Empathic listening: Reports on the experience of being heard

This qualitative study explores empathic listening from the vantage point o f 5 female clients engaged in consecutive therapeutic relationships with tw o different therapists, a male and a female. Previous experiences of being "misunderstood" or "not heard" stood in stark contrast to experiences of be ing empathically understood in their relationships with the two therapists. Participants experienced being heard when therapists created a safe space for self-exploration, were actively and genuinely engaged in the therapeuti c dialogue (paraphrasing, clarifying, questioning, and remembering details) , and did not flinch when painful material was brought to the therapeutic p rocess. Each participant's experience of being heard was idiosyncratic and reflected something of what she had been missing in previous interpersonal encounters. Empathic listening emerges as a relational, interactional varia ble unique to each therapeutic encounter examined and not reducible to a te chnique or skill.