William R.
Miller is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at
the University of New Mexico, with over forty years of experience in
teaching empathic understanding. He is a co-founder of
motivational interviewing. His many books include; Lovingkindness, Quantum
Change, Motivational Interviewing, and Portals. His latest book is
Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding. In this
interview we talk about his book and how to be a better empathic listener.
Are you a good listener? How well do you really know the people around you?
A capacity for empathic understanding is hard-wired in our brains, but its
full expression involves particular listening skills that are seldom learned
through ordinary experience.
Through clear explanation, specific examples, and
practical exercises, Dr. Miller offers a step-by-step process for developing
your skillfulness in empathic listening. Empathic understanding can help
to deepen personal relationships, alleviate conflict, communicate across
differences, and promote positive change.
Interview Transcription of Listening Well: The Art of Empathic
Understanding,
William R. Miller and Edwin Rutsch
0:00 Introduction
Professor Emeritus of psychology and psychiatry William R. Miller at
University of New Mexico
Over 40
years experience in teaching empathic listening, focus on development
testing and motivational interviewing for addiction
Author
of Listening Well: Art of Empathic Understanding
1:30 How did you get started with empathic listening?
Started
in second year of grad school at University of Oregon, took a yearlong
course on how to talk to client, got introduced to the person-centered
and empathic listening way
3:00 Motivational Interviewing/ how he started to get into this
Researched alcoholism and teaching person-centered and empathic
listening
Used
scale to measure how therapists used empathic listening, which could
predict ⅔ of client outcome
Motivational Interviewing came during his sabbatical in Norway while
teaching students, who questioned how Bill talked to his clients and
what types of questions he asked them
Mindset
"Let the clients make the decisions for how to change" instead of
telling them what or how to change; don't push against cl resistance
7:00 Why focus on empathic listening now? Why this book now
Can't do
motivational interviewing without empathic listening
First
book for lay audience on empathic listening as this skill applies to all
kinds of relationships, and it's not a common skill but is learnable.
Book is
very accessible, about 100 pages with short chapters
Chapters
are written as skills that can be built upon one another, including how
to practice these steps.
Dr.
Miller believes that empathic listening is not a technique but rather a
learnable skill, meaning that therapists do not "have the answers."
13:00 Why hasn't empathic listening spread more?
Per
Miller, it's never been needed as much as now. As we live in an
individualistic culture, empathic listening is generous/ a sacrifice.
Within
just one session of empathic listening, some clients made notable
progress.
Carl Rogers believed that empathic listening is important but
unappreciated.
The
field of psychology has been more focused on the "coolest techniques" in
recent years.
19:00 Empathic listening in therapy sessions
Often
one-way as client is seeking services
Dr.
Miller will sometimes self-disclose if he believes the client will find
it helpful.
21:00 What is empathy? How do you define it?
Academics seem to disagree on what exactly empathy is so what exactly is
empathic listening?
Miller's definition is a skill to be able to listen and communicate back
to another person that you are there.
Empathy
does not mean mirroring the other person's emotion. To be empathic, you
should be separate in your feelings. Ex: Alcohol counselors who are in
recovery have a hard time separating their recovery from their
clients'.
Empathy
is not sympathy, apathy, or objectivity.
29:00 Advice often backfires
Humans
are psychologically programmed to reject advice
Therapists/ professionals should keep this in their mind and not feel
like they need to control their clients.
30:00 What's the most important thing about getting the word out about
this book? How can we spread the word about empathic listening?
Empathic
listening is one of the most important skills Dr. Miller has learned
both personally and professionally.
We often
do not learn about empathic listening in schools or anywhere else.
Empathic
listening is important in politics due to the current polarization.
Empathy circles can help both sides hear what the other has to say and
how they think. It can help people let go of the "us vs. them" mentality
and realize that there are some shared values.
Edwin
Rutsch has practiced empathic listening with his family, which really
changed his family dynamic in a positive way.
45:00 Empathic listening can bridge the different values and cultures that
people have.
"Us vs.
them" is a complete illusion
Book
lays out 12 different roadblocks (from Gordon) to listening, including
readily agreeing/ disagreeing with people, desire to soothe and reassure
rather than listen, and asking questions without reflecting.
Empathic
listening is a long-term process that requires practice.
50:00 Layout of book
Includes
the 12 roadblocks to listening, how to communicate better without works,
open and closed questions, forming reflections
Becoming
conscious that when we're listening to people, we're really just
guessing what they mean and assuming what they think they heard a person
say is really what they meant. The book includes an exercise to help us
better understand what others are saying.
After teaching
accurate empathy for 40 years I decided to write something
for a general readership, including experiential exercises I've been using.
Empathic understanding is also a foundational skill for those learning
motivational interviewing.
Bill Miller
Are you a good listener? How well do you really know the people around you?
A capacity for empathic understanding is hard-wired in our brains, but its
full expression involves particular listening skills that are seldom learned
through ordinary experience. Through clear explanation, specific examples, and
practical exercises, Dr. Miller offers a step-by-step process for developing
your skillfulness in empathic listening.
With a solid basis in sixty years of scientific research, these
communication skills are not limited to professionals, and can be learned and
applied in your everyday life. Instead of assuming that you know the meaning
of what you think you heard, empathic listening lets you develop a more
accurate understanding and prevent miscommunication.
Empathic understanding can help to deepen personal relationships, alleviate
conflict, communicate across differences, and promote positive change. The
author also discusses skills for expressing yourself clearly, and for
strengthening close relationships and friendships. Through empathic
understanding you have access to life experience far beyond your own, and over
time, listening well and deeply becomes a way of being, fostering a
compassionate and patient acceptance of human frailties--those of others as
well as your own.
Contents
Preference 1. Together 2. Accurate Empathy
3. How Accurate Empathy Works 4. The Attitude of Empathic Understanding 5. Roadblocks to Listening 6. The Picture Without the Sound 7. Asking Questions 8. Forming Reflections 9. Diving Deeper 10. Affirming
11. Expressing Yourself 12. Listening Well in Relationships 13. Empathic Understanding in close Relationships 14. Listening for Values 15. Listening Well in Conflict 16. The Promises of Empathic Listening End notes
Review: Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding by William R. Miller
BY LOU AGOSTA on JUNE 2, 2018
"In case you are unaware of William Miller's background, he is the innovator
behind Motivational Interviewing. Listening well – the practice, not just the
title of the book – is at the heart of this approach. In turn, the practice of
listening well is based on empathic understanding. Miller is explicit in
invoking the work of Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987) Rogers was one of the founders
of humanistic psychology, and Rogers's person-centered psychotherapy provides
the foundation for this results-oriented intervention. Miller has written and
concise and powerful contribution, which will benefit any reader committed to
taking her or his listening up a couple of levels from where the reader is at
now."
"One of the largest determinants of client outcomes is the counselor who
provides treatment. Therapists often vary widely in effectiveness, even when
delivering standardized manual-guided treatment. In particular, the
therapeutic skill of accurate empathy originally described by Carl Rogers has
been found to account for a meaningful proportion of variance in therapeutic
alliance and in addiction treatment outcomes.
High-empathy counselors appear to have higher success rates regardless of
theoretical orientation. Low-empathy and confrontational counseling, in
contrast, has been associated with higher drop-out and relapse rates, weaker
therapeutic alliance and less client change. The authors propose emphasis on
empathic listening skills as an evidence-based practice in the hiring and
training of counselors to improve outcomes and prevent harm in addiction
treatment."
