Empathy is Not Basic – It is Rare in Therapy.
Today we dive deeper into why empathy is such a rare but necessary skill to find in therapy.
Introduction to Real Empathy
Somewhere along the way,
empathy got branded as beginner-level.
A soft skill.
A baseline.
The easy part of being a therapist.
But if you’ve ever really needed empathy—
not advice, not insight, not “holding space” in a performative sense—
you know how rare it is to actually receive it.
Empathy, true empathy, is not easy.
It is not nodding while someone speaks.
It is not saying “That must be hard” and moving on.
Empathy is the radical act of leaving your world to enter another without taking your ego with you.
It is the courage to stop doing, stop fixing, and feel instead.
It’s sitting in the fire with someone, not because you have water,
but because you refuse to let them burn alone.
Why Empathy Is Rare in Therapy
It’s a painful truth:
Many people sit with therapists for months—sometimes years—without ever feeling felt.
Why?
Because empathy demands more than training.
It demands humility.
It asks the therapist to give up their need to be the expert.
It asks them to listen with their nervous system, not just their ears.
To attune, not analyze.
But the culture of therapy doesn’t always reward that.
We value insight. Progress. Measurable change.
Empathy is slow.
Messy.
Immeasurable.
And most of all, it’s vulnerable.
To offer empathy is to risk being touched, altered, even wounded by what we witness.
Which is why many therapists—consciously or not—keep a safe distance.
Because it’s easier to intellectualize than to join.
A Personal Reminder: When I Was the One Needing Empathy
I remember a moment when I wasn’t the therapist.
I was just a human being—raw, disoriented, afraid.
Dan didn’t therapize me.
He didn’t throw theories at my pain.
He met me.
He didn’t try to be wise.
He let himself feel with me.
And in that moment, I saw myself—not through the lens of pathology, but through the eyes of presence.
It changed me.
Not because he did something.
But because he gave up needing to do anything at all.
That’s empathy.
And it is anything but basic.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
We’ve made empathy sound like the warm-up act to the real work.
But here’s the truth:
Empathy is the work.
Empathy is the treatment plan.
Empathy is the intervention.
Empathy is what the nervous system longs for when words have lost their way.
Study after study confirms it:
Empathy—not technique, not modality—is the most consistent predictor of therapeutic success.
But you can’t manufacture it.
You can’t fake it.
And not every therapist can offer it.
Because empathy requires you to feel with another person without needing to fix them so you can feel better.
So If You’ve Never Felt It, You’re Not Alone
If you’ve ever sat across from someone and still felt unseen—
If you’ve walked out of sessions feeling like you had to translate your soul—
You’re not imagining it.
You were likely not met with empathy.
You were met with insight, or support, or kindness—
but not true presence.
Empathy is not common.
It is not cheap.
It is not easy.
It is a sacred practice.
A relational art.
A humble surrender.
And when you find it—
when someone offers you the kind of empathy that lets you fall apart without fear—
it can rearrange you.
It can return you to yourself.
Not because they saved you.
But because, for once, you didn’t have to carry your story alone.
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