Empathy

    Today I am feeling like I want to write about empathy. In class the other day we were making a small art piece about what we bring to the table as a therapist. I really struggled with this. I cut  a piece of magenta 8.5 x 11 paper in half and then folded that in half to make a card that opened vertically. On the inside of the card I wanted to write "I've been where you are, and I'll fight for you." Or just "I'll fight for you." Or just "I've been where you are."  But it felt like I shouldn't write any combination of those things. Wasn't that bad boundaries? And assumptive? Though I have had more life experience than most people my age, I may not have been where my client has been. And I'm the therapist, I'm supposed to be okay. I'm not supposed to approach my clients out of my own pain. I started talking through this with my sweet friend who was right next to me. She told me she thought I brought understanding to my clients. It was really sweet and I knew she meant it, but somehow it didn't feel right, and I kept going back to my original ideas. Finally I decided I couldn't genuinely engage and be fully connected to this directive unless I wrote exactly what felt right, even if it wasn't actually right or even if it was problematic. So, not knowing what the outcome would be and wondering if my concepts of boundaries needed some serious work, I wrote in the card.

   Later we were sharing our pieces with each other and I confessed that I don't normally tell people if I've been where they've been, often that doesn't feel right to me because our conversation is about them. I was nervous when we were doing this, I suppose because honesty feels so vulnerable to me sometimes. We got into a conversation about empathy and my professor showed is this great clip from youtube.

   Over the last few years I've learned that even the most understanding, kind, caring people are not empaths. I didn't know this before. I thought that if you had the ability to care, you had the ability to feel my situation without having experienced it. Frequently these people, who truly mean well, go into what I call fix it mode. They want to help you make a game plan, that want to know what you're doing to make your situation better, they want to know what your plans are to get ourself out or make this better. As Dr. Brown says in the video "One of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations, is we try to make things better." This is a compassionate response, but it is not an empathic one. In Dr. Brown's words, "empathy is a vulnerable choice, because in order to connect with you I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling."

  In my own life and personal relationships I get extremely frustrated when I'm sharing with someone and they jump into fix it mode. Very often, I know what to do about my situation. I know I need to get a job so that I can avoid being stressed about my next meal. I know I need to just tell that person that I need a break from them. What I want from the person I'm sharing with is to understand that this is difficult, and I feel alone.

   I imagine that many clients feel the same way, I know I did.  Fix it mode has a time and place, and it can be very useful. But it's over used. Sometimes what we need is just to sit with another in our feelings. Dr. Brown says it so well in the video. "The truth is rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection."

   If I go to someone and share with them that one of my loved ones has died, I'm not expecting that person to bring back my loved one or say anything that is going to be make me feel okay about my loved having died. Conversely, I know that if a client shared this information with me they wouldn't expect me to make this situation right, because we both know that that's impossible. I share with others and clients share with us so that we can sit in those feelings together. To sit with someone in their feeling is to send a message that says "Im here with you. You aren't alone." People know you can't turn back time or undo something that would fix their situation, they don't share with you in the hopes that you can. They share so that they don't have to carry their load alone.

  As art therapists we have unique access to our empathy. When I draw about my clients and make art about them, I put myself in touch with my feelings for them. The feelings take on form, and I'm able to think about my client in a more concrete way. It's really an incredible thing to be able to sit in my empathy for a client through drawing or writing about them. Being engaged in this connection out of a session deepens the connection in a session. If you've never tried drawing or journaling about your clients before I highly recommend it! Perhaps I will give this topic it's own post later on.

Until next time friends!

Veronica