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?

I’ve been privileged to have worked with so many good people, wanting to grow, motivated to learn, willing to self-examine, and appreciative of the understanding and support I might provide.

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.

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.

“How do you know when your clients are lying? Their lips are moving!” a mentor once quipped to me. I believe clients’ lies have as much to say about therapists as they do about the people under our care.

Once we have a clear sense of a whole problem there inside our bodies, the time comes to ask it: alright, I hear you, now what is it that you really have to tell me? Where do we go from here?

It’s been known for centuries that animals have an important part to play in promoting feelings of wellbeing amongst people with emotional problems or physical ill-health. And it doesn’t have to be in a formal setting either; making positive contact with other people, and the good feelings this can foster, can sometimes be an awful lot easier if you have a four-legged friend alongside you.