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Carl Rogers Quotes about Empathy

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We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.

We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.

Carl Rogers
Real, Thinking, Empathy
Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.

Carl Rogers
Responsibility, Confusion, Empathy

True empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality. This comes across to the recipient with some surprise. "If I am not being judged, perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought".

Carl Rogers
Evil, Empathy, Quality

Man's inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively.

Carl Rogers
Men, Effective Listening, Empathy

Powerful is our need to be known, really known by ourselves and others, even if only for a moment.

Carl Rogers
Powerful, Empathy, Needs

Empathy is a special way of coming to know another and ourself, a kind of attuning and understanding. When empathy is extended, it satisfies our needs and wish for intimacy, it rescues us from our feelings of aloneness.

Carl Rogers
Empathy, Understanding, Feelings

The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person.

Carl Rogers
Emotional, Empathy, States
Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Over the years, however, the research evidence keeps piling up, and it points strongly to the conclusion that a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change and learning.

Carl Rogers
Years, Empathy, Degrees

So, as you can readily see from what I have said thus far, a creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathic, nonjudgmental listening is for me terribly important in a relationship. It is important for me to provide it; it has been extremely important, especially at certain times in my life, to receive it. I feel that I have grown within myself when I have provided it; I am very sure that I have grown and been released and enhanced when I have received this kind of listening.

Carl Rogers
Empathy, Creative, Listening
Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

An empathic way of being can be learned from empathic persons. Perhaps the most important statement of all is that the ability to be accurately empathic is something which can be developed by training. Therapists, parents and teachers can be helped to become empathic. This is especially likely to occur if their teachers and supervisors are themselves individuals of sensitive understanding. It is most encouraging to know that this subtle, elusive quality, of utmost importance in therapy, is not something one is "born with", but can be learned, and learned most rapidly in an empathic climate.

Carl Rogers
Teacher, Parent, Empathy

When I can relax, and be close to the transcendental core of me, then I may behave in strange and impulsive ways in the relationship, ways I cannot justify rationally, which have nothing to do with my thought processes. But these strange behaviors turn out to be right in some odd way. At these moments it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other. Our relationship transcends itself and has become something larger.

Carl Rogers
Empathy, Relax, Way
Carl Rogers (1995). “A Way of Being”, p.147, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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