How do we build sympathy for people who think differently than us, whose values are different from ours? What are your ways of doing it?
On my side, I can tell that my profession taught me – and I learned – to feel empathy and sympathy for people who differ very much from me in their beliefs, convictions, and understanding of the world. The intimate setting of building a therapeutic relationship provides this unique opportunity to get to know another person, and gear it toward understanding. A therapist does not tell a client what is wrong and what is right, does not engage in education, if not asked, does not invalidate a client’s personal beliefs and convictions. A therapist can ask questions but does not condescend a client because it is unethical.
Building a therapeutic bond does not require sharing a common ideological and/or political background. It does help, but is not necessary. As one of my teachers and mentors in psychotherapy said: “Someone has to provide therapy to pedophiles and people living with Antisocial Personality Disorder, and this someone is us, as our ethical principles bound us to work with everyone who comes to us asking for support.” As psychotherapists, we always have a right to ask for a replacement if we feel that engaging in therapeutic process with certain person will trigger trauma, for instance but even in this situation we need to seek a replacement and connect a client with some other therapist.
Yet, how do we activate sympathy and empathy for people whose political views and actions – and voting is an action – differ so much from ours and we are not their therapists but equal citizens? What do you do, if anything?
P.S. There is only one person whom I know for sure that feels this sympathy for others, regardless of how much they differ from him, and even regardless of how much they hurt him. He is my constant source of inspiration, and truly a role model. Yet, in my relatively long life, I only met one person like him, or, at least, only one person like that revealed him/her/themselves to me.
