Mahip Rathore 

Empathy Circles as a Core Intervention in Couples Therapy    
Speaker: Mahip Rathore   (15 min)

Overview

Mahip, a psychologist and meditation teacher, discussed the effectiveness of empathy circles in couples therapy. She transitioned from a psychodynamic approach to empathic listening, which reduced her emotional burden and allowed her to manage more clients. Empathic listening improved couples' communication, making them feel safer and more heard. Mahip introduced structured questions to deepen their understanding, such as "What is your love language?" and "What are your hopes and dreams?". She noted significant improvements in clients' well-being and relationships, and even observed positive impacts on their children. Mahip plans to develop a coaching program to share these techniques more broadly.

Action Items

• [ ] Develop and record an eight-week empathic listening coaching program, including the key questions and prompts used in therapy, and make it available for therapists and couples to use as a self-directed course.

Outline

Introduction to Empathy Circles in Couples Therapy

• Speaker 1 introduces Mahip, highlighting her roles as a psychologist, meditation teacher, and former lawyer.

• Speaker 2, Mahip, expresses gratitude for the opportunity and outlines her plan to share her experience with empathy circles in couples therapy.

• Mahipmentions her background in Santa Barbara and her exposure to empathic listening during her training period.

• She describes her transition from a psychodynamic approach to empathic listening and the benefits she observed in her practice.

Initial Experiences with Empathic Listening

• Mahip explains how empathic listening helped her feel more relaxed as a provider, allowing her to manage her emotional weight better.

• She notes the increased energy she had due to the structured approach, enabling her to take on more couples.

• The benefits for couples included feeling safer and having equal time to speak, which improved their communication.

• Mahip shares a quote from a client who felt deeply heard and understood after just one session, highlighting the technique's effectiveness.

Implementing Empathic Listening Structures

• Maheep discusses the importance of questions in the empathic listening process to keep the conversation productive.

• She introduces questions like "What is your love language?" and "What are some significant childhood experiences that show up in your current relationship?"

• These questions help couples explore their needs and understand each other better, leading to deeper connections.

• Mahip emphasizes the importance of facilitating rather than directing the conversation, allowing couples to discover their own insights.

Challenges and Adjustments in Therapy

• Mahip acknowledges the initial challenges of implementing empathic listening, such as clients not understanding the technique or reverting to their default behaviors.

• She mentions the need to set expectations for clients, requiring them to complete empathic listening training for the first five sessions.

• The structured approach has led to successful outcomes, with couples achieving their goals in a shorter number of sessions.

• Mahip shares a success story of a couple who improved their communication, well-being, and conflict resolution in just six sessions.

Impact on Clients and Their Families

• Mahip notes the positive impact of improved couple relationships on their home environment and child development.

• She explains how empathic listening skills can be taught to children, fostering a healthy family dynamic.

• The improved parental relationship leads to better-adjusted children, contributing to a well-rounded society.

• Mahip expresses satisfaction in seeing her work positively impact not just her clients but also their future generations.

Future Plans and Expansion

• Mahip discusses her plans to create a coaching program to share her empathic listening techniques with other therapists and couples.

• The program would include recorded sessions, questions, and prompts to guide therapists and clients through the process.

• She envisions the program as a self-directed course for couples who cannot afford or do not have time for traditional therapy.

• Mahip aims to make empathic listening accessible to a wider audience, enhancing its impact on relationships and society.

Background and Influence of Conflict Resolution

• Speaker 1 asks about Mahip background in conflict resolution and its influence on her approach.

• Mahip shares her experience as a lawyer in India, where she handled conflict arbitration and conciliation.

• She believes her experience in navigating intense conflicts has prepared her well for couples therapy.

• Mahip emphasizes the importance of addressing conflicts early, even before marriage, to build a strong foundation for the relationship.

Importance of Client Independence

• Speaker 1 inquires about the importance of clients internalizing skills and using them independently.

• Mahip explains the issue of codependence in couples therapy and the need for clients to become self-reliant.

• She views therapy as a support system for difficult times, not an ongoing lifestyle.

• Mahip advocates for a balanced approach where clients can seek support when needed but also rely on their own skills.

Final Thoughts and Audience Engagement

• Speaker 1 summarizes the key points discussed, emphasizing the importance of empathy and understanding in relationships.

• Audience members express their support and share their own experiences with empathy in their relationships.

• Mahip thanks the audience for their engagement and expresses her gratitude for the opportunity to share her work.

• The meeting concludes with a sense of mutual appreciation and a commitment to continue promoting empathic listening in therapy.

Transcript

Speaker 1  0:00  

Mahip is a psychologist, meditation teacher, and former lawyer dedicated to helping people feel more connected to themselves, to their partner, and to something deeper. Today we're going to hear about empathy circles as a core intervention in cotton therapy.

Speaker 2  0:24  

Thank you so much, Kara, for introducing, and thank you so much, everyone, for having me here. I'm really grateful for this opportunity, and it's so nice to see so many people. I want to share my experience of providing couples therapy and using the structure of empathic listening in it, so I want to share how it felt like from a provider's point of view, from a psychologist's point of view, and then I also want to share experiences of my clients, like some things that they experience, and like a couple of quotes. First, I want to start with how I came to it was this is I was in Santa Barbara, so then we that I got exposed to the practice while I was in my trading period, and I'm, I was already a person-centered therapist, so I was already using the ideas from Rogerian approach, so it was kind of, it was home for me anyways, and then I got to meet more people who I then, I got to meet. I hear something. Sorry. Who were practicing it? And I went. I went through the process of empathic listening, the facilitator trainings, like I got really good at what I was already doing, and then around the same time I had few couples, and I, I took this approach into that work before using this as a structure, I was using mostly psychodynamic approach, and I was, I was noticing that I was carrying a lot of emotional weight for my clients, because I was joining them in the, in the treatment, I was becoming part of their family, and then doing through joining, I was treating, so I would go home with a lot of weight, of like, what, what they are experiencing, which still does happen. However, one big change that I noticed right after introducing empathic listening structures is for the couple was I could, as a provider, was feeling more relaxed. I was like, oh, I train these two now, they can just stop each other. I'm mostly tracking the time, maybe when they go off here and there, I would interfere and like correct them, or like, no, this is how you reflect. So maybe sometimes I was engaging, but mostly I could just sit back and relax. So that was great as a provider, especially when couple therapy can be really charged, it can be exhausting. So I was, I was able to take on more couples because I had more energy left in my system. So that's one good thing about having some really solid structure, which creates safety for them. Now the benefits for them was like they were feeling safe. Another huge benefit that came up was like there was always one partner speaks more, one partner who wants to share more, the other one is the quiet person. It just, it happens that way almost in every couple. There is one that this way, the other is the other way, because of this time distribution, they both got to have the same time, same amount of space during that one hour of therapy session, and they were both happy, especially the one who was not getting the chance to speak. Now I had something like, okay, time's up, tables have to turn, you get to, you have to listen, now the partner will share. So I started enjoying that process, and then they, there, there's a quote I want to share, like, right after the first session, when I trained this couple into this technique. The wife said, like, oh my god, I have never felt so hurt by my husband in my whole life. They have been married for 10 years, so, like, this is like just one session, and she never felt that depth, that amount of like deeply heard and understood by her partner, who has been married to her for 10 years. I was like, wow, now this is gold. So this is how I started getting more happy, like energized by the process, and I kept on growing it in different ways.

Speaker 2  4:15  

Now there is some I had to tweak it because I had to create questions for them, so I came up with when, when, if I leave it just to them, they might go into like tangents or directions that might not be productive, so along with the empathic structure, like this listening structure, some questions were very important, that for example, What is your love language? I give them questions, they explore, and I sit back and relax, so like what helps you make feel loved or seen or valued in a relationship? So they are exploring it, and they go to the depth for the first time, they understand, oh, that's what my wife was needing, oh, that's what my husband was actually expecting. I didn't never understood it. Another question, what are some significant childhood experiences that I. That I have had, and how they show up in my current relationship. Such a simple question, it's psychodynamic therapy based question. They get to tell their partner what happened, how their upbringing was, childhood was, and how this it's showing up in the relationship. So they explore it for the whole hour, and again, I'm just facilitating, and they just get deeper and deeper and deeper, more memories come up, more insights come up, and they connect, like, oh my god, we have the same kind of shitty childhood experience, or same kind of like difficult traumatic experiences. That's why we feel so connected. That's why we came together, so they are able to connect at such a deep level. Another question is, like, what are my hopes and dreams? What's my ideal relationship? Where do I.. how.. what do I create out of this marriage or out of this relationship? I just leave them with the question, and then they get to such depths and understand, and they get to have clarity. Oh, this is where we are going. So often they are.. they are expecting, like, no, this is how I want to do parenting, this is how I want to make money, or this is how I want to plan vacations. They both have their own ideas, but because of this kind of questioning and exploring together, and actually listening to the other person, and not just listening to their own thinking, or not just reacting to the image they hold of their partner, they end up really listening to the real human being who's married to them. Then they come to the alignment of like their goals they had internally unconsciously get come to a same page now they have shared goals they are working towards the same goal together because now they have actually heard and understood the other person so these are some like really exciting experiences and I just keep doing it and then it was hard honestly at the beginning, because some people were like not getting it, some people would don't want to do it, some people revert back to their default, so at for I've been doing it for two and a half years now, so now because of those issues I started like implementing like this is what I do, if you want to work with me, the first step is to, you have to get trained in empathic listening for the first five sessions, that's all we are going to do. Then we can just roam around, do other things, but let's create the structure first. So now the latest couple, just I just saw for just six sessions, and I just discharged them successfully. They got so much done, and it was just six. I gave them these questions, and I completed the whole kind of program, or their target goals, their communication got better, their well-being got better, their understanding got better, their conflicts about, do we want to have kids, do we want to not want to have kids, or your parents hate me, no, your parents are worse towards me, like, whatever the was happening for them, they were able to come to the same page and actually understand why it's happening and how they can actually care for their own needs while caring for the partners' needs at the same time without discounting anything. Wow, everything can - we can hold both the things at the same time. Oh, that's easy.

Speaker 2  7:53  

I can listen to my own thoughts, and I can also listen to my partner's thoughts at the same time. So they are getting to this higher place. I think Daniel mentioned they are getting to the spacious awareness where they can just be present with themselves and also their partners. Okay, one more thing that I interfere in teach them is mindfulness. So, I also ask them, How are you feeling in your body? And then I, they share that in the empathic circles also, that they are keeping, they are checking in, and then I give them homework. Okay, you can even if you are not seeing me, that's one big benefit as a provider, because I don't want them to be dependent on me, which was happening in the previous styles. Now they can take this technique home, one of them can keep track of the time, and they just every Sunday morning empathic listening for one hour during breakfast, and that's like their routine, and they don't need me there. That's the biggest, because I feel from person-centered as a person-centered therapist, when you fire your therapist, that's the biggest reward for the therapist. You don't need me, you can just do it on your own. And how much time do I have now?

Speaker 3  8:59  

You still have like 10 minutes.

Speaker 2  9:03  

Oh, wow. Okay, so I also feel free to interrupt me and ask me questions. I didn't think about, like, what's the style or the presentation style over here, but if you have questions, please interrupt me. But I, I can share one more thing that I'm noticing, is now they are, it's not just impacting their relationship, their well-being as a couple. What happens is, as a result of their this improvement, this growth, their home environment is changing, they are becoming more and more empathic, loving, and caring based directly, so the parents' relationship directly impacts the child development, so that's just like a side bonus, like the kids are getting this healthy parents who are so loving towards one another, who have really good assertive come. Communication, who are check, who are aware of themselves, and who, who know how to express difficult feelings, who know how to resolve conflicts. So, the kid, the child is seeing all this that automatically takes care of so much. So, what I'm seeing is, I, I've never even met the kids, but I know just because of this work that the couple is doing, they are of course getting better themselves, but it's creating an environment where the child is getting the best possible, you know, environment to grow in and become a really well-rounded human being. So, just a side effect, amazing bonus, which children are the future of our society. So, I'm like, wow, I get to do my work that I love, plus impact not just the clients but their kids, and eventually a role society. So that's one thing. I see some chat, so I'm going to look at it. If there are questions,

Speaker 1  10:59  

how can we scale this up for so more therapists do it.

Speaker 2  11:05  

Good question. So, I would say I'm thinking of creating more like a program out of it, so I can record what I'm doing, like a coaching program where I can leave these questions or prompts that I've developed from my experience, like these are the questions you ask. This is the training, and maybe meeting them once or twice at least to train them in empathic circles. And then these are the this is a eight week program in which you do these things. So I think I can develop, I will develop that at some point, and maybe that can be shared with either therapists or also it can be shared with, like, couples who want to have, want to do a self-directed course, instead of, if they don't have time or money to join a therapy, they can, something, follow a program in which they will learn these skills, so that's one way to expand it and share it with others. Okay. Another question, do you have background? Yeah.

Speaker 4  12:00  

Oh, yeah, I'll read it, so you can stay, stay present.

Speaker 2  12:02  

Yes.

Speaker 1  12:02  

Do you have a background in conflict resolution or transformation, and how is this new approach informed by it?

Speaker 2  12:11  

Okay, so I, before being a psychologist, I was a lawyer in India, and I did do conflict arbitration, conciliation, little bit training here and there, so I do have some of that, but mostly I have experience from my therapy work. I think couples are the most intense people who can bring up the most really horrifying conflicts to the room, maybe. So I think navigating that itself is good enough for me, as has given me a good experience. How

Speaker 1  12:42  

do you feel about using this before getting married?

Speaker 2  12:46  

Oh, of course. I mean, I saw half of my clients are not married, so some are married, like most. How maybe at least right now three of them are not even married, that or the couple who are just seen, so recently they were not married, they, they're using, you use the skill to come to the conclusion. Okay, do we have kids or not? They had this conversation, now he has getting closer to marriage, but this worked as a great skill to like learn each other deeply before they make the next step.

Speaker 1  13:17  

Oh, I agree. Okay, any last comments going up into the chat? Could you talk about why it is so important for clients to internalize these skills and use them independently rather than relying on the therapist? You touched on it. Talk a little more on

Speaker 2  13:36  

that. It is important because often clients, especially couples, they're one of the core problems is codependence, so where a therapist joins, they become dependent on the therapist, so it's a, so it's like a instead of two people, now it's a triangle of and then they keep on going for years and years, the couple's therapy becomes just part of their lifestyle, which is maybe good, them they are making good progress slowly here and there, I'm sure I'm nothing, I'm not pooing on it. However, I, in my point of view, for as a person-centered therapist, I would like to be in charge of my life. I like, and as a person, I want to be in control of, like, you know, this is I more independent feeling. So, sometimes, you know, I want to see therapy as, like, okay, when I go, when I'm really going through a difficulty, I will go and get support, just like we get fever, go to the doctor, get treatment for those 223, weeks, and then get out of it, you know, get your homeostasis, then then get self-reliant, and then live your life, get sick again, go, go, get your support system, so I don't want therapy to become, if it's my personal opinion, ongoing thing, you know. All for the rest, so there are people who are going to therapy from childhood to end of life. Maybe, maybe coaching can be something like that. Maybe you're improving self-growth. Is there some other goals to change, but if it's only focused on symptoms. Then I see that as a problem, if it's focused on self growth and other things, if you know, go, if it becomes something else, like a spiritual coaching, or you're getting training, or you're becoming therapist yourself, if it's serving that purpose, like I encourage therapists to go to therapy, because it's part of their development, as in the profession, so you can go for the rest of your life, because you are also growing in a different way, but not to become, not to make it as a crutch, that is problematic.

Speaker 1  15:29  

Yes, just lots more support in the comments, or so take a chance to read those. Here's what I heard. I absolutely use empathy in my relationship. This is this community has been beneficial in that space, because otherwise I will coach them. I feel like, as a therapist, it would fall in that same way. You start there, and that we didn't get their consent

Speaker 5  15:51  

to do

Speaker 1  15:52  

that. And you said it so beautifully. What happens when you do that is you join in their experience, and you start carrying the weight of that to kind of relieve them of it rather than facilitating their ability to embody their own experience. Yeah, and the power of rebalancing the conversation, so everybody gets a chance to talk and a chance to listen. I tried really hard not to snort, laugh out loud because I forgot to mute, but I seen that in my life. Yeah, and what I heard in this was understanding before agreement, really getting to that place where the structure allows for that freedom to understand each other, to realize that there can be two things that are mutually inclusive and still different, and that that's possible.

Speaker 3  16:50  

Yeah,

Speaker 1  16:52  

beautiful. Thank you so much for the work that you are doing, and for bringing it to share here with us.

Speaker 2  17:00  

Thank you so much, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai