People may benefit from talking to a professional who has excellent empathic listening skills when they have something important to talk about but do not feel comfortable revealing it to friends or family. Or if their friends or family typically "listen" by:

• interrupting frequently to talk about their interests (for example, "That reminds me of when I ...")
• interrupting to give advice even though they are not asked to give advice (for example, "You might feel better if you ...")
• judging or evaluating what they are hearing (for example, "That would be a mean thing to say to ...")

To help you decide if you want to continue reading, you might want to know my qualifications for writing the content of this site. One of them is that I am a former clinical psychologist (retired).

Let us return to the professional I have in mind. This person is not a psychotherapist but a listening skills professional. Other labels which I believe adequately describe this profession are empathic listening professional or simply empathic listener.

For an illustration of empathic listening skills, click here. For an explanation of the differences between sympathy and empathy, click here.

This page, page 1, of this three-page website contains the following sections:

• Status of the Listening Skills Professional
• Purpose of this Website
• Listening Skills Professionals Help Alleviate Distress
• Links to the Table of Contents for this Entire Website
• Links to Some of My Other Websites on Empathy and Listening Skills.

This profession does not exist. However, empathic listening is one of the activities of many professionals who provide psychotherapy services--clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, marrriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, etc. For the purpose of this website, I will group all of the above professions under the single label of "psychotherapist".

Purpose of this Website   oooooooo

This site will explain why I advocate that society establish the profession of empathic listener as a profession separate from that of psychotherapist.

I will begin by discussing the subject of talking about upset feelings. Later I will discuss talking with a listening skills professional for help with other needs, for example, making a decision.

From time to time I feel the need to consult a listening skills professional to help me cope with my strong emotional distress about my prostate cancer. At this point, you might want to ask me: "Why not consult a psychotherapist if your goal is to alleviate your emotional distress?": Some of my answers, listed below, are related to my personal needs and characteristics. I recognize that you might not find some or any of my answers pertinent to you but I believe that many of my readers would find them pertinent.

• I probably would pay a lower fee because a listening skills professional would require less education and training than a psychotherapist.
• I would be ill at ease telling people that I was consulting a psychotherapist but less ill at ease with disclosing that I was consulting a listening skills professional.
• I would dislike the times when a psychotherapist focused on what was wrong with me--diagnosis and evaluation. I would prefer the non-judgmental attitude of a listening skills professional, for example, a focus on what my thoughts and feelings mean to me and no interludes of thinking about what they mean about my diagnosis.
• My wife, Louise, would feel less stressed if I reduced the number of times I asked her to function as an empathic listener for me. When she listens to me talk about my distress, after a while she often becomes distressed too. I would not want to add distress to her life if I could avoid it. She has more than enough distress to cope with from other aspects of her life.
• I prefer not to burden other family members and friends with my emotional distress.
• Although I have learned to disclose embarrassing aspects of me to Louise, there, of course, remain some things I am not comfortable disclosing to her. I would prefer to reveal them to a stranger.
• If a listening skills professional did not give me the help I sought, I could then consult a psychotherapist.

• Page 1 - this page - Status of the Listening Skills Professional; Purpose of this Website; Listening Skills Professionals Help Alleviate Distress
• Page 2 - Listening Skills Professionals Help Maintain Well-Being; The Need to be Listened to
• Page 3 - Listening Skills Professionals Versus Psychotherapists; Unnecessary Suffering.

If you liked this site, e-mailing me your thanks will reward me for creating it and help sustain my motivation to keep it going for future visitors.

Some of My Other Websites on Empathy and Listening Skills

Empathy, Listening Skills, and Relationships is a six-page website which includes information about the use of empathy and listening skills to foster good relationships, emotional intimacy, and happy marriages.

Empathy, Listening Skills, and Intimacy is an expanded version of the six-page website.

Listening Skills and Relationships is a discussion board which includes messages from me and my responses to messages from others. To read or post messages, you do not have to register. Visit the board to read questions and answers, ask or answer questions, share experiences, etc.

Copyright © 2002, 2003, and 2004 by Lawrence J. Bookbinder, Ph.D. and last revised on October 3, 2004. I also have a website on the noncancerous enlarged prostate.