Carl Rogers Importance Of Empathy, Personality And Behavior

Carl Rogers reflects on the importance of empathy, personality and behavior. He describes empathy as, “delicate” and “potent”. (Rogers, N.D.) He believed that simply listening to a patient what important and useful. The most effective listening lies behind the words to understand the concealed feelings and emotions of the patient. It was helpful to reflect these feelings and emotions back to the patient to help them understand. He eventually started recording interviews, and he found it very useful to go back and listen to them. Reflecting on the patient’s feelings was useful but complex. Rogers states that they became more aware of the therapists’ words and actions during the interviews and focused more on it. Focusing on therapist responses had consequences and appalled him. Nondirective therapy consisted of just stating the last few things that a patient said back to them. Rogers believed in stressing an empathetic attitude to strengthen relationships in a positive way. He believed it was one of the most important ways to inspire growth and change.
It can be described as looking at the things that the other person fears and checking with them to ensure you still understand them. An ideal therapist would be empathic. There is a direct correlation between the degree of empathy in a relationship and progress. If the degree of empathy can be measured early in a relationship, the outcome of success or failure perhaps could be determined. Seasoned therapists have more experience which is also ideal. Psychologically mature therapists with better self-understanding is another huge model. An experiment was conducted of six therapists, and only two of them were considered the ideal