Empathic Understanding grows the person
by
Fred Zimring
 
 

I. Introduction and outline

The usual, traditional frameworks that we use to understand psychotherapy do

not enable us to understand empathy.

Because we know that empathic responding contributes to the success of different types of psychotherapy (Bozarth & Zimring, in press). it is
paradoxical, that we understand so little about empathy and how it works. and
why empathy has a marked beneficial effect.

The traditional framework, with its stress on the beneficial effect of
increased awareness, would not predict that empathy, which does not seek out
the hidden causes of distress, would have the positive effect that it does.

Empathic understanding has a beneficial effect even though the listener is
understanding no more than that of which the speaker is aware.
In addition, the traditional framework does not specify specific targets of
empathic understanding does not tell us what, in the speaker's message, we
should try to understand and respond to.
At present, when trying to teach someone to respond empathically we can only prescribe in the most general terms, such as "Respond to the speaker's internal frame of reference", or, "Do what you just saw and expert do" without being able to specify the material to which response should be made.

We do not have answers to these questions about empathy because of our
present, traditional, framework.
Which stresses lack of awareness in explaining why we feel bad.
Using this framework most of us believe that becoming aware of and
understanding what is being avoided will result in our feeling better.

To replace the traditional framework a new framework will be proposed, one
that will give a different explanation for why distress occurs and how it is
alleviated by empathic understanding. In addition, hopefully, it will enable
us to specify the targets of empathic responding.

Summary: A new framework will be offered to answer questions about:

1. Why psychotherapeutic change occurs and why empathy has the effect it does.

2. What are the targets of empathic understanding?

Outline:

I. Introduction

II. The traditional framework

A. Elements of the traditional framework and its explanation for why change
occurs.

B. Targets of empathic understanding according to the traditional framework.

III. The proposed framework.

A. Elements of the proposed framework.

B. The Me and the I transactional self-states.

C. A new view of empathic understanding. Proposed targets.

D. Why empathic understanding changes the client.

IV. The proposed framework’s answers to the problems left by the traditional
framework.

V. Summary and conclusion.

II. The traditional framework..

A. Elements of the traditional framework and why change is thought to
occur.

For Freud, at the beginning of the century, the passions were central. Thus, the Id, the seat of the passions, was seen as the driving force, the source of energy. The self, or Ego, was seen as having little power of its own, having only the power captured from the Id.

In Freud’s formulation, the Ego was not seen as making decisions independent
of the Id, but instead served as a buffer between the passions and the world.
An assumption of Freud’s that has become the cornerstone of our traditional framework is psychic determinism.

This is the idea that our behavior and experience are caused by the
interplay of internal and external forces. For Freud psychically determining
forces are mainly outside of our awareness.

To change a particular psychic determinant it was thought necessary to bring it into awareness. The existence of psychic determinism has come to be
disputed and sometimes denied. The framework proposed in this paper does not assume this kind of determinism, does not assume that our feelings,
experience and actions occur because of unconscious internal forces.
At mid-century Rogers (1951) saw the self as having power of its own, with
the passions being much less important then they had been for Freud.
However, Rogers, like Freud, believed in psychic determinism.

For Rogers there are meanings, feelings and experiencing that exist within
us, and may not in be in our awareness, although they influence our emotional
life and behavior. In order to attain mastery of our life Rogers thought
that we should get touch with our internal flow of experience of meanings and feelings.

B. Empathic targets from the traditional framework.

The assumptions of the traditional framework about the importance of internal entities such as feelings and meanings dictates particular targets for
empathic understanding and so results in our listening for particular
material.

Greenberg and Elliott (1996) describe the targets for empathy that result
from the traditional framework, when they say "Three major targets of empathy have been delineated: (a) Feelings, with the emphasis on emotional experience; (b) self-concept with people's views of themselves and their self-evaluations as the focus; and (c) dynamic elements and their
connections, with the focus on underlying motivations and defenses, wishes and fears." All three, i.e., feelings, self concepts and dynamic elements, are assumed to be internal entities that exist within the person even if not in awareness.
The framework proposed here differs in that the self or person, rather than
thoughts, feelings or meanings is seen as central.
In addition, neither actions, behaviors or our emotional life are seen as
psychically determined.

What we do and how we feel, is not seen as caused by internal entities such
as passions, meaning or feelings.
This assumption about the lack of "internal cause" seems to be prevalent in anthropology.

When I asked an anthropologist to speak in an undergraduate personality
class he said that anthropologists no longer believed in personality.
By this he meant that they no longer believed in behavior being caused by
internal entities. What the anthropologists think about the cause of human action will be described below.

III. The proposed framework

A. Elements of the proposed framework.

1. What the person is. The definition of the person differs between the two

frameworks. In the traditional framework, the person is seen as a collection of various kinds of internal content such as anticipation's, thoughts, feelings, cognitions, etc. In the proposed framework it is the self that is central.

2. The person is part of a system. The traditional and the proposed
frameworks differ in their view of the separateness of the individual.
The traditional framework has the seemingly self-evident view that we exist as separate individuals.

The proposed framework has a startlingly different view, one which seems counter-intuitive. This is that the person is not a separate object or
entity, but rather is a part of an interacting system (Bateson, 1954?).
Thus, as I sit and write this, I am interacting with the structure of the
topics in this paper. Also, in thinking about what I will be doing this
evening, I am mentally interacting with several possibilities. All of this
mental activity is interactive with aspects of the system of which I am a
part at the moment.

3. We are continually engaged in transactions. Bruner (1990) saw the person as continually involved in transactions that affect the system of which the person is a part.

In these transactions the person's actions are affected by the system in
which they occur. The nature of these transactions can be gleaned from
Shweder, (1990) "The life of the psyche is the life of intentional persons,
responding to and directing their actions at, their own mental objects and
representations, and undergoing transformation through participation in an evolving intentional world that is the product of the mental representations
that make it up."
There are several aspects of this quotation which should be noted.
One is that it is the "person" directing actions. That is, the actions are not caused by feelings or other internal contents. Another aspect is that we are engaged in a series of reciprocal
interactions, with our mental representations. These interactions are guided by our intentions.

Words were seen by Wittgenstein ( )as having efficacy because of what they
did, because of their effect in transactions. Talking, a transaction between the speaker and the listener is one of the more important and prevalent transactions 4. Mental objects and representations. Shweder (1990) sees us as interacting with our mental representations. There are, of course, various kinds of internal representations. When the mental representations are of the objective world, circumstances and interactions in the objective world are being imagined. For example, a minute ago I was thinking of a restaurant
that I will be going to tonight. My mental representation of a restaurant,
something that exists in the world, is the representation of something
objective. Similarly, in thinking about the people I will meet and picturing
the last time I was there, I am interacting with the representations of the objective world. On the other hand, one's representations can be of more
subjective and experiential material. Thus the representations that are
being encountered might be representations of feelings and meanings. That
is, I might be examining my representations of feelings about going to the restaurant and my representations of my feeling about the interactions I am anticipating.

5. The cause of action. As mentioned above, the traditional "psychic
determinism" cause for behavior is being questioned. From the proposed
framework, what we do or say is not determined by an inner state or intent.
Instead, what we do or say is part of the transaction in which we are engaged.
An example of a transaction determining what is that I often have lunch with
a friend with whom I share many intellectual interests. Although I feel
close to this man, and he is a kind and caring human being, I do not talk to
him about my feelings. Indeed, when I am with him I can not think about my
feelings in any clear way. It is not that I think he would be critical if I
talked about my feelings, I just do not think of feelings when I am with him.
If you were to observe my behavior, you might think that I was defensive or,
at least, untrusting. From the proposed perspective, my inability to think
and talk about my feelings when I am with him is seen as having a different
cause. Talking is a transaction with the listener. That is, what I talk about is determined by what happens in the transaction.

When I have tried talking to him about how I felt, his response was about
facts about the possible cause of my feelings or factual reasons why they
occurred rather than about the experiential quality of what I had said.
thus, our transaction became one involving the objective aspects of what I
had said. As this transaction was repeated, my remarks became less and less experiential. After one or two such transactions, I found myself unable to
think about my feelings in his presence. Now, I can not conceptualize my
feelings, even to myself, when I am with him.

In summary, the elements of the proposed framework that are of importance are:

1. Action results from the self rather than from internal content

2. Action results from the self's involvement in transactional activity.

3. With intentionality or purposiveness.

4. We are constantly involved within, and reacting to, our mental
representations, i.e., reacting to our world as we see it, in order to
fulfill our intentions.
These elements operate together as system. That is, what transactions will
take place depends both upon our intentions and also upon the "mental objects and representations" with which we are interacting (Shweder, 1990).
This system, the cohesive, interaction of feelings, meanings, and intentions
with mental representations, can be termed the "transactional self-state".
It is termed "transactional" because of the continual interaction with the
mental objects.

This emphasis on the self as part of a system that includes transactions is
different than the usual emphases in self-theory. According to Baumeister
(1998), there are three roots of selfhood. One is the experience of reflective consciousness. Lying in bed at night thinking about your future, or, after hearing something heroic someone has done, wondering whether you
would do the same, are experiences that involve reflective consciousness.

Another root of selfhood are the experiences of the interpersonal such as the warm feeling you have when a fried compliments you or when you go to your child's graduation. The third root of selfhood involves the making of
decisions and the initiation of action. This is the self exercising executive functioning, the self as agent.
Baumeister's three roots of selfhood, which serve as a summary of traditional
self theory, assume the person to be separate from his or her activity such
thinking about and experiencing interaction with others or exercising
executive functioning. That is the self experiences and thinks.
The concept of the transactional self-state proposed in this paper is
different in that the self and its representations are seen as part of an
interacting system.
The executive functioning of the self, is not seen as existing separate
from the person but rather says that the self, acting with intent and
responding to mental representations engages in particular executive
functioning. Similarly, the concept of the transactional self-state refers
not just to interpersonal experiences, but rather to the interpersonal experie
nces that occur as a result of the intentional interaction with the world and with our representations of others and their actions.

B. The "Me" and the "I" transactional self-states We will have reference to the "Me" and the "I" transactional self-states. In one self-state our mental representations are about the objective world.

When we are in this state, our transactions concern the objective world..

This is the "Me" self-state. In the other state, our concerns and
representations are about the subjective world. This is the "I" self-state,
(Mead 1932). In this state, our transactions are concerned with subjective representations, we interact with representations of the self such as
feelings and meanings.

It is the central argument of this paper that changing from one self-state to
another changes feelings. And that empathic understanding is effective
because it changes our self-states. The characteristics of the two
transactional self-states are:

1. Seeing oneself as agent or object. When we are in the Me self-state we
see ourselves as objects.
In the statement "Something happened to me" one sees oneself as the object
of what has happened. In the I self-state, the self as agent, is expressed in the statement "I did X". Here one sees oneself as the initiating actor.

2. Different types of mental representations in the different self-states.

The Me and the I self-states involve different representations of the self
and of the world. When in the Me self-state we are responding, to our
representations of the objective, external, world. If, when you awoke this
morning you were thinking about what you had to do today, you were in your Me self-state. On the other hand, if, when you awoke, you thinking about how you felt at the moment, perhaps sensing that you had more energy this morning than on other mornings, you were in an I self-state.

3. Different senses of the self in the different self-states. Of course,
we are more than our intentions. At any given moment we have mental objects
and representations of many different types such as feelings, perceptions,
anticipation's and-self communications. Our representations of self. are
important. When I am involved in a mental transactions with my
representations of the objective world, I will be aware, not only of my
representations of circumstances and what other people have done, but I will
also be aware of aspects of myself in the transaction. Thus, at the moment
of writing this, I am involved in trying to understand what the next point
should be and also am aware of a general state of being tired and slightly
discouraged. Although being tired and discouraged could be thought as a
feeling existing as a separate mental object or state, in reality it is what

I feel myself to be at this instant, my sense of my self, at the moment. My
mental representation is not of tiredness, but rather is of being a tired
person To take another example, if someone is blaming me for something and I am trying to justify my action, my self-sense may be one of being an unjustly accused person.

Our present self-sense can determine what mental objects and epresentations
are encountered in the next moment. Thus, in the example given above, if my
aware self sense is one of being a tired and discouraged person, during the
next moment I am likely to be thinking about my physical condition and the
mental representations I will be encountering will be representation of
physical states. If, as in the example given of my self-sense is one of
being unjustly accused, the mental objects in the next few moments are likely include mentally saying things to my accuser.

Note the difference in the self-sense in the two examples. In the first, the
self-sense was concerned with my physical being. In the other, the
self-sense is concerned with the interaction with another. This is analogous to the differences, noted above between the character of various intentions and representations.
That is, both the objects and representations we encounter and our
intentions can vary in character from being concerned with and perhaps
directed by the objective world, to be concerned with and directed by our own
values and purposes. Similarly, our self-sense can vary in the same way.
That is, our self-sense can be concerned with the self, as it was in the
first example, or with the world, as in the second example

4. Differences in functioning in the two self-states.. The modes of
functioning in the two self states are summarized in table 1 (adapted from
Zimring, 1988)
Table 1 Comparison of the "Me" and "I" Modes of Functioning

Me I

(1) Socially defined self (1) Personally defined self

(2) Behavior guided by incorporated (2) Goals set by own

values social standards

(3) Morality defined by society. (3) Morality based on
personal values

(4) Agenda for what has to be done set (4) Agenda set by self . by society

(5) Enables problem solution according (5) New, creative solutions
to social standards

(6) Repository of social knowledge (6) Contains self-knowledgeandexpectations

(7) Provides social viewpoint in line (7) Reacts creatively to
"me" with assimilated social values attitudes and interactions

(8) Passive recipient or reactive self (8) Proactive
(9) Concerned with past and future (9) Experiencing the present

(10) Focus on others (10) Focus on self

(11) Lives in roles. (11) Acts from present personal values

(12) Negative feelings and distress occurs (12) Distress occurs as a
result of as a result of judgment of others. not meeting own goals.
At any given moment, we may be in either of the two states. If I am
concerned about paying my taxes and you told me about a bank where I could
borrow money at a low rate, I would continue to interact with representations of the objective world, perhaps picturing myself going to the bank. On the other hand, if you were to say something like "That sounds like a depressing situation" I might be stimulated to consult representations of the subjective aspects of the self such as how I feel about the situation.
Besides the self-state the person is in a the moment, people differ in the
amount of I and Me self-states they possess. Some people have little I
self-state and spend almost all of their time concerned with meeting the
demands of the world.

When I was beginning to do therapy, I had a client who always talked about
what he was doing, but never about his experience. When I asked him what his
feelings were about something he was doing, he said he was glad to have the
money that the activity produced. He was not able to tell me anything about
his feelings. He was not being defensive. He had not developed a world of known experiences and purposes, had not developed an I self-state. The
purpose of therapy with him was to help him to develop such a self-state.

With dichotomies like the Me and the I self-states there is a tendency to
view one as good and the other as bad.
It would be wrong to do this here.

One self-state could not exist without the other. It is like a ship, where
without the machinery and the crew (the Me) the captain (the I) would be
powerless. On the other hand, without the captain, the ship would be without
direction, would go as propelled by outside forces, would have difficulty in
meeting and adjusting to new circumstances.

5. Feelings are different in the two transactional self-states. In the I
self-state when one is aware of one's purposes and feels enough ownership of
the world to try to accomplish one's purposes, a sense of control and mastery may be experienced.
In the Me self-state we experience negative feelings such as loss, guilt
and judgment.

This occurs because when we are in this state we perceive ourselves to be
objects like other objects in the world, judging ourselves by the world’s
standards, feeling compelled to do what the world dictates.

This results in our being vulnerable to and frequently experiencing the
judgment of others and, sometimes, in our feeling helpless to meet the
standards of others, experiencing guilt and helplessness.

C. Targets for empathic understanding from the proposed framework.

1. Traditional targets As mentioned above, Greenberg and Elliott (1996)

describe the targets for empathy that result from the traditional framework.

"Three major targets of empathy have been delineated: (a) Feelings, with the

emphasis on emotional experience; (b) self-concept with people's views of

themselves and their self-evaluations as the focus; and (c) dynamic elements

and their connections, with the focus on underlying motivations and defenses,

wishes and fears." All three, i.e., feelings, self concepts and dynamic

elements, are assumed to be internal entities that exist within the person

even if there are not in awareness.

2. The proposed framework targets: One such target is the speaker’s

self-sense and self-reactions.

Another is the speaker's intentions within the transactions in which he or

she is engaged.

A third target is the nature of the representations that are the context in

which these intentional transactions are occurring.

a. Understanding the speaker's self-sense and self-reactions.

These reactions alert us to the speaker's perspective. Thus, "I didn't like

the fact that she did X" should alert us to the fact that the significant

transaction for the speaker is not just what "she" did, but rather is the

speaker's rejection of "her" action.

b. Understanding the speaker’s intentions and transactions.

Transactions and intentions involve goals. If we understand the goal, we

understand the transaction. As an example, assume someone says "Things are

pretty frantic right now. My kids are just starting school and I am starting

a new job so I can’t be home with them and it doesn’t feel right. So they

have to be over at my Mother’s and she is very inconsistent in her treatment

of them." What is the transaction to which you could respond? What is her

intent in telling you this?. At the moment you would not know because her

immediate goal is not apparent. Perhaps the goal is one of trying to

understand how to change the situation with the mother, or perhaps the goal

is one of exploring her feelings about all the speaker has to do. It turned

out to be neither of these. She continued "Its not as bad as it was before.

I can sort of see the shape of some of the roots of the turmoil." From this

last remark it is clear that she is engaged in trying to understand her

changing self in respect to these rather frantic situations. Her intention

is to understand her changing self. It is this to which you should respond.

She then went on to say that she is now better able to handle these frantic

situations. And she then discussed what had led to her ability to handle

these situations.

The most obvious cue to understanding the speaker’s goal and direction in

which the speaker is moving is to listen for the sequence and relation of

topics from which the goal can be glimpsed.

When the woman in the last example first said that it was a frantic

situation, you, the listener, could have held a very tentative hypothesis

that her goal was to make the situation less frantic. You might continue to

hold this hypothesis while she told you about the situation. When she then

talked about her mother’s treatment of the child, you might then have

switched to another tentative hypothesis about her goal and thought that she

was either going to try to understand what she could do about her mother or

was going to try to understand her feelings about her mother. When she began

to talk about understanding the roots of her inner turmoil, your hypothesis

about her goal changes to one of her trying, at a deep level, to understand

an aspect of herself. This hypothesis was confirmed when, in the next

several remarks, she talked about changes in her ability to tolerate her

frantic situations and about her understanding of why these changes occurred.

Understanding the intentional basis for the sequence of topics (that she was

trying to understand something about herself in the last example) you can

glimpse the speaker’s goal and can sometimes anticipate what the person is

going to say. Empathic understanding and responding consists, according to

the proposed framework, of trying to understand these goals.

Thus, in terms of the example, your empathic understanding checking

responses would be remarks like "You are beginning to see why you feel less

turmoil".

The primary goal of empathic listening is not to understand feelings, such

as, in the example, the woman’s feelings about her mother.

Even assuming that you are correct that the speaker is annoyed with her

mother, because the speaker is not focusing on her annoyance, it would not be

empathic for you to focus on her annoyance. Instead, what should be

understood and focused on is the direction in which the speaker is moving,

her intention in talking, the goal she is trying to achieve.

In the example she was moving in the direction of exploring (good) changes

in the self.

Understanding the speaker’s intention and the transaction in which he or she

is involved is necessary even when there is a direct statement of feeling.

If someone were to say "Boy, do I feel lousy today" the question from the

proposed framework would be about the nature of the transaction in which the

speaker is involved and his or her goals in that transaction..

If the person’s next statement was "I really hate to think about work. I

want to lay under a tree and read a book", the person may be concerned with

having to work. Your response might be "You really don’t feel like working."

Notice that this response is not concerned with the experiential quality of

the "lousy" feeling and is preparing the ground for the person to talk about

their feelings about working.

Of course, if after saying "Boy do I feel lousy today" the person was to

say "I really feel flat" the speaker’s goal is, evidently, to understand how

he was feeling and so you should try to understand that his intention, the

endeavor in which he is engaged, is, for him, to understand his feeling.

As listener you would be sensitive to this endeavor, to this intention on

his part, and would try to understand the quality of his feeling that he is

intending to convey.

If another client was to say "Damn him, I keep doing things for him.

Yesterday I did X for him and he didn’t even notice."

Instead, you would respond to his perception of the neglect by his friend.

That is, you do not respond to what the person may be feeling and

experiencing, but rather to the person’s intention, to what the person is

trying to convey to you about what is happening to him or her.
 
 
 
 
 
 

c. Understanding the nature of the client’s representations.

It is also necessary to understand the nature of the client’s representation

of his or her world. If the client is talking about the difficulty he is

having with the Internal Revenue Service and is describing the letters he

wrote, who he talked to and what he said, your empathic understanding should

be guided by your understanding that he is encountering representations of

the objective world. If you were to attempt to respond to a subjective

representation not present at the moment, that is, if you were to guess at

feelings he might have about these circumstances, you would be speaking

about a world different from the one that his is in at the moment. His

inability to talk about feelings at the moment is due to the kind of world

that he is in, is due to the fact that he is only encountering

representations of objective circumstances at that moment. It is not due to

"defensiveness" or repression.

D. Why empathic understanding changes the client.

We can now begin to understand why, according to the proposed framework,

empathic understanding brings change and results in the client having less

negative feeling.

This newer explanation, rather than assuming that change occurs as a result

of discovering underlying feelings, assumes that change occurs because of

movement between the two transactional self-states.

That is, positive change occurs when we move from a "Me" self-state with

feelings based on transactions with the objective world to an "I" self-state.

Empathic understanding causes change because it facilitates movement from

the Me to the I transactional self-states.

Changing our self-states changes our experience.

Why does change from one state to another occur happen when the client is

empathically understood?

Why does responding to person’s goals and intentions in the transactions in

which he or she is involved and in terms of the nature of the person’s

representations increase the I self-state?

Part of the answer comes from understanding the cultural basis of the

self-state.

The beliefs we get from Western culture are important in determining the

growth of the I and Me self states.

Our culture gives a different importance to the objective and to the

subjective worlds.

It sees the objective world as important, powerful and real.

It sees the subjective world as insignificant and unimportant.

It sees our feelings and experiences as irrelevant to the "real" work of the

world.

Our feelings and experiences are to be taken care of and eliminated in

private by activities such as the interactions with friends so as not to

interfere with our work.

If this proves to be ineffective, then one should get psychotherapy to

remove the interference to the supposedly "real" and important work of the

world.

This cultural emphasis means that the Me state becomes more developed than

the I.

Because of this cultural emphasis on the importance of the objective, we come

to believe that our subjective experience is less important than what happens

in the "outside" world.

This belief in the unimportance of the subjective leads us to ignore our

subjective functioning and to feel guilty if we are not functioning

effectively in the objective world, but are, rather, attending to the

subjective aspects of our lives. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Responding to the targets for empathy of the proposed framework validates the

speaker’s intent and the worth of his or her view of the world.

That is, by responding to the person’s intent rather than to what "should"

have been done in the situation, you are validating the person’s internal

frame of reference, giving it credence rather than validating an external or

objective framework.

As a result of this validation the I self-state that exists is validated and

grows.

An example of the effect of this validation occurred with a client who at the

beginning of therapy was continually hallucinating and hearing voices, and

had been doing so for many years.

When we first met, I did not ask him about himself but rather asked him

what he wanted to know about me and answered his questions which had to do

with whether my children were functioning in the world.

The therapy consisted of my trying to understand his world by understanding

the transactions he was which he was involved.

This involved understanding his intentions and his mental representations.

His mental representations frequently had to do with his dead uncle talking

to him and his efforts to defend himself against his dead uncle.

I always accepted these representations and intentions and continually

checked my understanding of them by restating what I thought he was saying.

Only on a few occasions did he talk about his feelings, and he never had an

insight about why something had happened in his life or why he was hallucinati

ng and hearing voices.

Within a few interviews his hallucinations had become much less frequent, and

those that occurred seemed less real to him.

The voices persisted for a longer period.

After forty interviews, meeting about three times every two weeks, his

hallucinations had disappeared and the voices had diminished both in severity

and frequency.

Given that we had spent very little time talking about subjective material,

that there was no insight and no realization by him of what was causing his

problems, why did he change? For several reasons.

He changed because he had been listened to empathically

This type of listening had a profound effect. Empathic listening and

responding to his world, to his intentions and representations as being valid

and important validated and confirmed the value of his observations and of

the perspective on the world that was uniquely his.

This may have been of special importance in his case because, as someone who

had been labeled as psychotic for many years, he was continually being told

that what he observed, said and thought was invalid, was not "real", that the

listener knew more about his world than he did.

He came to trust his internal frame of reference.

His I self-state grew as a result of the validation that took place as a

result of my responding to his internal frame of reference.

I believe he came to feel himself more of a person, someone who has valid

and valuable observations to make about himself and his life.

After this happened, he was more likely to acknowledge feelings and demands

as being his, rather than as coming from outside him as hallucinations or

voices.

Sometimes near the end of therapy, a client will have feelings that seem to

solve the problem that brought the client into therapy.

This seems like proof of the traditional framework, it seems that the

awareness of unknown feelings, solves our problems.

Consider a woman who had been sexually abused as a child and who, near the

end of therapy, voices anger about having been abused.

Assume also that her life changes in important ways after she has spent

some sessions voicing her anger.

From the old traditional perspective it seems as if she has finally

uncovered the anger that has been causing her problems. From the proposed

perspective this anger is occurring now because after having her internal

frame of reference validated by the empathic understanding of her therapist,

her I self-state becomes stronger.

Possessing a stronger I state, she now feels she has rights, among which is

the right not to be, and not to have been, abused.

When she remembers the abuse, she now feels that she had the right not to be

abused, and so feels anger. Her life changes, not because of her realization

of her anger, but rather because she is in a different self-state.

Empathic understanding from the traditional and from the proposed frameworks

stand in contrast.

Early in the abused woman’s therapy there were few of the traditional

targets for empathic understanding.

There were few feelings mentioned and little experience was described.

The targets were different when viewed from the proposed framework.

Early in therapy she talked about what she was trying to do in several

realms of her life and so her intentions and the nature of her world could

have been responded to empathically.

IV. The problems viewed from the proposed framework.

a. Problem: Why empathic understanding brings change: Answer: Empathic

understanding both brings a change from being in the Me to the being in the

I. state and also grows the I.

This change from the Me to the I results from the validation of the person’s

internal frame of reference.

In responding to the proposed framework's empathy targets such as intentions

and transactions, we are responding to unique aspects of the person, to those

aspects in which we are most individual.

In responding to these, in checking with the person to see if our responses

are valid, in our assumption that these unique aspects of the person are

important truths, we are demonstrating our belief in the validity of the

person’s intentions and inner worlds.

Once this happens, once people begin to believe in the validity of their

intentions and inner world, of their internal frame of reference, they begin

to respond from an internal rather than from an external frame of reference.

When we see ourselves as I or agent rather than Me or object, our experience

changes.

b. Problem: What to respond to when responding empathically?

Answer: In responding to intentions and transactions and the nature of the

client’s world we help people build their I states, help them obtain the

basis for living according to their own purposes.

If we respond, as the older framework dictates, only to feelings and

meanings, we have no way of responding to those who need therapy the most,

the people who possess undeveloped I states, people who do not talk about, or

have feelings and meanings that they can consider, people who do not talk

from their internal frame of reference.

V. Summary and conclusion.

The assumption that what is hidden within us is what causes our troubles is

central to the traditional framework.

This differs from the proposed framework which asserts that both negative

and positive feelings occur because of the self-state in which we are at the

moment and that psychotherapeutic change occurs when our self-states change.

Empathy does not help us to find some inner hidden truth. Empathy has a

beneficial effect because it grows and changes our self-states.

The traditional framework, in its assumptions of the intractable (to our

unaided awareness) nature of unknown and ignored feelings and perceptions,

makes us slaves to these feelings and perceptions.

We are slaves to these feelings when we adopt the assumptions of the

traditional framework that these internal feelings and experiences govern our

lives. Helpless, because, these feeling, our masters, are assumed to be

unknown and invisible to us.

The proposed framework says that we should focus on our transactions and our

intentions in those transactions, something that is not hidden from us but is

a part of our daily life.

In focusing on our intentions and transactions we will be validating our

internal frame of reference, be attaining the mastery of our lives that Carl

Rogers thought so desirable.
 
 
 
 

Footnote page:

By "empathic understanding" is meant the process of checking one’s

understanding of the others internal frame of reference while one has an

attitude of unconditional positive regard.