The Importance of Empathy

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Good communication identifies emotions and responds empathically.

Multiple adverse communication behaviors can interfere with this.

Some adverse communication behaviors reflect bad habits.

Other adverse communication behaviors are often mistakenly viewed as helpful.

From my personal and teaching experiences, I’ve found the need to recognize common problems with communication. Surprisingly, we often don’t recognize adverse interactions. I’ll outline some pitfalls here.

I confess that I have personal experiences with both imperfect communication and not being aware of it. I’m a physician, and this example is from medicine, but the problem I exhibited is universal. A friend asked me to evaluate his grandmother for abdominal pain. In examining her, I tried to find out the details of her pain. But her focus was her sick husband (“I’m worried he’ll die”) and their financial situation (“It makes me feel hopeless”).

Becoming frustrated, I redirected her repeatedly with comments like, “Where exactly is the pain?” or “How have your bowels been?” I interrupted her to get to the point of why (I thought) she came to the clinic.

Eventually, holding my hand up like a policeman, I impatiently said, “Look, I need you to pay attention to what I’m saying!”

She cried. I was horrified. I’d made this poor older woman cry.

Adding to my guilt the next day, my friend quizzically asked, “Grandma said you made her cry?”

I felt ashamed, “How could I have done this?” She didn’t return for her follow-up visit.

Let’s look at some things I had to learn that might be helpful to others. You've probably heard comments like, “The problem is communication; if........

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