‘On the Same Wavelength’: How Empathy Can be Measured
Back in the February Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported the first physiologic evidence of therapists and clients being measurably ‘on the same wavelength’ during live psychotherapy sessions. Clients and therapists had similar physiologic responses during moments of high positive emotion, and the more similar the responses were, the greater the level of therapist empathy experienced by clients.
Back in the February Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported the first physiologic evidence of therapists and clients being measurably ‘on the same wavelength’ during live psychotherapy sessions. Clients and therapists had similar physiologic responses during moments of high positive emotion, and the more similar the responses were, the greater the level of therapist empathy experienced by clients.
The clients and their psychodynamic therapists, who were in already established relationships, were wired up and their physiologic responses measured using skin conductance recordings.
Data provided by independent and impartial observers showed that both clients and therapists expressed significantly more positive emotions during moments when they were experiencing more similar responses than when they were experiencing different physiologic responses. Interestingly, the study suggests that shared positive emotions and arousal were important gauges of empathy. It does not mention ‘negative’ emotions, which it seems to me are the ones in the greatest need of an empathic response, and the bread and butter of many a therapy session!
Another interesting finding is that there was much less physiologic concordance when therapists were talking than listening. The content of the verbal responses given by the therapists was not recorded, which makes me wonder whether the verbal responses were coming from outside the therapist’s empathic grasp of the client’s frame of reference, or way of seeing the world. It seems to me that when I make responses known as ‘reflections’ in which I more or less repeat what the client has said to me, or try my best to convey it’s essence as I have heard it, I remain in an empathic state. It is something I can feel physically, and it does not surprise me that this can be measured.
Carl Rogers had a name for the moments when client and counsellor both experience being ‘on the same wavelength’: he called it ‘mutuality’. These study results act as a caution to trust and to stay close to my own body sense of empathic connection. Although there may be many times when it’s appropriate to speak from another place in myself, and the connection is bound to ebb and flow, it does not seem right to lose that basic empathic connection at any time in a session.
I also wonder whether the empathy itself was producing some of the ‘positive’ emotions recorded. It certainly feels good to be understood, and to understand, on all levels, even down to the unconscious workings of our nervous systems. Let’s feed those real connections which we can experience on all levels, from the spiritual through the mental and emotional to the physiologic.
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