Understanding Empathic Paraphrase

How do you prove to a speaker that you are really listening to what they are saying?  Paraphrase in a way that captures “the essence” of all major points the speaker makes. Use the speakers’ key words.

Work on making sure that your tone of voice, gestures and energy level are commensurate with the speaker’s.  If you restate the speaker’s words in a dispassionate and detached tonality, you have not empathically paraphrased. Listen to the speaker’s emotions, sentiments and desires, then pitch your voice and use your face and gesture in a manner that reflects understanding of the speaker’s emotive state.

Subtractive: The most common way in which your paraphrase will be inaccurate: all the speaker’s key ideas are not captured. That is, the paraphrase has subtracted some of what was said. The speaker says, “I am concerned about A, B & C.” The paraphraser says, “You are concerned about A & B.”

Additive: The next most likely way in which your paraphrase will be inaccurate: we hear what we want to hear and focus on our own ideas. We then add statements that the speaker did not make. The speaker: “I am concerned about A, B & C.” The paraphraser says, “You are concerned about A, B, C, L, & R.”

Interpretive: Instead of paraphrasing what was said you offer your interpretation of what you believe the speaker meant to say. You hear A, B & C and say “I have the impression that what you are really talking about is G.”

Your empathic paraphrase is fully interchangeable when the speaker feels you have captured his thoughts and sentiments exactly. It often coincides with an excited burst of energy or an enthusiastic, “Yes!”    When Should I Paraphrase? >>

Below, Jacob Needleman, author and professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University, argues that the act of listening is a critical step in the development of a personal morality.  He's describing the use of Empathic Paraphrasing and "how hard that is."  It is the hardest skill we teach AND the single most important.