Positive relationships with others play an essential role in our physical and mental health. As human beings, we need to relate to others, and as psychotherapists we strive to maintain an authentic, healthy therapeutic relationship with our clients in order to help them relate in agreement with themselves and in contact with others. The significance of empathy as an intuitive-affective connection between oneself and another (individual or group) has been widely recognized. Carl Rogers considered empathy to be one of three necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic success. In transactional analysis, Barbara Clark (1991) talks about empathic transactions. An empathic transaction occurs when the therapist understands the client and the client has the experience of being understood.
In this workshop, we are going to take an experiential approach to exploring empathy. Based on theory drawn from neuroscience, humanistic psychology, and transactional analysis, we will focus on each participant’s way of experiencing an empathic interaction with another, understanding and being understood. The suggested activities are meant to develop empathy and the ability to recognize it in yourself and in others, as well as observation of how you experience verbal and nonverbal empathic transactions.
This workshop is open to anyone interested in personal development and the topic.
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