As healthcare workers, we’re good at fixing things. If someone presents with a problem, it’s our job to help. We might fix broken skin or bones; we might fix high blood pressure or cholesterol with medication. What if a colleague or client shares something difficult they are experiencing, or a moment from the day that has stayed with them? The instinctual reflex is to try to ‘fix it’ by offering solutions, advice, or proposing a next step to take. While this is well-intentioned and reasonable, not every moment shared with us is asking to be solved. Sometimes what’s needed isn’t a better answer, but simply someone willing to listen.
The reflex to fix is trained into rural and remote health workers, as we are often the only clinician available and expected to assess, formulate, decide the treatment path and act with very limited backup and time. Over years of experiencing this, it doesn’t simply switch off after work. It follows us into staffroom debriefs, conversations with worried family members, and supervision conversations. That same need to act and resolve issues can quietly crowd out the simpler, but harder work of just being present with someone.
The mindfulness stance, that is, paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and without judgement, can extend beyond our own internal experience to the space between two people. This is about achieving stillness of the mind and being fully present with someone else’s experience, rather than being half present while part of your mind is already drafting a response. ‘Listening to fix’ aims to reassure and resolve the problem. ‘Listening to be present’ has a different intention entirely: to understand and witness what someone is going through, without immediately trying to change it.
The process of ‘empathic listening’ as defined by Carl Rogers¹ is the ability to perceive the internal frame of reference of another person with accuracy, along with the emotional components and meanings that belong to it. Think of it as putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, but understanding that you are not them. Key dimensions of this definition include:
- The ‘as if’ condition. This is a crucial boundary in Rogerian empathy. You need to have a sense of the speaker’s anger, confusion or hurt as if it were your own, but without letting your own emotional reactions get mixed in. If you lose the ‘as if’ quality, you slip into sympathy rather than empathy.
- Entering their perception. Empathic listening requires you to put aside your own views, biases and values completely, and step into the speaker’s reality, becoming ‘at home in it’.
- Non-evaluative and non-judgmental. True empathy is free of critical or diagnostic qualities. You are not trying to judge, analyse or fix the person, but simply acting as a companion in the other person’s exploration of their private perceptual world.
- Moment-to-moment sensitivity. Empathic listening demands active, continuous attunement to the speakers’ shifting emotions, such as fear, confusion or tenderness. It also involves gently reflecting back the meaning of their words and checking the accuracy of your understanding.
Empathic listening is a skill you can develop and practice. It builds trust and helps the speaker feel seen, safe and valued. Next time someone comes to you when they’re going through something hard, still your mind and practice your empathic listening skills. You don’t need to fix anything: you just need to be present. Often, that’s enough.
Be kind,
Dr Nicole Jeffery-Dawes (she/her)
Senior Psychologist, Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Rogers, C.R. (1959). “A Theory of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships as Developed in the Client-Centered Framework.” In S. Koch (ed), Psychology: A Study of Science, Vol. 3: Formulations of the Person and the Social Contents. New York: McGraw-Hill.
