Barbara Temaner Brodley. Ph.D.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Experienced client-centered therapists and other students of Carl Rogers' theory of therapy generally agree that the client-centered conception of empathic understanding gives great emphasis and importance to the client's feelings in the therapy process. Rogers' writings about client-centered therapy include major references to feelings (e.g., Rogers, 1959). Concerning empathic understanding, Rogers says that "the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that the client is experiencing..." (Rogers, 1980, p. 116). The precise meaning of "feelings" and the precise function of the language of feelings, however, is not clearly articulated by Rogers and others when describing empathic understanding in client-centered therapy. The meaning and the function of "feelings" in regard to empathic understanding is, consequently, somewhat confusing to students. It is particularly misunderstood when Rogers is interpreted to be advocating that the therapist respond to the "hot" emotions or feelings in the client's communication (Zimring, 1990, p. 436). 1n fact, Rogers' conception of empathy is different and more complex than simply responding to feelings. Rogers (1980) said:
... being empathic is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto ... it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them ... (p. 140).
We found that Rogers uses words in his empathic responses that are not feeling words in the precise sense but are words that express dispositions (such as "prefer," "alienate," "seduce"), evaluations (such as "denigrate," 'value," "assess") and volitions (such as "determine," "resist," "reject") in approximately forty-eight percent (48%) of his empathic responses. On the basis of our research findings and careful reading of Rogers’ writings it appears to be more accurate, when discussing client-centered empathy, to talk in terms that do not over-generalize the meaning of "feelings.” Instead, it seems to be more faithful to Rogers' theory and his therapy behavior to clarify that Rogers' empathic responses emphasize or explicitly state the client’s perceptions and the ways in which the client is an agent or source of reactions. Rogers' empathic following of the client, we find, tends to pick up on the way in which the client is an source agency or a source of what we have called "actions of personality" (Brodley & Brody, 1990). The client as agency is represented, of course, by expressions of feelings as well as other experiences which constitute actions of personality.
Our study found that approximately ninety percent (90%) Rogers' empathic following responses explicitly or implicity communicate that Rogers is understanding the client as an agent, or source of reactions. Seventy percent (70%), approximately, are found to be explicit and approximately twenty percent (20%) are implicitly or indirectly expressed. Another way of saying this is that ninety percent (90%) of Rogers' empathic responses either use specific words that express actions of personality (words for feelings, dispositions, evaluations, volitions or other forms) or they implicitly or indirectly express actions of personality that represent what the client has been communicating. We also found that Rogers' clients correct his empathic responses less than one percent (1%) of the times Rogers makes an empathic response to them. From this observation, and the observation that Rogers' clients frequently acknowledge the accuracy of his empathic responses, we believe that Rogers' empathic responses are perceived as accurate by his clients most of the time. Consequently it seems justified to infer that Rogers' clients feel understood largely because he is picking up on the way they are expressing themselves as agents or sources of reactions. And it is notable that feelings are only a portion of the clients' experiences as agents.
It seems correct to say
that empathic understanding in client-centered therapy is understanding of the
client's perceptions and the client’s self as agency. In therapy interaction,
as the client discloses and lays out for the therapist his or her situation,
there is (interspersed within, before or after the information about situations,
events, people and things) communication concerning the client’s subjective
reactions and subjective actions in relations to the situations, etc. However,
it is not until the client expresses his or her reactions and subjective actions
that the therapist has the information needed for truly empathic
understanding. It may clarify this point to give examples of different client
communications which offer different kinds of information relevant to the
question of what makes understanding truly empathic understanding. Rogers
produces empathic responses that are purely information about situations,
events, people or things in approximately five percent (5%) of his empathic
following responses. Such pure information responses are, usually, responses to
client statements which are
equally purely informational. These client statements do not reveal the client's reactions or any other form of the client's relation to what he or she is talking about. An example of a client statement that conveys only information about events is as follows: "He called me up at work and wanted to see me again."
It should be apparent that this statement, in itself, does not give expression to the client's feelings or other possible reactions to or about this event. It is possible, and is often the case, that such a "pure" informational type statement by a client does convey the client’s reactions if the client has previously informed the therapist about the meaning this event has had in the past or about the meaning the client predicts it will have if it occurs in the future. But, standing alone it does not tell the listener what it means to the client, or what reactions the client is having to the event.
The information offered strictly within the client statement mentioned above does not provide the kind of information that permits true empathic understanding of the client at that moment. The client-centered therapist might offer a following type of response of the type our research has classified as a "pure information” empathic following response, such as "He called.” As mentioned above, Rogers occasionally produces this type of response. But it appears to serve almost the same role as "umhum," "OK," and "yeah" responses which simply signal the therapist is attentive and attempting to follow. A slightly different client statement, than the one illustrated above, that gives some slight information that could be the basis for true empathic understanding is as follows: He finally called me up and wanted to see me again.
The "finally" communicates some degree of the client’s reaction to the event. However, it does not express enough information to know exactly what experiences (meanings, feelings, other reactions) are alluded to in the "finally." The therapist might make a true empathic response to this communication, although it would be limited in its differentiation of meanings. The therapist might respond by saying "Finally!" which could communicate to the client the therapist's sense that the client had some strong feelings about the call and that the client had been wafting to hear from the man.
Alternatively, the client-centered therapist might simply absorb the "finally," maintain empathic attention to the client and wait for more material that expresses the client’s reactions, thoughts, feelings, or whatever other form of the client's agency might be expressed. The following example of a client statement expresses information that is differentiated in respect the client's reactions and, consequently makes it possible for the therapist to empathically understand the client in the moment.
Client: He called me up at work and wanted to see me again. (pause) Finally! (pause) I was so busy I couldn't talk but a minute, but I was emotionally all over the place and couldn't concentrate for the rest of the afternoon. (pause) I'm such a sap! He's a complete asshole, but I'm dying to see him.
Putting aside the organization and thrust of the client's agency in this example, the elements that could contribute to true empathic understanding of the client are: "Finally!;" "emotionally all over the place;" "couldn't concentrate;" "I'm such a sap!;"'He's a complete asshole;" "I'm dying to see him.” Notably, none of these statements directly and explicitly state a feeling, although the client's entire statement is pregnant with allusion to the expression of feelings. There are several possible empathic responses which a therapist might make to check his or her understanding of what the client has been expressing. One possible response is:
Therapist: You feel you're a fool to want a person who upsets you so badly, but ... you do want him!
Another response, that might express and check the therapist's inner empathic understanding is:
Therapist: You got what you were waiting for, but it brings with it a lot of mixed feelings.
Only the client can tell us which of those responses feel most accurate, but it is likely that either of them, on face value, would be accepted by the client as representing the therapist's sincere intentions to try to understand. The important point, in the illustrations, is that the client's statements revealed her reactions, her agency, in respect to the situation of being called and in the context of the call, and it was these elements in what she said that permitted an experience of and an act of empathic understanding on this therapist's part.
Most of Rogers' responses to his clients express his immediate grasp of the client's reactions to, or agency in respect to, what the client is talking about. As noted above, a small percentage of Rogers' responses are purely informational following responses, such as "He called you." Information responses are occasional forms of response that occur in a client-centered therapist's sequence of empathic following interactions with a client. But this form of response would not be likely to be experienced as empathic understanding if this form were the only form of response in the interaction. The reality of, and the client's perception of, empathic understanding depends upon the therapist communicating his or her understanding of the aspects of the client’s communication in which the client is directly or indirectly expressing his or her relation to their situation and, in that way, expressing his or her self as agency –self as actor or reactor to the situations being disclosed.
Intention of the Therapist and an Effect of Empathy
The client-centered therapist's immediate intention when making an empathic response is to check, test or verify the accuracy of his or her subjective empathic understanding. This is done by making a statement that represents the therapist's inner understanding, presenting it to the client for the client's verification, correction or motivation (Rogers, 1986). A clear and obvious effect of a sequence of interactions between client and therapist, in which the therapist makes empathic understanding responses, is that the client elaborates and reveals more of his or her phenomenal world to the therapist. Empathic understanding responses tend to facilitate more client communication concerning his or her self, situations and experiences. There is, in addition to the facilitative effect mentioned, another effect upon clients of the therapist empathically following. This observed effect is that clients tend to become more consistently and intently focused on and expressive of the experiential source of what they are talking about.
In other words, there is a focusing effect of client-centered empathic work, even though this is not the intention of the therapist when making empathic responses. The focusing effect of therapist’s empathic understanding can be considered desirable from the point of view of Rogers' process version of change in client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1958, 1961; 1980; Gendlin, 1964). It must be emphasized, however, that although the focusing effect is notable and may be considered theoretically desirable -- the focusing effect on the client is not deliberately intended by the therapist and is not the reason the therapist makes an empathic response. The empathic intention of the client-centered therapist is to acceptantly understand. Rogers is very clear in his writings that the client-centered therapist has no goals for his or her clients. The therapist's goals are strictly goals for him or herself -- to experience and offer the attitudinal conditions of congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding in the relationship with the client (Baldwin, 1986, p. 47). The focusing effect of empathic understanding is serendipitous even though predictable.
The Connections Between True Empathy
Feelings and Experiencing
The therapist's acts of true empathic understanding, in themselves, tend to stimulate clients to be in touch with the underlying experiential source of their self- disclosures and self-representations. The client hears the therapist's empathic response and checks his or her experiencing to find out whether or not the therapist's perception of the client is consistent with what the client was trying and meaning to express. Rogers states that this phenomenon is based on a characteristic of human functioning. He says:
... at all times there is going on in the human organism a flow of experiencing to which the individual can turn again and again as a referent in order to discover the meaning of those experiences (Rogers, 1980, p. 141).
This checking with the flow of experiencing is not a self-conscious process for most people. Whether or not the client is conscious of this checking process, the client-centered therapist plays a role that enhances this natural process.
In client-centered interactions the therapist articulates his or her grasp of the client’s disclosure. This attempt to find out if his or her subjective empathic understanding is accurate or not stimulates the client towards awareness of the qualities and contents of his or her own experiencing. The key element in this stimulation of awareness of experiencing is the emphasis on the client as agent actor and reactor. In any interaction, if we are trying to understand the other empathically, we find ourselves making statements that include references to the other as agent such as "you want," "you feel," "you think," "you know," "you reject," "you wonder," "you were full of conflicting reactions," etc. In these references we ask the other person to attend to themself as a source and thereby attune the person to their source -- what Rogers calls "experiencing" (Rogers, 1959). Without attending to experiencing, the other person cannot authentically agree nor disagree with our empathic statement.
The checking within process, that is stimulated frequently by the therapist's empathic responses, is a focusing act on the part of the client. Such focusing acts recur over and over in the client-centered empathic following process, To the extent the external foci (such as the therapist's ideas about the client), the process of empathic following facilitates the client's focus on his or her experiential source and or the client's self as agency. Another observation from our research that contributes to clarifying the connection between empathy, experiencing and feelings in client-centered therapy is that Rogers uses the words "feel," "feels," "feeling," and "feelings" in more than half of his empathic following responses. He does so in responses that do not include words or phrases that communicate specific feelings. Examples of the usage of “feel," etc. in Rogers' interviews are as follows:
Rogers: You feel there's so little chance of anyone else really understanding you. (Dione)
Rogers: You'd like to be aware of your feelings about these demands, right at the time they happen instead of having bright thoughts afterwards. (Munn)
Rogers: You feel at a state. And when you work through some of the other things in the background, that may straighten out too. (Ett)
Rogers: A really contradictory feeling that "I don't want to be a person who just gives in to all demands and, yet, feeling "that's the only chance I have of being loved." (Munn)
These examples of Rogers' empathic responses illustrate that he uses the words "feel," etc., in several ways in his responses. One way he uses these words is as synonyms for "think," "believe," "imagine," "know," or "perceive," etc. This synonym usage carries the message that there are emotions or feelings or "emotionalcomponents" associated with the client’s thoughts, beliefs, etc., although they are not explicitly stated. A second way Rogers uses the words "feel," etc., in his empathic responses, is to refer to an inner experience -- in the realm of experiencing -- of the client without naming ft. For example:
Rogers: You'd like to be aware of your feelings about...
A third way Rogers uses "feel," etc., in empathic responses is to refer to an experience that Rogers does express in the particular empathic response, although the experience is not expressed with a work for feeling. For example:
Rogers: A... feeling that I don’t want to be a person who just gives in…
In this usage of “feeling” what is referred to in the client’s experience is not expressible with a word for feeling because the experience is too complex or involves meanings that evoke feelings for which, in English at any rate, there are no single words.
Another way Rogers uses the words "feel," etc., is as an introduction to an empathic following response. The empathic response itself may or may not include words for feelings, dispositions, evaluations, volitions or other kinds of agency words. Introductions with "feel," etc., are heuristic or at least expressive of the way the remainder of the empathic response refers to experiencing. Each of the usages of "feel," etc., which are so frequent in Rogers’ empathic responses tend to attune the client the client's own experiencing. The usages take advantage of the way in which "feel," etc. allude to a source of responses in the self within the English language. This is not to suggest that Rogers is consciously trying to direct or instruct his clients to attend experiencing. Rather, ft is a pattern of verbal behavior that does, along with the agency feature of empathic responses, contribute tothe observation that client-centered work has the effect of attuning clients to their own experiencing.
Summary
There is more to client-centered empathy that discriminating the client's feelings out of the matrix of the client's communications. The goal of therapist empathic understanding requires the therapist to perceive the client's representations of his or her self as an agent -- as an actor and reactor in the subjective realm. Understandings are not truly empathic in any situation unless the agency element in the person's communication is perceived. A major natural effect on the client of being empathically understood is a focusing effect. Empathic attunement stimulates the person who perceives they are being understood in the way to attend to their own experiencing and to represent themselves more acutely from their experiencing. The emphasis on the client as agent in empathic responses is key to the focusing effect.
In addition to the focusing effect of empathic recognition of the client as agent, the ways in which Rogers uses the words "feel," "feels," "feeling," "feelings" tend to allude to and attune the client to his or her experiencing. Both of these features of Rogers' empathy reveal Rogers attention to the client as agent and attunement to the client’s experiential source in his relationships with his clients. It is crucial for correct understanding of Rogers' therapy, however, to realize that these focusing effects in Rogers (and in other client-centered therapists') behavior are not techniques. Nor should these phenomena be adopted as techniques for, if they are, then the therapist has stepped outside of client-centered therapy. It is hoped that these observations may clarify the nature of empathic understanding and the role of feelings in client-centered therapy.
References
Baldwin, M. (1987). Interview with Carl Rogers on the use of self in therapy. In M. Baldwin and V. Satir (Eds.) The Use of Self in Therapy, New York: The Hawthorn Press.
Brodley, B., & Brody, A. (1990). Understanding client-centered therapy through interviews conducted by Carl Rogers. Paper presented for the panel Fifty Years of Client-Centered Therapy: Recent Research, at American Psychological Association annual meeting in Boston, MA, August.
Brody, A. F. (1991). A study of ten interviews conducted by Carl Rogers. Clinical Research Paper in the partial fulfillment of requirements for the Psy. D. at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, Illinois.
Gendlin, E. T. (1964). A theory of personality change. In P. Worchel and D. Byrne (Eds.), Personality Change, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Rogers, C. R. (1958). A process conception of psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 13, 142149. Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed)., Psychology: A Study of a Science. Vol. 111, Formulations of the Person in the Social Context. New York: McGraw Hill.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). A process conception of psychotherapy. In Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1980). Empathic: An unappreciated way of being. In
Carl Rogers, A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1980). The foundations of a person-centered approach. In Carl Rogers, A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1986). Reflection of feelings. Person-Centered Review, 1, 375-377.
Zimring, F. (I990). A characteristic of Rogers' response to clients. Person-Centered Review, 5,433-448.