Empathy, Empowerment, and Self-Agency in Psychotherapy
Keywords:
empathy, attunement, relational needs, self-agency, beyond empathy, empowermentAbstract
Empathy is the ability to emotionally connect with another’s internal sensations and experience. Attunement goes beyond empathy by providing a reciprocal response to the other’s rhythm, affect, and relational needs. We provide empowerment when we validate the function of the other person’s style of thinking, fantasies, and stories. Self-agency is the result of having all of our relational needs acknowledged and validated.