Empathy In Counselling
Using rape, critically discuss how the use of the counseling skill empathy might influence delivery of relationships.
The purpose of this essay will be to look at how important the skill of empathy is during counselling in forming a therapeutic relationship with a rape victim. This essay will be exploring the humanistic theory of counselling and critically analysing the use of empathy in creating a good therapeutic relationship. It will then be looking more specifically at the importance creating a good therapeutic relationship when counselling rape victims and how empathy can be used to help victims of rape heal.
Majority of people, at some point in their lives, are unhappy or dissatisfied with life. this could be due to a number of …show more content…
reasons such relationship difficulties, grief and loss, addiction recovery, sexuality issues, trauma and abuse, problems managing your anger, low self-esteem, parenting difficulties, accidents or illness. Sometimes these issues can be solved quiet quickly however at times these problems may get in the way of effective work or effective personal or professional relationships and a lot of the times these issues may lead to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks. According to the World Health Organisation (2001) It is estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem and that between 8-12% of the population experience depression in any year (The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report 2001). This shows that there are a high number of people that have issues which lead to mental health problems.
Counselling can help you to identify problems, make choices and changes, deal with, digest, resolve or confront these difficulties. Counselling is described by Richard Nelson Jones (1997) as a special kind of helping relationship. British Association for Counselling and psychotherapy (2009) define counselling as ‘talking therapies’ that involve a contractual arrangement between the therapist and the client where they meet, in privacy and confidence, to explore a difficulty or distress the client may be experiencing. Therapy should always be at the request of the client and no-one should be sent. According to the British Association for Counselling (1989) the overall aim of counselling is to provide an opportunity for the client to work towards living in a more satisfying and resourceful way.
Many studies have shown that the key factor that usually determines how successful the therapy is does not lie with the technique used, but with the actual counsellor. The relationship between the therapist and the client and how the client connects with the counsellor is likely to determine how successful the treatment is. Sloane et al. 1975 (the Temple study) found patients rated the personal interaction with the therapist as the single most important factor in their treatment. A two year follow up showed patients rated the points reflecting a good personal relationship as very or extremely important in their treatment. In order to develop a good relationship the client must develop trust and a strong bond, and the therapist must communicate caring and empathy for the client. (Drs. Bernard Schwartz and John V. Flowers 2006)
The therapeutic relationship is not only important for successful therapy but also determines whether a client wants to continue or terminate therapy Strupp, (1978) found that the relationship may be involved in a client 's feelings about therapy and his/her decisions to terminate therapy.
Demonstrating empathy is important to create a good therapeutic relationship as through empathy the therapist can communicate that he is listening and understands the client from his point of view, that he is accepting and not judging him and is present for him and that he is genuine in the role. Studies have shown that empathy is reflected in the literature referring to therapeutic relationship (i.e., Bohart & Greenberg, 1997) Empathy is important for good therapeutic outcome as Truax and Mitchell (1971) conducted objective ratings of audiotapes and found a strong relationship between empathy and positive therapeutic outcome.
Empathy is defined by (Shebib, 2003) as the ability to correctly interpret another person 's feelings to show them you understand. Thus empathy is not something we have but something we do. Empathy is described by Shebib as an ability so it is viewed as a skill and not a feeling such as sympathy. Empathy is about being willing and able to understand another person’s point of view without your own judgements, opinions, feelings or thoughts clouding your understanding.
There are many different approaches to counselling, different approaches place different emphasis on the skills they use, the qualities that are most important to their practise and the desired outcome goals. What is important to each therapist depends on the theories they base their practise on, however therapies from a wide range of approaches rank empathy as being on of the highest qualities a therapist can demonstrate such as in CBT or psychodynamic therapy. Empathy is the central core condition of the person centred approach based on the humanistic theory. The humanistic theory was created by Carl Rogers (1959).
The humanistic theory is based on idea that people are good and will actualize in the absence of interference, society leads people astray by providing conditional positive regard. Man 's most basic driving force is the desire to fulfil himself. Rogers (1959) claimed that each of us has an ideal self, an idea of the man we wish to be. The closer the ideal self is to the real self the happier a man will be and the closer he will feel to fulfilment. The greater the difference, the more one feels dissatisfaction and depression. Abraham Maslow (1968) - the need hierarchy - suggested that needs are hierarchically ordered from basic biological needs to aesthetic and intellectual needs. When all needs are satisfied one reaches the highest level which is fulfilment. According to Rogers (1959) in order to reach our ideal self we need the unconditional positive regard of significant others e.g. parent, spouse or friends. Conflict occurs when we are in danger of loosing positive regard from significant others. This may lead to people developing a false self where the real self gets oppressed which leads to low self-esteem and self-worth and inability to trust own judgement. People are motivated by positive force and when starved of love or affection people strive to meet their needs in distorted or negative ways. Therefore Rogers (1959) claims that the therapist should aim a to create a climate of growth for the client which means giving them a trusting relationship where clients feels secure , a strong bond, listened to, cared for , un-judged and the therapist must communicate caring and empathy for the client. (Drs. Bernard Schwartz and John V. Flowers 2006). Empathy is one of the 3 conditions that Rogers specified as vey important for therapeutic relationship and vital for client change to occur, the other 2 includes genuineness and unconditional positive regard (Rogers 1957). Empathy is important to create a good therapeutic relationship as through empathy the therapist can communicate that he understands the client from his point of view, that he is accepting and not judging him and is present for him and that he is genuine in the role.
This therapeutic relationship is particularly important to rape victims who come for counselling. One reason it is so important is because studies show that 40% of those who suffered rape in 2001 had told no-one about it (OCJR, 2006). This could be due to a number of reasons such as fear of victim blaming due to the stereotypes surrounding rape. A third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner and more than a quarter of people think a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing (AIUK 2005). This fear may leave the victim to suffer in silence and feel alone so a good therapeutic relationship is important to allow the client to know that they will not be judged and will be shown unconditional positive regard regardless of the situation. Another reason why rape victims may tell anyone could be due to post traumatic stress or acute stress disorder. Research has shown that the most common cause for PTSD is rape and sexual assault (Ananda Amstadter ET el 2007). PTSD may cause such intense emotions and the memories may be so severe and upsetting to deal with that this can lead to victims not opening up and telling family or friends. PTSD can cause avoidance of social life, feeling detached, numb and also may prevent the victim from talking about their experience with family and friends (Richard Bryant et el 1999). Not being able to open up or talk to someone could mean that the victim is not only left to suffer on their own but they are unable to recover or save any old relationships or create any new ones. A good therapeutic relationship is very important to demonstrate an example of a working and fulfilling relationship so the client can strive to save any struggling relations they have. Using empathy the therapist can build trust and demonstrate that he is genuinely there for the client’s needs. This will hopefully help the client open up and share their devastation with someone. Demonstrating empathy allows the client to feel that the therapist is walking through the experience with them and not just listening but feeling their pain (The ‘being with’ that Rogers emphasised more and more as the only condition for helping (Rogers 1957) in empathy.
Empathy can be displayed through comments that encourage the client to continue talking, they communicate to the client that I am listening, I want to listen and I want to understand more about your experience, for example “can you tell me more” or “im curious about”. It can also be non-verbal such as nodding, leaning forward and facial expressions such as smiles and grimaces, all which tell the client that you are with them. The therapist can also use reflecting. According to Egan (1982) there are two stages of reflecting. The first stage is simply when the counsellor listens to and processes what the client is saying and then is able to reflect it back to the client in his own words (paraphrasing), for example if the patient says: “I really feel terrible today, worse than yesterday” and the therapist would reply: “you feel worse today?”. This shows the client that the counsellor has not only heard the client but has understood what has been said and that you want to hear more. This could help build trust in the client-therapist relationship as the client may feel that the counsellor really listens and is not trying to distort anything. According to Egan (1982) the second level is consists of reflecting feelings, underlying trends and implied behaviours. At this stage there is less reflection of just words and intuition and hunches play more of a role as the job of the counsellor is to pick out the unspoken feeling or reasons behind what is said. For example if the client says: “I’m sorry, but relieved not to have got the promotion” then the therapist would reply something like: “you’re upset, but feel a weight of your shoulders at not being promoted”, this shows that the therapist has used his intuition and picked out the clients unspoken feelings. Reflecting feelings involves feeling with client flow of emotion by understanding clients face and body language, verbal messages, context of messages, tuning into own flow of emotional reactions, and sensing the underlying meanings of client messages. It is important to be able to pick up feelings from the start of the sessions to show the client that you are tuned into them, according to Richard Jones (1997) reflecting feelings from the beginning, rather than reflecting thoughts alone can establish a climate for initial and subsequent sessions where clients share rather than bury feelings.
Statistics show that majority of rapes are not reported to any authority. HMCPS AND HMIC (2007) reports suggest between 75-95% of rapes are never reported to the police. This could be due to reasons such as how badly the victims are treated by the authorities and the lack of empathy, understanding, care or sympathy they receive. It can also be because most of the times the victims are forced to re-live the horrifying experience when giving statement and or questioned in courts. HMCPS & HMIC, (2007) state that “in no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny during an investigation or at trial; nor is the potential for victims to be re-traumatised during these processes as high in any other crime.” This statement gives us an understanding of how un-empathetic and uncaring the courts can be and how much of a daunting experience court can be that victims will rather avoid it. Studies have shown that Number of reported rapes have increased significantly from 2001 to 2006. The HMIC (2007) reports have shown that in 2001 9734 rapes were reported but by 2006 it had increased by 40.9% to 13712. Whereas on the other hand the conviction rates are diminishing from 33.3% in 1977 to only 5.3% in 2004 which is the lowest rate on record (OCJR, 2006) This also shows that the victim is not taken seriously and a lot of the victims have to go through re-living the trauma in hope of getting some justice but then have to live with the fact that their abuser got away with it. Unconditional positive regard is the key to growth and self actualisation according to the humanistic theory (Rogers 1957). However it is clear that victims of rape do not receive much UPR so it is vital for therapist to create the growing climate. It is important for these victims to feel trust and that the therapist will listen and understand and not judge them especially after all the negative responses they have received because According to Rogers (1959) states that positive change can only occur if psychological climate which surrounds them changes first. This must occur in the therapeutic relationship where the relationship should be used as a corrective interpersonal experience.
Having a good therapeutic relationship also means enabling, teaching and facilitating healthy coping mechanisms to the clients. The value of being understood by another human being is enormously important, not least because it can lead to self-understanding. Self-understanding can last a lifetime, and also deeply enhances self-discovery.
However sometimes it’s not as easy as that.
A survey carried out by Antonia Abbey ET el (2004) shows that only 2% of women who were sexually assaulted or raped said it was by strangers whereas 98% of the women knew the person who assaulted them. So they may have to see them a lot. This may be a very difficult problem that the client has to deal with and may have come counselling for help and advice. In Rogers (1957) humanistic theory the client is the problem solver and it is not the job of the therapist to advice so the client may feel therapy is useless and a waste of time so may not be willing or able to create a good relationship with the therapist.
Available data suggests that nearly one in four women worldwide may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2002) and that 40% of young people know girls whose boyfriends have coerced or pressurised them to have sex (EVAW, 2006). Being hurt by someone you thought you could trust or loved deeply can be extremely devastating and victims may find it very difficult to trust someone again therefore building trust in the client- therapist relationship may be extremely challenging. It may be even more difficult for a client to trust anyone if the abuser was a close family member such as a father or step father and the most important person in their life e.g. mother chose not to believe them.
Empathy is important to build trust and security, demonstrate care, build a relationship and demonstrate understanding through reflecting. However displaying empathy can be very difficult in some situations. Firstly it can often be difficult to put a sensitive and accurate understanding of another person 's experience into words. It can also be hard to understand a client completely and some clients may be very difficult to read, Arthur J Clarke (2007) explains "because we are all separate, unique beings, it is impossible for us to understand our clients completely. No one can experience clients ' lives as they experience them because of the uniqueness of their experience”. Being empathetic can also be difficult if the therapist has a strong reaction to someone as they may be uncomfortable in the presence of the client 's strong emotions, grief, anger or pain.
Displaying empathy can also be difficult if the therapist disagrees with what the client is saying as sometimes the therapist may have strong beliefs about a certain topic so it will be difficult to put aside their preconceived ideas and beliefs. It can also be difficult to demonstrate empathy if the therapist has had a similar experience to the client and feels the need to give some helpful advice, or becomes emotional or even turns the session about himself.
Rape is a major crime and almost impossible to heal from, this is why it is especially important for victims to get the support they need. A good therapeutic relationship is essential to start the healing process of any victim. Empathy was found to play a very important part in building the therapeutic relationship as it helps build trust and helps display care and understanding by correctly reflecting back the clients experience in the therapists own words. Through reflecting you can help the client lead to self understanding and enhance self- discovery. Through Empathetic reflection the counsellor can show the client that they are interested and willing to listen and will appear in tuned with the client. All these factors have a huge influence on building and supporting a good therapeutic relationship.
References
Abbey, A., BeShears, R., Clinton-Sherrod, A. M., & McAuslan, P. (2004). (2004)Similarities and differences in women’s sexual assault experiences based on tactics used by the perpetrator. Psychology of women quarterly, 28, 323-332. Blackwell publishing
Amstadter, A. B. Kilpatrick, D. G. Resnick, H. S. & Ruggiero, K. J. (2007
Rape-Related PTSD: Issues and Interventions. Psychiatric Times. 24 (7).
AIUK (2005) Available at : http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10309 (Accessed 19th December 2010)
British Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling Information sheet (2009) T1 Training and careers in counselling and psychotherapy.[online] Available at: http://www.bacp.co.uk/admin/structure/files/pdf/811_t1.pdf (Accessed 18th December 2010)
British Association for counselling (1989) Definition of counselling.
Rugby: BAC
Bryant, R. A. Sackville, T. Dang, S. T. Moulds, M. and Guthrie, R. (1999). Treating Acute Stress Disorder: An Evaluation of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Supportive Counseling Techniques. Am J Psychiatry (American Psychiatric Association) 156:1780-1786 (11): 1780.
Clarke, A. J. (2007)Empathy in counselling and psychotherapy. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
End Violence Against Women campaign (EVAW) ICM survey (2006) Available online at: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17165. (Retrieved 19th December 2010)
Egan, G. (1982) The skilled helper. 2nd edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing
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HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPS) and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) (2007). ‘Without consent: A report on the joint review of the invest tigation and prosecution of rape …show more content…
offences’.
Kelly, L., Lovett, J., and Regan, L.
(2005) ‘A gap or a chasm? Attrition in reported rape cases’. Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit. Home Office Research Study 293
Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR) (2006) ‘Convicting Rapists and Protecting Victims – Justice for Victims of Rape. A consultation paper’.
Jones, R, N. (1997) Practical counselling and helping skills. 4th edn. London:Cassell.
Maslow, A. H. (1968) Towards a psychology of being (second edition), Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Rogers, C. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. Psychology: A study of a science. (Vol. 3, pp. 184-256). New York: McGraw Hill.
Rogers, C.R (1957) The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of consulting psychology, 21:
95-103.
Shebib, B. (2003) Counselling Skills for Social Workers and Other Professionals. New York: Allyn and Bacon
Schwartz, B. Flowers, J,V. (2006) How to fail as a therapist: 50 ways to loose or damage your patients. Impact publishers
Sloane, R.B., Staples, E.R., Cristol, A.H., Yorkston, A.H., & Whipple, K. (1975). Short-term Analytically Orientated psychotherapy vs Behaviour Theraphy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press
Strupp, H.H. (1978) Psychotherapy research and practise: An overview. In S. L. Garfield & A. E. Bergin (eds). Handbook of psychotherapy and behaviour change. 2nd Edn. New York: John Wiley
The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report (2001) Available at: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/information/mental-health-overview/statistics/ (Accessed 15th December 2010)
Traux, C.B. & Mitchell, K.M (1971) Research on certain therapist interpersonal skills in relation to process and outcome. In A. E. Begin & S. L. Garfield (eds). Handbook of psychotheraphy and behaviour change. New York: John Wiley
World Health Organisation (2001) The world health reports. Available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2001/en/ (Accessed 15th December 2010)
World Health Organisation (2002) Available online at: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/factsheets/en/index.html (Retrieved 21st December 2010)
The purpose of this essay will be to look at how important the skill of empathy is during counselling in forming a therapeutic relationship with a rape victim. This essay will be exploring the humanistic theory of counselling and critically analysing the use of empathy in creating a good therapeutic relationship. It will then be looking more specifically at the importance creating a good therapeutic relationship when counselling rape victims and how empathy can be used to help victims of rape heal.
Majority of people, at some point in their lives, are unhappy or dissatisfied with life. this could be due to a number of …show more content…
reasons such relationship difficulties, grief and loss, addiction recovery, sexuality issues, trauma and abuse, problems managing your anger, low self-esteem, parenting difficulties, accidents or illness. Sometimes these issues can be solved quiet quickly however at times these problems may get in the way of effective work or effective personal or professional relationships and a lot of the times these issues may lead to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks. According to the World Health Organisation (2001) It is estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem and that between 8-12% of the population experience depression in any year (The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report 2001). This shows that there are a high number of people that have issues which lead to mental health problems.
Counselling can help you to identify problems, make choices and changes, deal with, digest, resolve or confront these difficulties. Counselling is described by Richard Nelson Jones (1997) as a special kind of helping relationship. British Association for Counselling and psychotherapy (2009) define counselling as ‘talking therapies’ that involve a contractual arrangement between the therapist and the client where they meet, in privacy and confidence, to explore a difficulty or distress the client may be experiencing. Therapy should always be at the request of the client and no-one should be sent. According to the British Association for Counselling (1989) the overall aim of counselling is to provide an opportunity for the client to work towards living in a more satisfying and resourceful way.
Many studies have shown that the key factor that usually determines how successful the therapy is does not lie with the technique used, but with the actual counsellor. The relationship between the therapist and the client and how the client connects with the counsellor is likely to determine how successful the treatment is. Sloane et al. 1975 (the Temple study) found patients rated the personal interaction with the therapist as the single most important factor in their treatment. A two year follow up showed patients rated the points reflecting a good personal relationship as very or extremely important in their treatment. In order to develop a good relationship the client must develop trust and a strong bond, and the therapist must communicate caring and empathy for the client. (Drs. Bernard Schwartz and John V. Flowers 2006)
The therapeutic relationship is not only important for successful therapy but also determines whether a client wants to continue or terminate therapy Strupp, (1978) found that the relationship may be involved in a client 's feelings about therapy and his/her decisions to terminate therapy.
Demonstrating empathy is important to create a good therapeutic relationship as through empathy the therapist can communicate that he is listening and understands the client from his point of view, that he is accepting and not judging him and is present for him and that he is genuine in the role. Studies have shown that empathy is reflected in the literature referring to therapeutic relationship (i.e., Bohart & Greenberg, 1997) Empathy is important for good therapeutic outcome as Truax and Mitchell (1971) conducted objective ratings of audiotapes and found a strong relationship between empathy and positive therapeutic outcome.
Empathy is defined by (Shebib, 2003) as the ability to correctly interpret another person 's feelings to show them you understand. Thus empathy is not something we have but something we do. Empathy is described by Shebib as an ability so it is viewed as a skill and not a feeling such as sympathy. Empathy is about being willing and able to understand another person’s point of view without your own judgements, opinions, feelings or thoughts clouding your understanding.
There are many different approaches to counselling, different approaches place different emphasis on the skills they use, the qualities that are most important to their practise and the desired outcome goals. What is important to each therapist depends on the theories they base their practise on, however therapies from a wide range of approaches rank empathy as being on of the highest qualities a therapist can demonstrate such as in CBT or psychodynamic therapy. Empathy is the central core condition of the person centred approach based on the humanistic theory. The humanistic theory was created by Carl Rogers (1959).
The humanistic theory is based on idea that people are good and will actualize in the absence of interference, society leads people astray by providing conditional positive regard. Man 's most basic driving force is the desire to fulfil himself. Rogers (1959) claimed that each of us has an ideal self, an idea of the man we wish to be. The closer the ideal self is to the real self the happier a man will be and the closer he will feel to fulfilment. The greater the difference, the more one feels dissatisfaction and depression. Abraham Maslow (1968) - the need hierarchy - suggested that needs are hierarchically ordered from basic biological needs to aesthetic and intellectual needs. When all needs are satisfied one reaches the highest level which is fulfilment. According to Rogers (1959) in order to reach our ideal self we need the unconditional positive regard of significant others e.g. parent, spouse or friends. Conflict occurs when we are in danger of loosing positive regard from significant others. This may lead to people developing a false self where the real self gets oppressed which leads to low self-esteem and self-worth and inability to trust own judgement. People are motivated by positive force and when starved of love or affection people strive to meet their needs in distorted or negative ways. Therefore Rogers (1959) claims that the therapist should aim a to create a climate of growth for the client which means giving them a trusting relationship where clients feels secure , a strong bond, listened to, cared for , un-judged and the therapist must communicate caring and empathy for the client. (Drs. Bernard Schwartz and John V. Flowers 2006). Empathy is one of the 3 conditions that Rogers specified as vey important for therapeutic relationship and vital for client change to occur, the other 2 includes genuineness and unconditional positive regard (Rogers 1957). Empathy is important to create a good therapeutic relationship as through empathy the therapist can communicate that he understands the client from his point of view, that he is accepting and not judging him and is present for him and that he is genuine in the role.
This therapeutic relationship is particularly important to rape victims who come for counselling. One reason it is so important is because studies show that 40% of those who suffered rape in 2001 had told no-one about it (OCJR, 2006). This could be due to a number of reasons such as fear of victim blaming due to the stereotypes surrounding rape. A third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner and more than a quarter of people think a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing (AIUK 2005). This fear may leave the victim to suffer in silence and feel alone so a good therapeutic relationship is important to allow the client to know that they will not be judged and will be shown unconditional positive regard regardless of the situation. Another reason why rape victims may tell anyone could be due to post traumatic stress or acute stress disorder. Research has shown that the most common cause for PTSD is rape and sexual assault (Ananda Amstadter ET el 2007). PTSD may cause such intense emotions and the memories may be so severe and upsetting to deal with that this can lead to victims not opening up and telling family or friends. PTSD can cause avoidance of social life, feeling detached, numb and also may prevent the victim from talking about their experience with family and friends (Richard Bryant et el 1999). Not being able to open up or talk to someone could mean that the victim is not only left to suffer on their own but they are unable to recover or save any old relationships or create any new ones. A good therapeutic relationship is very important to demonstrate an example of a working and fulfilling relationship so the client can strive to save any struggling relations they have. Using empathy the therapist can build trust and demonstrate that he is genuinely there for the client’s needs. This will hopefully help the client open up and share their devastation with someone. Demonstrating empathy allows the client to feel that the therapist is walking through the experience with them and not just listening but feeling their pain (The ‘being with’ that Rogers emphasised more and more as the only condition for helping (Rogers 1957) in empathy.
Empathy can be displayed through comments that encourage the client to continue talking, they communicate to the client that I am listening, I want to listen and I want to understand more about your experience, for example “can you tell me more” or “im curious about”. It can also be non-verbal such as nodding, leaning forward and facial expressions such as smiles and grimaces, all which tell the client that you are with them. The therapist can also use reflecting. According to Egan (1982) there are two stages of reflecting. The first stage is simply when the counsellor listens to and processes what the client is saying and then is able to reflect it back to the client in his own words (paraphrasing), for example if the patient says: “I really feel terrible today, worse than yesterday” and the therapist would reply: “you feel worse today?”. This shows the client that the counsellor has not only heard the client but has understood what has been said and that you want to hear more. This could help build trust in the client-therapist relationship as the client may feel that the counsellor really listens and is not trying to distort anything. According to Egan (1982) the second level is consists of reflecting feelings, underlying trends and implied behaviours. At this stage there is less reflection of just words and intuition and hunches play more of a role as the job of the counsellor is to pick out the unspoken feeling or reasons behind what is said. For example if the client says: “I’m sorry, but relieved not to have got the promotion” then the therapist would reply something like: “you’re upset, but feel a weight of your shoulders at not being promoted”, this shows that the therapist has used his intuition and picked out the clients unspoken feelings. Reflecting feelings involves feeling with client flow of emotion by understanding clients face and body language, verbal messages, context of messages, tuning into own flow of emotional reactions, and sensing the underlying meanings of client messages. It is important to be able to pick up feelings from the start of the sessions to show the client that you are tuned into them, according to Richard Jones (1997) reflecting feelings from the beginning, rather than reflecting thoughts alone can establish a climate for initial and subsequent sessions where clients share rather than bury feelings.
Statistics show that majority of rapes are not reported to any authority. HMCPS AND HMIC (2007) reports suggest between 75-95% of rapes are never reported to the police. This could be due to reasons such as how badly the victims are treated by the authorities and the lack of empathy, understanding, care or sympathy they receive. It can also be because most of the times the victims are forced to re-live the horrifying experience when giving statement and or questioned in courts. HMCPS & HMIC, (2007) state that “in no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny during an investigation or at trial; nor is the potential for victims to be re-traumatised during these processes as high in any other crime.” This statement gives us an understanding of how un-empathetic and uncaring the courts can be and how much of a daunting experience court can be that victims will rather avoid it. Studies have shown that Number of reported rapes have increased significantly from 2001 to 2006. The HMIC (2007) reports have shown that in 2001 9734 rapes were reported but by 2006 it had increased by 40.9% to 13712. Whereas on the other hand the conviction rates are diminishing from 33.3% in 1977 to only 5.3% in 2004 which is the lowest rate on record (OCJR, 2006) This also shows that the victim is not taken seriously and a lot of the victims have to go through re-living the trauma in hope of getting some justice but then have to live with the fact that their abuser got away with it. Unconditional positive regard is the key to growth and self actualisation according to the humanistic theory (Rogers 1957). However it is clear that victims of rape do not receive much UPR so it is vital for therapist to create the growing climate. It is important for these victims to feel trust and that the therapist will listen and understand and not judge them especially after all the negative responses they have received because According to Rogers (1959) states that positive change can only occur if psychological climate which surrounds them changes first. This must occur in the therapeutic relationship where the relationship should be used as a corrective interpersonal experience.
Having a good therapeutic relationship also means enabling, teaching and facilitating healthy coping mechanisms to the clients. The value of being understood by another human being is enormously important, not least because it can lead to self-understanding. Self-understanding can last a lifetime, and also deeply enhances self-discovery.
However sometimes it’s not as easy as that.
A survey carried out by Antonia Abbey ET el (2004) shows that only 2% of women who were sexually assaulted or raped said it was by strangers whereas 98% of the women knew the person who assaulted them. So they may have to see them a lot. This may be a very difficult problem that the client has to deal with and may have come counselling for help and advice. In Rogers (1957) humanistic theory the client is the problem solver and it is not the job of the therapist to advice so the client may feel therapy is useless and a waste of time so may not be willing or able to create a good relationship with the therapist.
Available data suggests that nearly one in four women worldwide may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2002) and that 40% of young people know girls whose boyfriends have coerced or pressurised them to have sex (EVAW, 2006). Being hurt by someone you thought you could trust or loved deeply can be extremely devastating and victims may find it very difficult to trust someone again therefore building trust in the client- therapist relationship may be extremely challenging. It may be even more difficult for a client to trust anyone if the abuser was a close family member such as a father or step father and the most important person in their life e.g. mother chose not to believe them.
Empathy is important to build trust and security, demonstrate care, build a relationship and demonstrate understanding through reflecting. However displaying empathy can be very difficult in some situations. Firstly it can often be difficult to put a sensitive and accurate understanding of another person 's experience into words. It can also be hard to understand a client completely and some clients may be very difficult to read, Arthur J Clarke (2007) explains "because we are all separate, unique beings, it is impossible for us to understand our clients completely. No one can experience clients ' lives as they experience them because of the uniqueness of their experience”. Being empathetic can also be difficult if the therapist has a strong reaction to someone as they may be uncomfortable in the presence of the client 's strong emotions, grief, anger or pain.
Displaying empathy can also be difficult if the therapist disagrees with what the client is saying as sometimes the therapist may have strong beliefs about a certain topic so it will be difficult to put aside their preconceived ideas and beliefs. It can also be difficult to demonstrate empathy if the therapist has had a similar experience to the client and feels the need to give some helpful advice, or becomes emotional or even turns the session about himself.
Rape is a major crime and almost impossible to heal from, this is why it is especially important for victims to get the support they need. A good therapeutic relationship is essential to start the healing process of any victim. Empathy was found to play a very important part in building the therapeutic relationship as it helps build trust and helps display care and understanding by correctly reflecting back the clients experience in the therapists own words. Through reflecting you can help the client lead to self understanding and enhance self- discovery. Through Empathetic reflection the counsellor can show the client that they are interested and willing to listen and will appear in tuned with the client. All these factors have a huge influence on building and supporting a good therapeutic relationship.
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