When a friend, family member, or fellow mental health provider is facing a stressful life event and showing signs of anxiety or depression, it is important for us to show that person some support. It seems almost intuitive that when someone you care about is hurting you should offer them some encouragement and ask them if there is anything that you can do to help. This common-sense idea is consistent with what we have learned while training to be therapists and it is backed by thousands of research studies. To make a long story short, the fact that social support is correlated with good mental and physical health—and that it serves as a buffer against life stress—should make us eager to support our stressed-out friend.

Clinicians who practice couples’ therapy often encourage couples to practice supportive behavior. What couples’ therapist hasn’t worked with a couple where one partner is oblivious to the other’s suffering? Therapists from different theoretical models often use varied approaches to encourage supportive communication, but my behavioral background emphasizes that communication training is essential. Teach them to communicate and only good things can happen. But is there more we can do? Perhaps a straightforward communication technique that leads to better outcomes than traditional communication training? Is it possible we could teach our patients to be more empathic to the suffering of their partner? The short answer is “Yes!”

What is Empathy?

According to Kendra Cherry writing in the May 2, 2020 edition of verywellmind.com “empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they must be feeling.” We will leave it for another version of the R&B Blog to discuss the process of empathy, but suffice it to say in this blog that empathy is hard because it induces emotional pain, physical pain or discomfort. This is because to “feel” what your long-suffering spouse feels, you may have to feel some painful emotions. Just how is it that she is angry or depressed? Why is she so reluctant or unable to tell you how she feels? As therapists, we understand that there is a cost of empathy.

Nevertheless, it is important to be able to teach our clients how to empathically communicate with their partners.

Empathic listening skills are important because they will help your client encourage their partner to share their thoughts and feelings. This will allow the couple to be able to identify their “real problems” so that they can consider how to mutually solve them. If each partner has a better understand of their partner, then that partner can help the other to feel more comfortable with their relationship. These conversations will allow them to talk more easily about sensitive matters, thus bringing them closer together.

How does a therapist teach a client to communicate more empathically?

This will be explained in the next issue of the R&B Blog.