Emphasizing the Future in Empathy Responses

Abstract

Recently, a view of the human being as a fundamentally futureoriented organism has become more popular in both psychotherapy and personality theory. The future-oriented nature of the human consists ofthe fact that there is always a "next" in human experience and of a sense of possibility. A goal of therapy is to restore the sense of "next" and of possibility. Empathy responses can be framed to focus on present aspects of experience or on future-oriented aspects. Research showed that future-oriented empathy responses increased subjects' sense of power and efficacy to solve their problems.