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[Note: Please see the request for help from Interactive Focusers following this article]

I am in the midst of doing a study about how different kinds of listening responses are experienced by both the Focuser/client and Listener/therapist.

This is part of that study:

I had left a message for Kevin about a week ago telling him about a project I am working on and asking him if he could get something to process with me interactively, hopefully, something between us.

My project design was simple, but what I am tracking is the most complex part of the therapy process: If our intention is to listen with empathy, and if we think that empathy provides a good enough environment in which healing can occur, how is this conveyed? What do we do in the form of our listening presence and praxis that provides that which will be experienced as an empathic container? And it would be important to note that empathy needs to be experienced on both sides, on the side of the Focuser/client and on the side of the Listener/therapist.

The design was based on the feeling I have that, in the Interactive Focusing process, there is a distinct difference between what is done and what happens during the reflective responses and what is done and what happens during the empathic response of the double empathic moment.

I wanted to track this experientially. I wanted Kevin to choose something to process with me. I wanted to first listen with reflective responses. I then wanted to continue to the double empathic moment and share our empathic responses. When we came this far, I wanted to experientially process how the listening was for him, what happened for him and what happened between us in terms of feeling heard, feeling understood and in terms of relationship. I, of course, wanted some comment on the quality of felt empathy. I wanted him to comment on the reflective responses first and then on the empathic response.

In addition, I wanted to experientially process what happened for me, the listener, in both instances, following the same set of questions I asked of Kevin, the Focuser.

The Interaction-

When I called Kevin yesterday, he did have something. It was about my setting up an appointment to call him to have an Interactive process some weeks ago and then forgetting or missing it.

Initially, I think he tried to say it with less of a sting than it had for him, but as he fully entered into his process, he was able to touch into how distressing it was for him. As I continued to reflect, staying as close to his words as possible, he spun a web that wound back to something like the feeling of getting himself all prepared, revving up his engine, and then there was no phone call…then there was no place to go, and he didn’t know how to damp down his engine. He was full and empty at the same time…full of anticipation and preparation, empty of the fulfillment of the promise.

As he peeled away the layers, he felt a lack of respect. That was an old and tender place for him which he attributed to being the last of six children by ten years, probably unplanned and possibly unwanted. Then he touched into a place where the "having nothing to do" often left him…a critical voice about being a slacker.

As he went deeper, he realized that he had an honest and true way of finding his way and that was by getting to the "nothing to do." It was his time, and now he could do anything he wanted…which made him almost gleeful.

He found two opposite and contradicting things coming up for him. First came the "Oh, no" of disappointment about the missed appointment and the feeling of being disrespected. He interpreted the missing of an appointment as a loss of interest or a devaluing of what he was offering. This was based on his work as a therapist when he would notice clients start to come late and miss appointments and then stop coming completely. He took it as a personal criticism without weighing in all the possible other factors such as not having the money, becoming too busy with essential jobs to fit the appointment in and so on.

Next, it came to him, "Oh, good." A missed appointment meant that he could do whatever he wanted with his time…after he got over his initial inertia. He had some fear of not doing anything which came with self-doubt and self-criticism. He described himself as having the kind of energy described by Newton’s Law of Inertia: A body at rest tends to remain at rest. A body in motion tends to remain in motion. Sometimes his body in motion was filled with shoulds and oughts. But his body at rest, his meandering, was at his own pace in his own way.

As I listened, mostly reflecting his exact words but occasionally paraphrasing, more and more came to Kevin. He got an epiphany, actually…not easy to come by, but not that infrequent in our Interactive Focusing sessions. He realized that these missed appointments, these disappointments could actually be filled with opportunity and possibility…and it required a right attitude on his part to accept them as such and welcome them.

I listened out of a grounded place, a place of neutrality toward the issue even though it raised quite a bit of feelings and touched my own ancient woundings. I could do this because I wanted to hear Kevin empathically, from his side, because I knew it was my job as a listener to hear his voice and not my own and because I knew that I would get a chance to tell Kevin my story in relation to all this…not whine and wheedle…but to share my experience, my pain, my struggle. And when I did, I knew that Kevin would be listening to me and not himself.

During the empathic moment, I had sensed that for Kevin, he had experienced an epiphany. This fit exactly where Kevin was, though he hadn’t come to this exact word. He was experiencing the glee of knowing that he could "let go into his own space and it was filled with possibility" when time "opened up" for him due to a "cancellation." He could take this energy that had been generated to meet the work of the appointment to fashion something just for himself.

At this point, we broke away from the model to pursue my project. I wanted to know how the different kinds of listenings were experienced. How did Kevin experience me, what did reflective responses do for or against him. I wanted to know, by comparison, how the empathic response was for him…how was I in it for him, how did he experience me…and how did he experience himself in both kinds of listening. I especially wanted to know what the quality of empathy was as he sensed them in the two kinds of listening responses, the reflections vs. the empathic response.

I find Kevin to be very sensitive to his experience and excellent at capturing it in fresh, challenging and stimulating descriptions. As he sensed into how the listening had been for him, he came up with the following:

When he heard his words reflected back, it helped him go deeper into his issue, peel the layers of the onion. There was a deepening…a discovering of his deeper self. He sensed me as "invisible," a sense of neutrality. However, when I paraphrased rather than mirrored, something else happened. The paraphrases were experienced as what he called a "hologram." He felt seen and heard. The "more" in him was tapped into. He was connected with the "greater" or "big" me (referring to himself). With both the reflections and paraphrasing, it was about Kevin and not about me, my listening or the connection between us.

When we got to the empathic moment, I sensed Kevin as having what I named an "epiphany." He took that word from the empathic response in and realized that is just what happened for him, but he hadn’t named it as such. It was very powerful. For his part, he went further into the "Oh, good," and the possibilities that offered. It was the first time he saw it this way…that was the epiphany.

There was a "meshing" of "epiphany" with the "opening up" he had discovered when he went inside to be empathic to himself. He felt it was "true" and contained a shift in consciousness for him.

I asked Kevin to continue to explore how the empathic response was experienced by him. At first he said he was nervous. He sensed "risk." Maybe I wouldn’t get it. He was afraid it would pull him off his own center, that he would have to comply with the understanding of him that I presented.

When I had given him my empathic understanding, naming the "epiphany" I sensed Kevin experienced, Kevin’s fears dissolved. This took him into the "more" than Kevin. This was different from the deepening experience he discovered inside of himself after the reflections. His own empathic moment meshed with the "epiphany," he "opened up" and he couldn’t stop talking. He was carried along by a surge of energy around his discoveries.

He recalled that my empathic response included "healthy" vs. "unhealthy." This "reassured" him that his "Oh, good," had a very healthy component.

When he compared the level of empathy in the reflections vs. the empathic response, it was muted in the reflections. It was about him, I carried no authority over him, I was experienced as transparent. His experience stayed with himself.

In the empathic response, he felt a different level of vulnerability, the fear that it might come with an agenda. What he actually experienced was more of my presence. Only after the empathic response did he experience the opening up to the potential, the possibilities. He called the reward of the empathic moment the recognition that he isn’t alone in his experience; there is an us, a collective us or "us-ness" as he called it. He experienced no agenda on my part.

He referred to the empathic moment as a kind of love, but not romantic love which he says comes with an agenda. This was more spiritual. It lacked what he called sentimentality. He felt supported, connected but not enmeshed.

He was reminded of the quote I attribute to the theologian Paul Tillich about becoming a person in the presence of another person and in no other way. He said that he understood but didn’t feel his personhood until the empathic moment when he felt understood…he felt understood by another person.

I want to share what happened for me during the different parts of the process that require these different listening responses. I believe it is essential to share both sides (Focuser and listener) to explore this subject to any depth. After all, empathy only happens when two or more are present…even if the second person is another part of ones self.

What I remember about listening when it was just the reflections, was the wanting to get it right…not so much to get it empathically or compassionately or with acceptance. Getting it right interfered with the pure getting how it was for Kevin; it interfered with listening purely from the bodysense though that was my intention. That he experienced me as transparent or neutral fit for me. I was concentrating on his stuff but almost at an academic level, even though I was trying to listen from my own bodysense. Though I was touched by his story, both because it was about something I had done, distress I had caused, and, also, because Kevin was suffering distress or pain, I don’t think that that while I was giving reflections I was really getting how it was for Kevin from his side. I was more making sense of it…probably in my head. And yet, there is also some way that just getting the listening responses opened me up to the possibility of the empathic moment…the moment where I would concentrate myself, drop down inside and do nothing but try to sense into how all of that (the story he shared) was for Kevin.

There was a clear demarcation for me when I went inside to form the empathic response. Now I was sensing into it from Kevin’s side. Now empathic imagination came into play. I was letting my bodysense wander inside Kevin’s story. Before, during the reflections, there was some reaction even though I kept trying to clear the listening space of my own stuff. There was the effort to be accurate which felt more mundane or pedestrian. Finally, at the empathic moment, something more elevated entered, something more identified with the poetics of life, the beauty of it.

There is something quite separate about being a mirror, the part we perform when we are making reflective responses, and about being a container, the part we perform when we are making the empathic response. Letting the other person into myself at the level of creativity transcends boundaries without losing separateness. Really getting how it was for Kevin opened up a large space in me to let him in, let his experience in, savor his experience and see more of him. It had the excitement of a fresh vision…seeing the ocean for the first time…something very young about it. I have often thought that empathy is the path to personal if not transpersonal enlargement, seeing the larger world beyond my own personal and limited experience.

I realized that I offered my empathic response with some trepidation: Would this really be how it was for Kevin? Yet I offered it with the excitement of really wanting to know how it was for Kevin…so accepting of any feedback that might come. Empathic alignment, being on the same path, has such a joining quality about it…as Kevin said, an "us-ness." There is something very precious about the switch from "me" to "us." I can actually identify it in that empathic moment. The moment before, it is "me." The moment after, it is "us." There is great, positive energy in that shift. I feel that it is this positive energy that lets the interaction continue in its most healing direction. I found that rather than wanting to defend myself or counterattack Kevin, I wanted to share something deep and personal about what happens for me about appointment keeping and the disappointment of appointment breaking.

As I look back over the reported outcomes or experiences of Kevin and myself, I realize that I am not awfully surprised. If I had thought about it, I might have predicted something like this because I have been practicing Focusing and listening for some time. What does surprise me is that we (I, the rest of the Focusing community, psychologists, etc.) haven’t asked these questions before: How do the different kinds of listening responses feel and make you feel? What kinds of listening responses feel empathic and what does empathy feel like? What listening responses help move your process forward and which ones get in the way? Trying to root it out experientially, first hand from the participant, is exciting and insightful. It feels like I am starting to ask right questions, and I am most curious to hear where these questions will lead.

I am hoping that you will enter into my study. I ask that you pay attention to how you experience various listening responses during an Interactive Focusing Session.

1. How is it when you receive reflective responses that are almost exactly what you said?
2. How is it with synonyms?
3. How is it with paraphrases?
4. Has something other than reflections entered in such as guiding suggestions (for example: Can you make room for both of those things to be here? Can you find the right distance from that thing? etc.), interpretations, instructions, fix-it statements, and so on? If so, how was that for you?
5. What is the quality of empathy and connection? Were you feeling understood?

1. What is the felt quality of the empathic response?
2. What is the felt quality of empathy as you compare it to what happened for you in the reflective responses? Perhaps you could comment on your sense of connection and of being understood.

During Part I — Giving reflective responses:

1. How was it to be giving the reflection? What were you aware of? What was your sense of your struggle to form an accurate and appropriate reflection? How was it with exact reflections, paraphrasing, synonyms? Check how you experienced those.
2. If you offered guiding suggestions, how was that?
3. What was your sense of empathic understanding and connection?

1. How was it for you to form the empathic response?
2. What was your sense of empathic understanding and connection? That is, did you get a sense that you really understood the Focuser from her internal frame of reference? How did it feel to really understand someone from their side (even if your empathic response wasn’t directly on target and you needed feedback to get into empathic alignment)?