1.1 - Welcome
This short course is offered by Liz Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist, through her website, LOVE LESSONS 365. This blog will contain my responses to various written reflection prompts that are provided throughout the course.
1.2 - What is Empathic Listening?
Empathic Listening is a communication tool (skill) that goes beyond general active listening skills and allows one to build connective listening with others. It’s rooted in creating intimacy and safety between people. Empathic Listening is a first step towards understanding, improving relationships, assisting with healing, as well as moving towards connection, compromise, and resolution.
Stressors come in and out of our lives and often a lack of being able to listen to one another lies at the root of these situations. Conflict arises when we don’t feel listened to, and when we don’t feel listened to, people often listen less.
Empathic Listening makes room for people to be able to understand one another on a deeply honest and authentic level. It’s about listening to hear. It’s about cultivating awareness of another’s emotions which inform what another person is saying. It’s about maintaining a safe space for deeper awareness and understanding. Specifically, Earnshaw notes how:
Empathic listening goes beyond just "actively listening" in order to "regurgitate" what was said and instead helps us to understand the true essence of what the other person is trying to convey.
Empathic Listening is also a skill that one can develop over the course of their lives.
Resource Videos…
The following are a few videos I found and watched on YouTube related to providing an overview of the topic of listening…
Artifact 01 - Video > Communication Coach Alexander Lyon. Empathetic Listening Skills. YouTube, 21 Jul 2020.
Artifact 02 - Video > Communication Coach Alexander Lyon. Active Listening Skills. YouTube. 16 Jun 2020.
Artifact 03 - Video > Communication Coach Alexander Lyon. Comprehensive Listening Skills. YouTube, 29 Jun 2020.