Empathy facilitates understanding between counsellors and clients who do not speak the same language. What about online therapy, in which the language is there, without the bodily resonant experience of empathy?

Humankind has come a long way over the eons in terms of how we communicate with one another. But so much of what we say to one another still isn’t captured by the words we speak or the text we type.

You’re going about your daily business and suddenly some music starts and a man or woman next to you begins singing along; other people join in, and before you know it, you’re witnessing what seems to be a random group of people coming together to perform a kind of miracle — a shared experience of sheer delight.

The ‘cuddly hormone’, oxytocin, seems to have a dark side, according to research suggesting that it only works on those who are within our own group. But does this say anything about our real lives?

In a multicultural society, it’s inevitable that counsellors, like everyone else, will come across people whose first or even second language is not English. But if therapist and client are — quite literally — speaking different languages, how can therapeutic work even begin to take place? The answer lies in the gift of empathy.

What does it mean to be ‘natural’ or ‘wild’? Are these qualities, on an archetypal level, associated with women? Can we recognise the archetypes of wild women, incarnating freedom and desire, or earth mothers, here to nurture, who are ultimately very powerful, yet possibly not very bright?

Buddhism and Taoism have emerged into the mainstream of therapeutic thinking. But Confucianism seems to have been left out, which is a shame, because this ethical and spiritual pillar of the East has much to say about the therapeutic process.