A vivid example of this comes from a young man who has been a recipient of much sensitive understanding, and who is now in the later stages of his therapy:
有一个生动的例子，来自一个接受过非常精确理解的年轻人，他现在处在治疗的后期阶段。
Client: I could even conceive of it as a possibility that I could have a kind of tender concern for me. Still, how could I be tender, be concerned for myself, when they're one and the same thing? But yet I can feel it so clearly. You know, like taking care of a child. You want to give it this and give it that. I can kind of clearly see the purposes for somebody else but I can never see them for myself, that I could do this for me, you know. Is it possible that I can really want to take care of myself, and make that a major purpose of my life? That means I'd have to deal with the whole world as it I were guardian of the most cherished and most wanted possession, that this / was between this precious me that I wanted to take care of and the whole world It's almost as if I loved myself - you know - that's strange but it's true.
来访者：我甚至设想这样一种可能，我可以用一种温柔的方式关心我自己。但是，我怎么才能温柔呢，怎么才能关心我自己呢，当它们成为一体，成为一样的事物？不过我还是能清晰地感觉到。你知道，像照顾小孩一样。你想给他这个，给他那个。我可以有点清楚地领会为别人的目的，但是我不能理解为我自己，不能理解我能这样为我自己，你懂的。我真的想要照顾好我自己，把这作为我生命的主要目的，这样可以吗？那意味着我必须处理好这整个世界，因为我是那最珍贵的和最被渴求的财富的守卫者，我夹在我想要照顾好的这个珍贵的我和整个世界之间。这几乎好像我爱我自己，你懂的，那很怪异却又十分真实。（这句不确定怎么译，求高手。。）
Therapist: It seems such a strange concept to realize. It would mean 'I would face the world as though a part of my primary responsibility was taking care of this precious individual who is me - whom I love.'
治疗师：它似乎是一个奇怪的概念，很难理解。它将意味着‘我要面对这个世界，仿佛我最主要责任的一部分就是照顾好我这个珍贵的个体——我所爱着的人。’
Client: Whom I care for--whom I feel so close to. Woof! That's another strange one.
Therapist: It just seems weird.
来访者：我所关心的人，我感觉如此亲近的人。喔！那是另一个奇怪的概念。
治疗师：它看起来就是那么不可思议。
Client: Yeah. It hits rather close somehow. The idea of my loving me and the taking care of me. (His eyes grow moist.) That's a very nice one very nice.
来访者：是啊。不管怎样它都相当接近了。我的爱我和照顾我的概念。（他的眼睛变得湿润）。那是个非常好的概念，非常好。
It is, I believe, the therapist's caring understanding--exhibited in this excerpt as well as previously--which has permitted this client to experience a high regard, even a love, for himself.
我相信它是治疗师的关怀式理解——展现在这段引述里以及之前的行文里——它允许这位来访者体验一种对自己的高度的关注，甚至是爱。
Still another impact of a sensitive understanding comes from its nonjudgmental quality. The highest expression of empathy is accepting and nonjudgmental. This is true because it is impossible to be accurately perceptive of another's inner world, if you have formed an evaluative opinion of him. If you doubt this statement, choose someone you know with whom you deeply disagree, and who is in your judgment definitely wrong or mistaken. Now try to state his views, beliefs, feelings, so accurately that he will agree that this is a sensitively correct description of his stance. I predict that nine times out of ten you will fail, because your judgment of his views creeps into your description of them.
一种敏锐的理解带来另一个影响来自其非评判的品质。最高水平的共情表达是接受的和非评判的。这是正确的，因为，如果你对他人形成了一种评价性看法，要精确地感知他人的内部世界是不可能的。如果你质疑这段陈述，选择一个你认识但很不认同的，在你的判断里明显是不对或错误的人；然后努力去陈述他的观点、信念、感觉，要准确到他会同意这是对他的状态的极其正确的描述。我预测你十次中有九次都会失败，因为你对他的观点形成的判断潜移默化地影响了你的描述。
Consequently, true empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality. This comes across to the recipient with some surprise. "If I am not being judged, perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought. Perhaps I don't have to judge myself so harshly." Thus gradually the possibility of self-acceptance is increased.
所以，真正的共情并不具有任何评论或诊断的性质。这点也许会让接受者觉得有些奇怪，然后他也许会想，“如果对方没评论我，也许我还不像自己想象的那样糟糕或者不正常。也许我也不必这样苛刻地评论我自己。”这样，渐渐地，他的自我接受度就会上升。
There comes to mind a psychologist whose interest in psychotherapy started as a result of his research in visual perception. In this research many students were interviewed and asked to relate their visual and perceptual history, including any difficulties in seeing, in reading, their reaction to wearing glasses, etc. The psychologist simply listened with interest, made no judgments on what he was hearing, and completed the gathering of his data. To his amazement, a number of these students returned spontaneously to thank him for all the help he had given them. He had, in his opinion, given them no help at all. But it forced him to recognize that interested non- evaluative listening was a potent therapeutic force, even when directed at a narrow sector of life, and when there was no intent of being helpful.
这让我想起来一位心理学家，他对心理治疗的兴趣源于他的视知觉研究。在这个研究中，许多学生被问到他们过去视觉和知觉的一些情况，包括他们在看或阅读方面的困难以及他们对佩戴眼镜的反应，等等。这位心理学家只是有兴趣地听学生们的讲述，收集他需要的数据，对听到的事情不进行任何评论。但奇怪的是，后来有相当一部分学生竟然回去找他，并感谢他对他们的帮助。这是他没有想到的，因为他自己其实并没有有意识地去帮他们。但这件事却让他不得不认识到，带有兴趣的非评论性的倾听是一种非常有效的治疗手段，即使是针对生活中很小的一个方面，即使并没有想在这方面去帮助的意图。
Perhaps another way of putting some of what I have been saying is that a finely tuned understanding by another individual gives the recipient his personhood, his identity. Laing (1965) has said that "the sense of identity requires the existence of another by whom one is known" (p. 139). Buber has also spoken of the need to have our existence confirmed by another. Empathy gives that needed confirmation that one does exist as a separate, valued person with an identity.
如果用另一种方式来表达我刚才说的这些，也许可以说：被另一个个体很好地接受和理解，让接受者有了自己的人格和同一性（identity）。莱因（ Laing，1965）曾说：“产生同一性，需要有另一个理解他的人存在”（p139）。布伯（Buber）也说过，我们需要他人来确认我们的存在。共情就赋予了这种所需的确认——一个人作为一个独立的、有价值的，拥有同一性的个体。
Let us turn to a more specific result of an interaction in which the individual feels understood. He finds himself revealing material he has never communicated before, and in the process he discovers a previously unknown element in himself. Such an element may be "I never knew before that I was angry at my father," or "I never realized that I am afraid of succeeding." Such discoveries are unsettling but exciting. To perceive a new aspect of oneself is the first step toward changing the concept of oneself. The new element is, in an understanding atmosphere, owned and assimilated into a now altered self-concept. This is the basis, in my estimation, of the behavior changes which can come about as a result of psychotherapy. Once the self-concept changes, behavior changes to match the freshly perceived self.
让我们来看一个更加具体的个体感到被理解的互动结果。他发现自己揭示了一些他从来没有交流过的东西，而且在这个过程中，他发现了自己以前都没有意识到的问题。比如“我从来不知道我对父亲愤怒””或者““我从来没有意识到我害怕成功”。 这些发现会让人不安，但也让人兴奋。认识到自己的新的方面是改变自我概念的第一步。在一个被理解的氛围下，这个新的要素会被接受和吸收到现在转变了的自我概念中。 我认为，这是行为改变的基础，是心理治疗的一个结果。一旦自我概念改变了，行为也会改变来配合这个全新的自我认知。
If we think, however, that empathy is effective only in the one-to-one relationship we call
psychotherapy, we are greatly mistaken. Even in the classroom it makes an important difference. When the teacher shows evidence that he/she understands the meaning of classroom experiences for the student, learning improves. In studies made by Aspy and colleagues, it was found that children's reading improved significantly more when teachers exhibited a high degree of understanding than in classrooms where such understanding did not exist. This finding has been replicated in many classrooms (Aspy, 1972, Ch.4; Aspy and Roebuck, 1975). Just as the client in psychotherapy finds that empathy provides a climate for learning more of himself, so the student in the classroom finds himself in a climate for learning subject matter, when he is in the presence of an understanding teacher.
然而，如果我们认为，共情只是在一对一的治疗关系中才有效，那就大错特错了。甚至在教室里，它也能导致很大的改变。当老师表现出他/她理解学生在教室里的感受，学生会学得更好。阿斯比（Aspy）和他的同事在研究中发现，当老师表现出更多的理解时，比起在
Thus far I have spoken of the more obvious change-producing effects of empathy. I should like to turn to an aspect having to do with the dynamics of personality. I will make several brief statements and then endeavor to explain their meaning and significance.
到此为止，我讲述共情能带来的更为明显的效果。现在我将转向它的另一个方面，对于人格动态系统（ dynamics of personality）的影响。我将进行一些概述，然后再尝试去解释它们的意义和重要性。
When a person is perceptively understood, he finds himself coming in closer touch with a wider range of his experiencing. This gives him an expanded referent to which he can turn for guidance in understanding himself and in directing his behavior. If the empathy has been accurate and deep, he may also be able to unblock a flow of experiencing and permit it to run its uninhibited course.
当一个人被敏锐地理解时，他会感到对自己目前的体验有了更清晰的了解。这样他就会找到一个了解自己和指导自己行为的方法或指引。如果共情发生得贴切且深入，他也许就能够因此开启自己的体验之流，并让它无拘无束地流动。
What is meant by these statements? I believe they will be clearer if I present an excerpt from a recorded interview with a woman in the later stages of therapy. This is an excerpt I have used previously, but it is particularly appropriate here:
这些话是什么意思呢？如果我呈现一位女士在治疗后期的一段面谈记录，我想它们会更清楚一点。这个摘录我之前用过，但在这里也很合适：
Mrs. Oak, a middle-aged woman, is exploring some of the complex feelings that have been troubling her:
奥克（Oak）夫人，一位中年妇女，正在经历一些让她感到困扰的复杂感情。
Client: I have the feeling it isn't guilt. (Pause. She weeps.) Of course, I mean, I can't verbalize it yet. (Then, with a rush of emotion.) It's just being terribly hurt!
Therapist: Mm-hmm. It isn't guilt except in the sense of being very much wounded somehow.
来访者：我觉着这不是内疚。（停顿了下，她抽泣着。）当然，我现在还是不能表达清楚。（然后，她一阵情绪上来。）这实在是太痛苦了。
治疗师：嗯。如果不是内疚，有可能是感到某种被深深伤害的感觉。
Client: (Weeping.) It's - you know, often I've been guilty of it myself, but in later years when I've heard parents say to their children, 'Stop crying,' I've had a feeling, a hurt, as though, well, why should they tell them to stop crying? They feel sorry for themselves, and who can feel more adequately sorry for himself than the child. Well, that is sort of what I mean, as though I mean, I thought that they should let him cry. And ... feel sorry for him too, maybe. In a rather objective kind of way. Well, that's ... that's something of the kind of thing I've been experiencing. I mean, now just right now. And in in- -
Therapist: That catches a little more of the flavor of the feeling, that it's almost as if you're really weeping for yourself.
来访者（轻轻地抽泣着）：那个……你知道，我经常会感到内疚，但是，很多年后，当我听到家长跟他们的小孩说，“不准哭”，我就会有一种受伤的感觉，为什么他们不准小孩哭？孩子觉得难过，谁能比孩子自己更觉得难过呢？嗯，我的意思是，我觉得他们不应该阻止小孩哭。而且……或许也应该为他觉得难过。 这是一种相当客观的立场。嗯，这就是……是我体验到的某些东西。我是说，现在，此刻的感觉……
治疗师：我好像能了解一点你的感受了，这有点像你其实在为自己难过。
Client: Yeah. And again, you see, there's conflict. Our culture is such that... I mean, one doesn't indulge in self-pity. But this isn't - I mean, I FEEL it doesn't quite have that connotation. It may have.
Therapist: You sort of think there is a cultural objection to feeling sorry about yourself. And yet you feel the feeling you're experiencing isn't quite what the culture objects to either.
来访者：是的。你明白，这里又有冲突。你知道，我们的文化是那种……我是说，一个人不应该自怜自惜的。但是。我是说，我没有感觉到我们的文化有那种含义。或许它可能有。
治疗师：你有点觉得你们的文化不允许你自怜自惜。不过你又觉得你现在体验到的
感觉，也不完全是你们的文化所反对的。
Client: And then of course, I've come to... to see and to feel that over this - see, I've covered it up. (Weeps.) But I've covered it up with so much bitterness, which in turn I had to cover up. (Weeping.) That's what I want to get rid of! I almost don't care if I hurt.
Therapist: (Softly, and with an empathic tenderness toward the hurt she is experiencing.) You feel that here at the basis of it as you experience it, is a feeling of real tears for yourself. But that you can't show, mustn't show, so that's been covered by bitterness that you don't like, that you'd like to be rid of. You almost feel you'd rather absorb the hurt than to - than to feel the bitterness. (Pause.) And what you seem to be saying quite strongly is, I do hurt, and I've tried to cover it up.
来访者：后来当然，我已经学会……越过这点去看或感受。我已经掩饰得很好。（哭泣。）但是我掩饰得很痛苦，反过来我又要掩饰我的痛苦。（哭泣）。这就是我要摆脱的！哪怕再痛苦也要摆脱。
治疗师：（轻轻地，并以共情的温柔对待她正体验到的伤害。）当你体验到这种感觉时，你感到最根本的还是你为自己在伤心。但你又不能表现出来，所以这种伤心被苦楚所掩盖，你不想要这种苦楚，你想要摆脱它。你感到你宁愿吞下这种伤害，也不愿感受这种苦楚。（停顿）。你似乎很想表达的是，“我确实被伤害了，而且我想要掩饰它。”
Client: I didn't know it.
Therapist: Mm-hmmm. Like a new discovery really.
来访者：我也不知道。
治疗师：嗯，就像一个新的发现。
Client: (Speaking at the same time.) I never really did know. But it's - you know, it's almost a physical thing. It's - it's sort of as though I were looking within myself at all kinds of - nerve endings and bits of things that have been sort of mashed. (Weeping.)
Therapist: As though some of the most delicate aspects of you, physically almost, have been crushed or hurt.
Client: Yes. And you know, I do get the feeling, 'Oh you poor thing.'
来访者：（边哭边说。）我真的不知道。但是，你知道它确确实实在那里。 就好像我自己看到自己身体里面，各种神经末梢和小碎片都糊在一起。（哭泣）
治疗师：好像你身体里那些最脆弱的东西，真的被打破了一样。
来访者：是的。你知道，我就是这种感觉，“哦，真是可怜。”
Here it is clear that empathic therapist responses encourage her in the wider exploration of, and closer acquaintance with, the visceral experiencing going on within. She is learning to listen to her guts, to use an inelegant term. She has expanded her knowledge of the flow of her experiencing.
在这里，我们可以看到共情的治疗师是如何一步步鼓励她进一步发现自己，认识自己，看到那些内心的东西的。她正在学习去感受她的内心，去使用一种不优美的词汇。她深入地了解了她的体验的流动。
Here, too, we see how this unverbalized visceral flow is used as a referent. How does she know that "guilt" is not the word to describe her feeling? By turning within, taking another look at this reality, this palpable process which is taking place, this experiencing. And so she can test the word "hurt" against this referent and finds it closer. Only when she tries on the phrase, "Oh you poor thing," does it really fit the inner felt meaning of compassion and sorrow for herself. In my judgment she has not only used this aspect of her experiencing as a referent, but has learned something about this process of checking with her total physiological being--a learning she can apply again and again. And empathy has helped to make it possible.
这里我们也可以看见，非语言的内在流动是如何作为指示物被使用的。她是怎么知道“内疚”不是她想表达的情感？通过观察内心感受，采取另一种方式去看待这个事实，这个明显的正在发生的过程，这个体验。然后，她借机试着使用“受伤”这个词，发现它更贴近自己的实际感受。当她尝试使用“哦，真是可怜”，这确实适合她对自己那种怜悯、悲伤的内心感受。在我看来，她不仅用自己的这部分体验作为指导，还学会了检查自己整个生理状况的过程——这一技能可以一遍又一遍使用。治疗师的共情使这个过程成为可能。
We can also find in this slice of therapy what it means to let an experiencing run its course. This is clearly not a new feeling. She has often felt it before, yet it has never been lived out. It has been blocked in some way. I am quite clear as to the reality and vividness of the unblocking which follows, because I have many times been a party to its occurrence, but I am not sure how it may best be described. It seems to me that only when a gut level experience is fully accepted, and accurately labeled in awareness, can it be completed. Then the person can move beyond it. Again it is a sensitively empathic climate which helps to move the experiencing forward to its conclusion, which in this case is the uninhibited experiencing of the pity she feels for herself.
我们也可以在这个治疗的片段中看到，让一个体验顺其自然意味着什么。很明显这不是一种新的感受。她以前也会经常感受到，但一直没有表达出来。它在某种方式下被阻塞了。接下来的疏通过程的现实性和生动性，我相当地清楚，因为我曾经切身经历过这个过程很多次，但我现在还是不能找到最准确的语言来描述它。对我来讲，好像是当直觉层面的体验完全被接纳，并且在意识层面里有了准确的标签时，这个过程才得以完成。然后，这个人才能实现超越。一种敏感的共情气氛会帮助他完成这个过程，而在这个例子中，则是会帮助她解决她对自己的怜悯的感觉。
Conclusions
结论
I wish now to back off and give a rather different perspective on the significance of empathy. We can say that when a person finds himself sensitively and accurately understood, he develops a set of growth-promoting or therapeutic attitudes toward himself. Let me explain. (1) The non- evaluative and acceptant quality of the empathic climate enables him, as we have seen, to take a prizing, caring attitude toward himself. (2) Being listened to by an understanding person makes it possible for him to listen more accurately to himself, with greater empathy toward his own visceral experiencing, his own vaguely felt meanings. But (3) his greater understanding of, and prizing of, himself opens up to him new facets of experience which become a part of a more accurately based self. His self is now more congruent with his experiencing. Thus he has become, in his attitudes toward himself, more caring and acceptant, more empathic and understanding, more real and congruent. But these three elements are the very ones which both experience and research indicate are the attitudes of an effective therapist. So we are perhaps not overstating the total picture if we say that an empathic understanding by another has enabled the person to become a more effective growth enhancer, a more effective therapist, for himself.
我希望现在可以往回退一步，从另一个不同的视角去看共情的重要性。我们可以说，当一个人发现他自己可以被别人敏感而准确地理解时，他也会对自己发展出一套自我成长或者自我疗愈的态度。让我解释一下：（1） 如我们所见，共情的氛围中一种不评判的和接纳的特性鼓励他也采取一种珍惜而在意的态度对待他自己；（2）被一个可以理解他的人倾听，会使他也可能更准确的倾听他自己，带着更大的共情去对待他自身内在的经验、他自己模糊的感受。但是（3） 他对于自身的这种更大的理解和珍视，为他打开了新的经验面向，这些面向成为了他自性中更为精确的基础的一部分（成为他更精确地立足自我的一部分？）。他的自性（罗杰斯这里可译为“自我”，荣格心理学里更多讲“自性”），现在与他的经验更为一致。这样，他对待自己的态度，也变得更懂得关心和更接纳，更有共情心和理解力，也更真实和一致。但是，正如实验和研究都指出的那样，这三个要素恰恰是一个有效的治疗师所应具备的态度。所以，如果我们说，被他人共情的理解能促使一个人成为一个更有效的自我成长者，一个对他自己来说更有效的治疗师，大概我们没有夸大这个宏观的图景。
Consequently, whether we are functioning as therapists, as encounter group facilitators, as teachers or as parents, we have in our hands, if we are able to take an empathic stance, a powerful force for change and growth. Its strength needs to be appreciated.
因此，我们是否可以作为治疗师、会心团体带领者、老师或父母发挥作用，其实掌握在我们自己的手中，如果我们可以采取一种共情的态度、一种强有力的驱动力量来促使改变和成长，我们就可以做到。这种共情的力量需要被欣赏。
Finally, I want to put all that I have said into a larger context. Because I have been speaking only of the empathic process, it may seem that I regard it as the only important factor in growthful relationships. I would not wish to leave that impression. I would like briefly to state my views as to the significance of what I see as the three attitudinal elements making for growth, in their relationship to one another.
最后，我想把所有我谈到的放入一个更广泛的背景中。因为上文我只论述了共情的过程，可能有人觉得，我只将共情视为良好关系中唯一重要的因素。我不希望给读者留下这个印象。我希望简单地陈述我的观点，我认为在人们与他人的关系中，三个促进成长的态度元素都非常重要。
In the ordinary interactions of life--between marital and sex partners, between teacher and student, employer and employee, or between colleagues, it is probable that congruence is the most important element. Such genuineness involves letting the other person know "where you are" emotionally. It may involve confrontation, and the personally owned and straightforward expression of both negative and positive feelings. Thus congruence is a basis for living together in a climate of realness.
在日常的互动中－－婚姻和性伴侣之间，师生之间，老板与下属之间，同事之间，一致性很可能是最重要的元素。这样真挚的互动涉及了让他人知道在情绪上“你身处何处”。这可能包括面对、私人化拥有和直接表达积极和消极的情绪。 因此，一致性是在真实气氛中一起生活的基础。
But in certain other special situations, caring or prizing may turn out to be the most significant. Such situations include non-verbal relationships parent and infant, therapist and mute psychotic, physician and very ill patient. Caring is an attitude which is known to foster creativity--a nurturing climate in which delicate, tentative new thoughts and productive processes can emerge. Then, in my experience, there are other situations in which the empathic way of being has the highest priority. When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified; or when he or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to identity, then understanding is called for. The gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic stance - accompanied of course by the other two attitudes - provides illumination and healing. In such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another.
但是在某些其他特定情形下，关怀和奖励可能被证实为最有效的。这样的情形包括：父母与婴儿、治疗师和封闭的精神病患者、医生和重症病人之间的非语言关系。关怀是众所周知的一种培养创造力的态度——一种助长性的氛围，其中会出现微妙的试验性新思想和富于成效的进展。然后，在我的经验里，在有些情况下，共情的存在方式有最高优先级。当另一个人受伤、困惑、混乱、焦虑、被疏远、受惊吓的时候；或者当他或她怀疑自我价值，不确定身份，那么我们便要呼唤理解。在移情的立场上温柔而敏感的陪伴——当然要带着另外这两种态度——提供了阐释和疗愈。我认为在这样的情形下，深深的理解是一个人可以给予另一个人的最珍贵礼物。
