By Do you use empathic listening with others? Do they use it with you when you talk to your partner, friends or family? The truth is that there are many disruptors of this type of communication and we are not always aware of them. We will explain them to you.
Among the most basic human needs, two stand out: to be heard and to be understood. Our relationships would be more meaningful, sincere and transcendent if we took care of these two elements in our daily communication. In fact, if we were able to always apply active listening, the brain would develop a more compassionate and less selfish approach.
This psychological craft must be established in childhood, in the way caregivers address their children. Shaping a respectful interaction in which children feel that their words are important, appreciated and taken into account, builds better psychosocial development in them. On the other hand, ignoring, criticizing or undervaluing their communication isolates them and builds a worse self-concept.
Another phenomenon often appears in the difficult mechanism of effective communication; one that we hardly notice. Many of us may perceive ourselves as people who apply effective empathic listening when, in reality, this is not the case. There are dynamics that hinder and weaken it; they are unconscious enemies that we must take into account.
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
-Ernest Hemingway-
Ways we destroy empathic communication
Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychiatrist and founder of individual psychology, used to say that one skill a person must develop is to see with the other’s eyes, listen with the other’s ears, and feel with the other’s heart. This metaphor describes the very essence of empathy. However, it is not so simple to pay attention to the other person without completely removing ourselves from the equation.
Value judgments are often mixed in when we communicate with someone. Many of us realize this when, for example, when we explain how we feel to someone, they do not hesitate to give us advice on what we should do. Empathy is not judging, nor saving, nor advising; empathy is connecting with the person in front of us, being able to welcome them with respect.
Research from Louisiana State University highlights that active and empathetic listening is a highly valuable social skill that we should all develop. To do so, it is interesting to discover how we hinder it in our daily conversations. Let’s analyze it.
1. Tranquilizing, a way to block the experience
“Calm down, it’s nothing, don’t worry so much, it will pass.” Since when is it not correct to try to make the other person feel more relaxed and in a calmer emotional state? More than one person will think that nothing is more appropriate than telling someone who is suffering or worried that everything will be fine.
The truth is that one way we destroy empathic listening is when we try to alleviate or erase the other person’s discomfort . What we do is block their emotional experience. If we tell someone the classic “that’s nothing,” what we are doing is undervaluing what they are feeling at that moment.
2. Interrogate, indirect questioning
“But why do you feel like this? Why do you think this has happened to you? Are you sure that this is true?” Often, when we are sharing an experience with someone close to us, it is common for the conversation to turn into a KGB interrogation. The excess of questions from those who should be listening to us gives us the feeling that we are being questioned.
Listening empathetically requires listening respectfully and in silence , without asking questions that call into question the other person’s experience.
True empathic listening is like shaping an auditory mirror so that the other person can reflect themselves while communicating.
3. Giving advice, the eternal custom
In our relationships with others, we often encounter those figures who indoctrinate us, who do not hesitate to give us unsolicited guidance and guidelines on what we should or should not do. Empathetic communication does not ask for advice, it demands comprehensive listening in which no one imposes their point of view on us.
4. Analyze, probe the origin of the other’s experience
There are many ways in which we destroy empathic listening and one of them is when we try to play emotional forensics. It is another way of scrutinizing, breaking down and violating what the other person feels.
Seeking the reason and the trigger of another’s experience through cold intellectualism is another way of blocking the experience of our interlocutor.
5. Changing the subject, a painful form of invalidation
Have you ever tried to reveal or share a fact, a feeling or a thought with someone and found that they immediately changed the subject? What’s more, a recurring fact is seeing how a person takes a conversation to their own territory, leaving what you were saying in the corner of contempt.
This is a highly painful way we destroy empathic listening.
6. Fake empathy
“Really? Oh, I’m so sorry, what a terrible thing!” When it comes to connecting emotionally with someone, there are those who resort to interpretation to make us see that they understand our reality and our words. When this is not the case, they are affected attitudes, actors of false politeness that we usually detect immediately, making us feel uncomfortable and even hurt.
7. Closing expressions
Closing expressions are expressions that minimize and hinder the emotional experience of an interlocutor. In our conversations and even in our attempts to be empathetic, we make fatal mistakes that deny the other person the opportunity to continue to be honest.
“At least you have a job,” “at least you have your children,” “well, at least this or that didn’t happen to you,” “don’t worry, at least you’re still doing that.” These types of expressions disconnect people from their reality by imposing on them the idea that what they are expressing is not as significant as they think.
Knowing how to communicate through empathetic listening provides us with psychological oxygen. If we fail to apply this skill effectively, disagreements and discomfort will arise.
Final note
How do you communicate? It is very common to be aware of how certain people address us. However, we do not always carry out the necessary reflection and introspection to review our communication style. There are many ways in which we destroy empathic listening and sometimes we fall into them unconsciously.
When listening to others, we must put aside our judgments and our need to solve other people’s problems. It is advisable to lower the volume of our ego and the desire to direct the dialogue towards ourselves. Wisdom is also knowing how to listen. Taking care of each other implies understanding that, sometimes, we need to stop listening to ourselves in order to discover who we are facing.