After a review of the research on specific elements of the psychotherapy Norcross & Wampold (2011) noted that empathy is demonstrably effective in promoting change in psychotherapy. Empathy is recognized as a trans theoretical construct that contributes to positive outcomes across different therapeutic approaches (Watson, Steckley & McMullen, 2014). This 3-day workshop will provide participants with a solid grounding in the skills required to be maximally empathic with their clients, to work more effectively in emotion focused psychotherapy, and develop productive therapeutic alliances.  

Participants will be trained in the skills of moment-by-moment attunement to clients’s experience in the session to facilitate clients cognitive-affective processing in emotion-focused psychotherapy. Skills training will include a combination of brief lectures, video demonstrations, case discussions and supervised practice in experiential exercises. The workshop will begin with a discussion on the role of empathy in therapeutic practice. First an overview of emphatic resonance drawing from recent developments in neuropsychological research will be presented and ways of facilitating clinicians’ responsiveness discussed. Second emphatic expression including the behavioral components of empathy, along with different response modes and markers for how to intervene differentially will be identified and demonstrated. Third the role of empathic attunement in the processing of overwhelming emotion, self-criticism, and emotional injuries from the past will be presented. Videotaped examples of ways of working empathically will be presented and discussed. 

This training will provide therapists from a variety of clinical backgrounds with an opportunity to enhance their skills of empathic attunement in emotion-focused psychotherapy.