Empathic responding

Ok when I come across useful things when pursuing my counselling course I would like to share with my friends.

I learnt about this Carkhuff rating scale that measures the empathy of responses rendered, when listening to someone describes an event which affects them. The higher the rating the deeper the empathy.

For example if a girl laments:
"Mum and dad are just too strict. I'm nearly 17, and I'm not allowed to go out at night, not even with girlfriends. My friends at school all go out and I can't understand why I'm not allowed to"

A 1.0 response eg: "Don't be like that. Your parents know what is best for you" diminishes her problem and will certainly stop the girl from talking further as she feels misunderstood. Self disclosure like "I was also controlled by my parents when I was a teenager" is also unrelated to her feelings and is rated 1.0.

A 1.5 response which gives advice too early eg. "why don't you have a heart to heart talk with your parents" is too quick without trying to understand the issue and doesn't convey empathy.

A 2.0 response just restates the content without describing her feelings, eg "oh so your parents are quite strict with you"

A 2.5 response empathises her feelings, eg. " So you are furious with your parents" . This remark will draw out more content from her and she will either affirm or clarify her real feelings.

A 3.0 response empathises her feelings and describes the content as well, eg. "So you feel furious because your parents controls your movement excessively" If an accuracy of feeling and content is achieved the girl will feel understood and will go on elaborating.
Responses that include a feeling are rated higher as acknowledging an emotion encourages the helpee to further explore her issues.

I often find myself giving 1.0 and 1.5 responses to my children. No wonder they sometimes stop short and refuse to talk further.

Hope above is useful, haha