Empathy / Emotional Sensitivity Training

This is either an individual and/or group dynamic for men and women who want to improve their ability to emotionally attune themselves to others, to read people more accurately, and to gain a greater understanding of first their own and/or others deepest needs, wants, and desires.

This is a skill which can be developed and would help in the following areas:-

• in workplace situations with staff
• with original synthetic problem solving
• within marriage and partnerships
• parenting your child

There are three stages to this psycho-educational training programme:-

1) Clients are individually assessed in the first session using diagnostic tests for personality type, empathy quotient, and emotional intelligence. A semi-structured interview gives an analysis of the diagnostic criteria. Clients can either opt for an individualised programme which targets the specific areas clients want to develop, or opt for working within a group setting.

2) In the second stage of treatment work on the complete spectrum of emotions (love, joy sadness, anger, fear/dread etc.) are taught, and extensive practical work is done on facial recognition to emotion, reading and comprehending emotional context, and practical application in work/social/personal settings are explored. Homework is given to augment the work done in the session, and behavioural experiments are conducted to use these new skills.

3) In the third stage of training clients work with the cognitive aspects of communication and use standard cognitive behavioural therapy to improve communication, and intimacy by identifying their thinking errors by both challenging these distortions in thinking about others, and providing more balanced reality tested alternatives to thinking.

Because empathy is a right-brain activity, until now it has been neglected in favour of more analytical, detailed left brain functions.

This trend has been changing, and in the United States medical schools and in the top Fortune 500 companies this skill has been instituted in training of doctors, and in the choice of top management.