Developing Skills for Demonstrating Empathy
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Training Description
Professionals working with people who have abused are typically empathic people. However, having clients feel heard, understood, and respected can be a challenge. This interactive 1.5-hour workshop explores specific steps in improving empathic responding at the front lines of treatment and supervision. It takes place in a warm and friendly environment where no one is expected to have the right answers; it’s better if you don’t! Research has found that clinicians often believe themselves to be more effective with their clients than they actually are. In one 1997 study, Tony Beech and Claire Fordham found that therapists working with clients who had sexually abused believed themselves to be more empathic and better leaders than their clients believed them to be. Meanwhile, professionals around the world strive to be empathic, but don’t necessarily leave their clients feeling heard, understood, and respected. This interactive workshop explores specific skills for formulating an understanding of a client’s experience, expressing it, gathering feedback on that understanding, and then refining that understanding. It reviews key skills such as summarizing statements, seeking elaboration, reflective listening, and “going upstream” – forming hypotheses about a client’s experience from often minimal information. The format blends didactic introduction of ideas with skills rehearsal in a warm, friend, supportive, and directive environment.
Trainer Biography
Mr. David Prescott is the Clinical Services Development Director for the Becket Family of Services. He is the National Adolescent Perpetration Network (NAPN) Chairman and 2018 recipient of NAPN’s C. Henry Kempe Lifetime Achievement award. He is a past president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and 2014 recipient of that organization’s Distinguished Contribution award. Mr. Prescott has authored and edited 20 book projects and lectures around the world.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to…
- Describe “going upstream” while considering the seemingly unmotivated client and formulating responses.
- Identify 4 ways to formulate reflective statements.
- Discuss the difference between expressing empathy and being empathic.
