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I got fired," Lisa told me.

"Wow." I pulled her to her feet. "You'll have an amazing story for Jim's party tonight!"

Lisa's eyes went round and wet as the dog's when we left her at the vet. She said, "Come on, Maya" (who gave me a reproachful glance before obeying), disappeared into her bedroom (for three days), and never discussed career matters with me again.


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empathy is "the ability or the willingness to experience the world from someone else's point of view," I wasn't brought up to be able to do that.

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What surprised me was my therapist's response to these tirades. She never said, "Leave that rotten bastard." Or "Your roommate is a big baby." Instead she said, "Gosh, that sounds really hard." And, "That must have felt terrible." And, "How did you feel after that happened?" My reaction to those spectacularly bland comments was even more astonishing. I loved them.


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About six months into psychotherapy, I started using what I thought of as my therapist's "lines."


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It's true that for a long time, while I could say the appropriate thing, I could not relate to their struggles. Still, I took satisfaction in the fact that my relationships were improving. Then a year after starting therapy, I began feeling something intensely when comforting friends: terror.

This turned out to be a signal, Lachmann says, that I was actually feeling empathy.

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I don't see it as "faking it" so much as a willingness to learn how to have a different perspective, how to listen and understand the importance of what's being said.

It's a great example of what therapy can do just by sitting and talking.

Thanks, Doh