ABSTRACT
In winning clients and launching them safely into the challenging process of therapy, nothing in the world proves more effective than empathic responding skills. Armed with the empathic skills, therapist trainees will become more receptive, understanding, responsive, and nurturing. These skills lay the groundwork for the pyramid of a therapist’s skill repertoire. This chapter presents nine of the most important empathic responding skills, with each illustrated by numerous examples:
Paraphrasing
Reflecting thought contents
Reflecting needs
Reflecting feelings
Perception checking
Affirming
Summarizing
Reflecting hidden feelings
Reflecting meaning
The two case illustrations at the end of the chapter will help trainees see how to combine all these nine empathic skills together when helping clients open up:
The case of Anna
The case of Janet
