Workshop: Empathy & Contact
Workshop: Empathy & Contact
3 Category 1 CEUs
This workshop will focus on how we can interweave Empathy and Contact creatively and productively.
Empathy is not the domain of any one theoretical view although the Empathy orientation is primary in the theories of Kohut and Rogers. In gestalt therapy, we talk about being in "Good Contact" with a client; meeting at the boundary between therapist and client, while experiencing our own and the client’s separateness. While Contact does not insure Empathy, the therapist who has empathic understanding still must continually say or do what will reach the client and reveal that s/he understands. That is, the accuracy of the Empathy must be confirmed in the Contact.
We will explore the following issues conceptually and experientially:
- The nature of empathy and the nature of contact and the relationship of each to the other.
- The creation of mutuality through building on each other’s incomplete understanding–interweaving empathy and contact. Whatever the empathic experience may be at one moment, continuing contact creates a system of feedback. We test and confirm or dis-confirm our understanding.This feedback keeps us, with our empathy, on a moving track.
- Using empathy to stretch as well as to mirror. Empathy requires imagination and skill in selecting the most prominent needs of the other person. If we empathize only with the client's outer priority or priority in the moment, we may be following a theme in which the client is stuck. However, if we have the client’s full self structure in mind, we can empathize with a self or part-object that isn’t in the forefront for the client. In other words, empathy can stretch the person as well as mirror him.
- Expanding our range of empathy and contact. Our own self-structure effects the aspects we can empathize with of what our clients present. One could say that our empathy is limited to the experiences that are permissible to us—experiences that don’t violate our sense of self. The greater our range of what is personally permissible, the greater the range of allowable high-quality contact necessary for productive empathy with the client's experience. There are various ways we can stretch our empathic boundaries and so become more open to the stories people want to tell.
COMMENTS FROM PREVIOUS TRAINING:
"By combining your words, your still presence, a sense of no-judgment, and experiential work you make it possible to really take in the concepts. I find I am using the techniques almost unconsciously and that the underlying principles are often available to my interactions with clients."
"The actual experiencing is helpful to my ability to process as concepts are newer to me."
Date and Time
Friday, July 16
10:00AM – 1:00PM
Cost
$50
$35 if 3 or more register together
Location
5117 Manning Drive
Bethesda, MD 20814
Information
Marilyn Lammert
DrMarilynLammert@gmail.com – Email
301-951-9645 – Phone
