Empathy is the thread with which therapy is weeded
We have heard many times about its importance in social relations, its powerful effects on communicating with others, the need to integrate it into our lives as indispensable, however, little we hear about the weight it occupies in a psychotherapeutic relationship, and how without empathy, the therapy ship is drifting, far from its place in the world , departs from the forecast.
- The therapist’s empathy for his patients is as necessary and vital to its functioning as the air we breathe is as it is for us; it’s an asset we can’t do without.
However, even if he is in therapy, the patient often feels lost, feels that his life goes without a specific course, without a very powerful and visible light under which to guide his steps, his journey begins to be full of attempts. between the darkness of the road and the little flashes of light that appear on your ditches.
The therapist can only accompany you on this path, this path he chose between circumstances and his willingness to learn the life lessons that will build him as a person, it is often thought that the job of a psychologist is to get the person out of that uncertain path. you are in: to facilitate the motivation to move away from the times when you only need to live for the benefit of your own growth.
Walking through life uncertainly is natural and human, we must not be afraid of it. Life is like a river that changes course, but always advances, sometimes it becomes a fragile stream, but others, right after a good storm, regain the strength of the past.
Even the way a river moves is uncertain. His blind impulse and confidence in flooded lands are the driving force behind this hesitant path, as changing as our lives.
“The least common thing in this world is to live. Most people exist, that’s all. -Oscar Wilde-
Something similar happens with psychotherapy. The person will feel lost several times, but it is very different to feel lost being accompanied than to feel so without the support and support of someone, only the presence of the psychotherapist will not allow the patient to feel accompanied, the patient feels accompanied while the Therapist repeats each of his children that transmits, having an empathetic attitude and respecting the rhythm of the patient is fundamental in this process.
A few years ago I heard a beautiful metaphor about the process of accompaniment to therapy, who said that he was a grieving psychologist whom I deeply appreciate and admire, said that the patient, or the person who brings us his pain, throws us a series of threads Yes, like the threads of a ball of wool. Throw them at your own pace, sometimes it takes time to throw them, sometimes they do it all of a sudden.
“The task we must consider is not to be sure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity. -Erich Fromm-
The therapist picks up these threads that the patient throws at him, but far from leaving them out, he makes them each with a feat for himself. Gradually the threads intersect and the craftsmanship is formed. This personalized loom will be the one that will support him, and on him, on future occasions, the patient will be able to support himself. The profession they have both created is a metaphor for the therapeutic relationship.
The therapeutic relationship cannot be understood without empathy, empathy is this medium, it is this wonderful loom on which the therapeutic process advances, every gesture, every emotion, every thought, every need is heard, understood and forwarded in a clearer, sharper and clearer way. more tightly to the person in front of us.
The therapist does not sail on a different boat, he is on the same boat as his patient and they sail together. He accompanies her on this uncertain and vivid journey.
If I don’t give you back every thread the patient sends me, I won’t be able to build a relationship of trust and safety with him, we won’t be in tune and the patient, far from seeing me as someone close to him. , will end up seeing me as a distant, nebulous figure you can’t trust.
But come back, you have to listen. We need to hear every move from our patients. People speak several different languages. We talk to every part of our body without having to say a single word with our mouths, you have to listen to each of these languages.
What does it mean to help? Help is an art, like all art, requires a skill that can be learned and exercised, it also requires empathy for the person who comes to seek help, that is, we must understand what is right for him and, at the same time, transcend him and orient him towards a more global context. -Bert Hellinger-
It is necessary to master this wisdom which, in many situations, we have not been taught in the profession or in books, is a much more subtle and intuitive language. We need to understand that the channel of life also passes through these places, and that’s why we have to stay there with our patients, only then can we listen to them and understand them.
It is in this empathetic understanding that the therapeutic relationship is built, as Mariano Yela said in the foreword to a book by Carl Rogers and Miriam Kinget:
“The psychotherapist does not sanction, censor, judge or act for the patient, shows him the ways or the farm; lives with him his conflicts and problems, trying to understand the personal meaning he has for the other. Doesn’t the patient find anything to keep him away from himself or to make him hide?
The therapy process is therefore unique and personal, there are no standardized response packages or universal techniques, each person is unique in himself and we must always adapt to them, we must accompany him on this journey that life entails, with all its diversity of moments. .