Empathic listening

Listening to understand what another person is thinking and feeling. Empowerment.

The passing of responsibility and authority from managers to employees. (1)

In terms of communication with patients, listening can be activated through the

development of bidirectional communicative channels able to facilitate information

flows and useful exchange so as to understand the patient’s informative needs, his/her

worries and for supporting the choices that justify the use of either some interventions

or the others.

Interpersonal relationship generally represents the most effective way to implement the

bidirectional exchange, so as to listen and deepen risk perception level, personal

experience, information acquired, poor areas and to create the basis for a relationship

of trust and cooperation.

Within the interpersonal context, it is possible to use a specific method called empathic

mirroring which, through adequate communicative techniques, can ease the listening,

thus favoring the focusing on the point of view of the other and on risk perception

(Giampaoli S, 2005). Crucial techniques of empathic mirroring are as follows:

reformulation, clarification, ability in questions, use of first person messages (“I think

that”, “According to me”).(2)

(1) Glossary of communication, University of Jyväskylä

(2) Talking about prevention in case of pandemics: information and strategies for

healthcare professionals