunder, we
can attempt to repair it and to make amends. We do this first
of all by admitting our error. A little confession goes a
long way if the offense has not been too great. Secondly,
we can state our intention to not commit the same offense
again. We reinforce this by showing that we understand what
our empathic failure was and by showing that we understand
how to do things better. It is also helpful to show that we
know something about why we might have committed it. It is
helpful if we can understand and share with the other how
our learning of empathy may have been lacking. It is helpful
if we can demonstrate a determination to learn and do better.
Each of us is much better equipped to be forgiving and sympathetic
if we understand why the other person behaves the way they
do when their behavior is not to our liking.
Note: The thought occurred to me that as a result
of our discussions we could develop a list of guidelines for
responding empathically to others. But as I started to make
a sample list to get us started, it occurred to me that it
was a lot like the "Group Norms" list that we already
have. So let's take a look again at those!
Desired Outcome:
To commit fewer empathic failures, to get better at noticing
when we may have goofed by noticing other people's reactions
to us, and to get better and more consistent at clearing and
cleaning things up when we have goofed.
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
<< Articles
|
