Carl Rogers Quotes About Empathy

Quotes about: Empathy

• When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified; or when he or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to identity, then understanding is called for. The gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic stance… provides illumination and healing. In such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another.

  Carl Rogers

  Hurt, Confused, Believe

• We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.

  Carl Rogers

  Real, Thinking, Empathy

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.

  Carl Rogers

  Responsibility, Confusion, Empathy

• When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, "Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it's like to be me".

  Carl Rogers

  Real, Eye, Thinking

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Empathy is a special way of coming to know another and ourself, a kind of attuning and understanding. When empathy is extended, it satisfies our needs and wish for intimacy, it rescues us from our feelings of aloneness.

  Carl Rogers

  Empathy, Understanding, Feelings

• An empathic way of being can be learned from empathic persons. Perhaps the most important statement of all is that the ability to be accurately empathic is something which can be developed by training. Therapists, parents and teachers can be helped to become empathic. This is especially likely to occur if their teachers and supervisors are themselves individuals of sensitive understanding. It is most encouraging to know that this subtle, elusive quality, of utmost importance in therapy, is not something one is "born with", but can be learned, and learned most rapidly in an empathic climate.

  Carl Rogers

  Teacher, Parent, Empathy

• Over the years, however, the research evidence keeps piling up, and it points strongly to the conclusion that a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change and learning.

  Carl Rogers

  Years, Empathy, Degrees

• Powerful is our need to be known, really known by ourselves and others, even if only for a moment.

  Carl Rogers

  Powerful, Empathy, Needs

• When I can relax, and be close to the transcendental core of me, then I may behave in strange and impulsive ways in the relationship, ways I cannot justify rationally, which have nothing to do with my thought processes. But these strange behaviors turn out to be right in some odd way. At these moments it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other. Our relationship transcends itself and has become something larger.

  Carl Rogers

  Empathy, Relax, Way

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.147, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• There is another peculiar satisfaction in really hearing someone: It is like listening to the music of the spheres, because beyond the immediate message of the person, no matter what that might be, there is the universal. Hidden in all of the personal communications which I really hear there seem to be orderly psychological laws, aspects of the same order we find in the universe as a whole. So there is both the satisfaction of hearing this person and also the satisfaction of feeling one's self in touch with what is universally true.

  Carl Rogers

  Communication, Self, Order

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.26, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• True empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality. This comes across to the recipient with some surprise. "If I am not being judged, perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought".

  Carl Rogers

  Evil, Empathy, Quality

• I believe I know why it is satisfying to me to hear someone. When I can really hear someone, it puts me in touch with him; it enriches my life. It is through hearing people that I have learned all that I know about individuals, about personality, about interpersonal relationships.

  Carl Rogers

  Believe, People, Personality

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.26, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The way of being with another person which is termed empathic...means temporarily living in their life, moving abut in it delicately without making judgment... to be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter the other's world without prejudice...a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle and gentle way of being.

  Carl Rogers

  Strong, Moving, Mean

• Man's inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively.

  Carl Rogers

  Men, Effective Listening, Empathy

• To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth.

  Carl Rogers

  Hurt, Mean, Emotional

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person.

  Carl Rogers

  Emotional, Empathy, States

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• So, as you can readily see from what I have said thus far, a creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathic, nonjudgmental listening is for me terribly important in a relationship. It is important for me to provide it; it has been extremely important, especially at certain times in my life, to receive it. I feel that I have grown within myself when I have provided it; I am very sure that I have grown and been released and enhanced when I have received this kind of listening.

  Carl Rogers

  Empathy, Creative, Listening

  Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin