Maria Seehausen is a psychologist
and neuroscientist at the Cluster of Excellence: Languages of Emotion of
the Free University Berlin, where she works on her dissertation on the
effects of empathic paraphrasing on emotion in social conflict. She also
works as a freelance
mediator, trainer and coach, and is interested in the scientific
exploration of intervention techniques used in conflict resolution.
Maria is lead on the study, 'Effects of empathic paraphrasing - Extrinsic emotion regulation insocial conflict'.
"In the present study, we investigated the effects of empathic
paraphrasing as an extrinsic emotion regulation technique in social conflict. We
hypothesized that negative emotions elicited by social conflict can be regulated
extrinsically in a conversation by a listener following the narrator’s
perspective and verbally expressing cognitive empathy.
20 participants were
interviewed on an ongoing or recently self-experienced social conflict... it is possible that empathic paraphrasing not only leads
to a reduction of negative emotion in participants, but even induces
positive emotions, such as happiness and relief about being listened to
and validated.'
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"In the present study, we investigated the effects of empathic
paraphrasing as an extrinsic emotion regulation technique in social conflict. We
hypothesized that negative emotions elicited by social conflict can be regulated
extrinsically in a conversation by a listener following the narrator’s
perspective and verbally expressing cognitive empathy. 20 participants were
interviewed on an ongoing or recently self-experienced social conflict."
"Firstly, it is possible that empathic paraphrasing
not only leads to a reduction of negative emotion in participants, but
even induces positive emotions, such as happiness and relief about
being listened to and validated.'
"Comparing the effects of mindfulness and empathic
paraphrasing and investigating the potential consequences of this
difference on emotion processing and emotion regulation could be an
interesting research focus for future studies. "
