Let’s start by distinguishing compassion from empathy in the context of a helping professional relationship. Compassion is a state of having care and concern for another, listening with presence and receptivity to their story of suffering, understanding and validating their suffering, and using words/gestures of comfort to convey a wish or hope that they begin to feel better. Empathy involves genuine identification with the other’s suffering to the point where the therapist or coach takes it in, feels it, and is touched or moved by it. If you were to locate the extent of a helper’s empathy it would lie somewhere on a continuum between heartless indifference at one pole and radical empathy at the other. Radical empathy is empathy without filters or boundaries. Radical empathy involves opening up the emotional floodgates to the suffering of another. The closer a therapist or coach moves toward radical empathy the more probable it becomes that he will be overwhelmed, even incapacitated. Radical empathy is a whirlpool to be avoided. On the other hand, too much professional distance can be construed by a client as heartless indifference. The sweet spot on the continuum for a therapist or coach is to be genuinely empathic with filters and boundaries to avoid the whirlpool of radical empathy. How can a therapist or coach modulate her empathy? Mindfulness is the key. Stay mindful of the fact that your client needs your compassion but also needs you to be objective enough about his situation so you can accurately assess his condition and work effectively with him to improve or cure it. If you are unmindful and allow yourself to be drawn fully into the client’s internal anguish/suffering, then you sacrifice the distance, objectivity, and professional boundaries required to be an effective healer. How will you know when this is occurring in your practice? You will take your clients and their suffering home with you and allow emotional memories from office sessions to intrude upon and impact your peace of mind, your ability to be present with loved ones and friends, and your ability to rest, relax, and experience fun or pleasure outside the office. If this goes on long enough you will enter the burnout stage of cynicism and indifference, the zone at the opposite pole of radical empathy. Staying present, vulnerable, and compassionate with your clients while retaining enough professional distance to protect your heart from breaking is a necessary skill for effectiveness and longevity in the profession. It may seem like an impossible tightrope walk, but it’s not. The more you practice modulating your empathy the better at it you will be. If this is something that you keep trying to master without success, it would be a good idea to contact a supervisor, consultant or mentor for feedback.
