Empathetic Listening and Responding
To develop the ability to empathize with others, you need to be able to listen effectively and respond empathetically.
Empathetic Listening
There are 3 steps in the process of listening (1,2):
There are 3 steps in the process of listening (1,2):
- Will: Listening is an active process; it is hard work and requires a conscious effort. You must will yourself to listen before you can move on to the next step.
- Attention: Give the patient your complete and undivided attention. This demonstrates that what they have to say to you is valuable. Make sure you are not distracted, appear rushed, or risk being interrupted. If it is busy in the pharmacy and you don’t have the time, be honest with the patient and set up another time to talk. You may not be able to address anything now, but at least you avoided the risk of jeopardizing your patient-pharmacist relationship by being inattentive to your patient.
- Listen: To truly understand your patient’s affective experience, you have to be non-judgmental. This means temporarily putting aside internal or external factors such as prejudices, biases, and beliefs that may lead you to judge the patient. Focus on the feelings the patient uses to express their ideas, and not so much on the idea themselves.
Empathetic Responding
Once you have listened and understood the patient’s feelings, you are ready to give an empathetic response. There are 3 steps to an empathetic response (1,2):
References
Once you have listened and understood the patient’s feelings, you are ready to give an empathetic response. There are 3 steps to an empathetic response (1,2):
- Identification: Identify with the affective experience (mood, feelings, attitude) of the patient. You do not have to have shared the same experience as your patient in order to identify with their feelings. If fact, sharing a similar experience may add a subjective component that may interfere with your ability to understand non-judgmentally.
- Imitation: By imitating or mimicking a patient’s facial expression or body posture, you have identified with the person’s affective state and showed an empathetic response. This often occurs naturally without realization.
- Affective communication: Briefly summarize what you understand the patient’s feelings to be. Try to capture the essence of what they patient is trying to communicate to you to demonstrate that you have listened to and understood their concerns. The ability to do this involves reflecting on the attitudes and feelings of the patient. It’s not a repetition of what the patient said; your response should at least demonstrate that you attempted to grasp the meaning of what they said in your own words and that you are checking with them to make sure your understanding is accurate.
References
- Berger B. Communication Skills for Pharmacists. Washington, DC: American Pharmacists Association; 2005.
- Tindall W, Beardsley R, Kimberlin C. Communication Skills in Pharmacy Practice. Baltimore, Maryland. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1994.