mxpressing the use of

counselor empathy through possible selves

Erin Martz

The construct of possible selves, which represents the multifaceted aspects of an individual’s self-concept, is proposed in this theoretical article as a means by which employment and career counselors can extend greater empathy to their clients. The construct of empathy is reviewed first, followed by the construct of possible selves. Possible selves are suggested as a means to encourage greater perspective-taking by both the client and the counselor, which reflects a greater empathic process.

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When clients visit employment or career counselors, they are often confused and uncertain about their future direction. This article describes how counselors can extend a heightened degree of empathy to a client by usingpossible selves, which is a construct proposed by Markus and Nurius (1986). In addition to bolstering the empathic processes with a client, using possible selves can encourage clients to imagine multiple visions of themselves and of their future (Chalk, Meara, & Day, 1994; Meara, Davis, & Robinson, 1997; Plimmer & Englert, 1997). Hence, possible selves may expand the vision of possibilities for the client during employment or career counseling. I propose that by using the framework suggested by the construct of possible selves, counselors can facilitate greater perspective-taking, which Hatcher et al. (1994) found to be one of the highest forms of empathy in a counseling rela- tionship. This article begins with a review of research on empathy, followed by re- search on possible selves, to address the question of how the use of possible selves can encourage greater counselor empathy and client growth.

THE PROCESS OF EMPATHY

Understanding what empathy means is important for career counseling, because empathy is described as one of the fundamental conditions for client change (Rogers, 1961). Although the primary goals of career counseling are distinct from other types of counseling because it emphasizes employment-related subjects, career counse- lors also attempt to procure positive changes in client behaviors, attitudes, and motivation. Raskin’s research (cited by Rogers, 1980) among 83 therapists, repre- senting at least eight therapeutic orientations, found that most ranked empathy the

.... Erin Mark is a doctoral student in the Department of Rehabilitation at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Erin Martz, 316 West Avenue Annex, Department of Rehabilitation, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (e-mail: emartz8mail.uark.edu).

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highest in describing qualities of the ideal therapist. Hence, empathy seems to be a foundation of counseling, no matter what types of counseling are pursued.

Simple empathy is defined as an emotional reaction of one individual when aware of the emotional reaction of another person (Stotland, Mathews, Sherman, Hansson, & Richardson, 1978). Yet, “the emotion of the observer who is empathizing can never be exactly the same as that of the person he is watching” (Stotland et al., 1978, p. 12). Simple empathy, or sympathy, can be described as sensing and reacting to an- other person’s emotions (Olinick, 1984). Rogers (1961) clarified that empathy is more than just an emotional response to another; it is an ability to “sense the client’s anger, fear, or confusion as if it were your own, yet without your own anger, fear, or confusion getting bound up in it” (p. 284). In other words, this perception of an- other person’s emotions also entails an objective separation between another’s emo- tions and one’s own reaction to those emotions.

Goldstein and Michaels (1985, p. 8) distinguished empathy from sympathy by pro- posing that empathy includes much more than just sensing another person’s emotions. Empathy entails that the perceiver is optimally sensitive to the full range and depth of the other’s affective state or situation and thus may proceed fully through the empathic subprocesses of affective reverberation, cognitive analysis, and accurate feedback (Goldstein & Michaels, 1985). The sympathizer, in contrast, is more preoc- cupied with his or her own feelings in response to the other and thus is less able to respond to, for, or with the other in a manner sensitive to the other person’s actual ongoing emotional world and its context (Goldstein & Michaels, 1985). Like Rogers (1961), Goldstein and Michaels described empathy as the ability to be emotionally aware of another person, while maintaining objectivity. In contrast, a counselor who interacts with a client from sympathy is not as able to maintain that objectivity and, thus, is one who lets personal emotions interfere with the responses to the client.

Rogers (1980) depicted empathy as a process, not a state, and uses the term em- pathic understanding to reflect that empathy involves both affective and cognitive aspects. That empathy includes an affective and a cognitive component can also be discerned from Olinick’s (1984) distinction between sympathy and empathy:

Sympathy entails a feeling tone comparable to the patient’s, consonant with the patient’s plight, dilemma, or situation as he (or she) experiences it. Unlike empathic integrations, which are objective, sympathetic responses are nonobjective, highly personalized, and predominantly affective. Sympathy, one may say, is an immature, imperfect empathy. (pp. 138-139)

In the preceding definitions, one of the main distinctions between sympathy and empathy is the counselor’s ability to maintain objectivity. Whereas sympathy pri- marily involves affective responses, empathy entails the components of both affec- tive and cognitive responding. In a similar way, Kohut (1984) described empathy as “a value-neutral mode of observation: a mode of observation attuned to the inner life of man” (p. 84) that has two levels: an information-gathering activity to under- stand the “observable contents and/or sequences of events in man’s psychic life” (p. 85) and a powerful emotional bond between two people. Note that Kohut’s dual aspects of empathy also involve cognitive and affective responding.

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Goldstein and Michaels (1985) proposed a further distinction of the components of empathy, describing it as a process in which a counselor senses, emotionally responds, understands and interprets, and then expresses the perceived affective state back to the person. Succinctly stated, Goldstein and Michaels defined empathy as a four-part “per- ceptual-affective-cognitive-communicative” process. This definition emphasizes that empathy is a process of multifaceted interaction between the counselor and the client.

Hatcher et al. (1994) summarized research indicating that empathy “follows a de- velopmental path not unlike that of cognitive and moral development” (p. 963) and that the higher levels are represented by perspective-taking and empathic concern. Perspective-taking entails counselor objectivity, which requires the ability to per- ceive and understand the client’s worldview. This ability of the counselor to take dif- ferent perspectives, and thus encourage the client to do the same, is both necessary and useful for expanding the limited or constricted viewpoints that clients may main- tain about themselves. Perspectives-expansion may be achieved to a greater degree if a counselor uses possible selves, which is a concept discussed in the next section.

THE CONSTRUCT OF POSSIBLE SELVES

Possible selves, as proposed by Markus and Nurius (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Nurius, 1989), describe an individual’s self-concept as a dynamic gestalt containing self- representations that are accessible to conscious awareness at any given moment. Based on information-processing models of cognition, possible selves describe the self-concept as “an interlocking system of knowledge structures about the self that is the basis of how we store and retrieve information from memory” (Nurius, 1989, p. 286). Hence, possible selves are self-schemata that not only organize stored in- formation, but also act as formats or plans for action. These self-representations, or self-schemas, are “considered active, working structures that shape perceptions, memories, emotional, and behavioral responses” (Stein, 1995, p. 188). The possible selves construct contains a range of self-schemas that are part of a multifaceted, working self-concept that is “an integrated subset of all the available self-repre- sentations’, (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992, p. 98).

The working self-schemas of possible selves are the parts of an individual’s self- concept that are currently being accessed (Stein, 1995). Many other aspects of self- concept remain dormant in one’s long-term memory as certain aspects of the self-concept are actively used in one’s working or short-term memory (Nurius, 1989). Furthermore, the evolution of possible selves is based on both past events and fu- ture possibilities in which potential selves “are formed on the basis of imaginings built upon past experiences (direct and vicarious), supplemented by conditions experienced at the time of imagining” (Buirs & Martin, 1997, p. 155).

The concept of possible selves offers many advantages over many other explana- tions of the self-concept. It provides a future orientation that is useful for explain- ing client motivation and goal-oriented action (Nurius, 1989). It defines self-concept as multifaceted (Markus & Nurius, 1986). The concept of possible selves also serves to highlight mental representations of the self that include both cognitive and affec-

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tive aspects and incorporates “information concerning emotions, values, and goals as well as images, defining detail, and strategies” (Nurius, 1989, p. 290). A further ben- efit of possible selves is that one’s self-concept is depicted as malleable and dynamic to clients, which may encourage clients to accept that their “own views of themselves can shift, sometimes dramatically, due to circumstances” (Nurius, 1989, p. 291).

The construct of possible selves contains many types of self-schemas, which are not necessarily tested ideas, that are based upon “accumulated social experience” (Nurius, 1989). This can include three future-oriented self-schemas: the expected self, the hoped-for self, and the feared self (Markus & Nurius, 1986). The expected possible selves are “the component selves that one believes that one can, or will, realistically become”; the hoped-for self is “an aspired self, a component self that one feels the possibility of becoming”; and the feared self is “a possible self that one does not want to become, but nevertheless fears the possibility of becoming” (Carver, Reynolds, & Scheier, 1994, pp. 134-135). Thus, possible selves can carry a negative or a positive connotation: what one fears or what one hopes to become.

Positive possible selves serve as a guidepost for one’s activities because “informa- tion processing is biased in the direction of stimuli that are consistent with the acti- vated possible self’ (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992, p. 97). Consequently, the construct of possible selves helps to explain motivation by producing a specific mental image of oneself in a specific context that provides a focus for subsequent information (Stein, 1995). Ruvolo and Markus found that in three experimental conditions, individuals who imagined themselves as successful in the future had higher task performance scores than those who imagined themselves as unsuccessful in the future. Ruvolo and Markus (1992) noted that “a general desire to do well must be given specific self- relevant form, and such individualized translation creates and sustains the motiva- tion” (p. 121). Hence, possible selves provide a framework for one’s future goals by means of self-schemas or images of oneself in a specific role or circumstance. Specific self-representations that are future-oriented, especially when they are positive, may be the motivating means by which the individual achieves higher task performance.

EXPANDING EMPATHY THROUGH THE USE OF POSSIBLE SELVES: IMPLEMENTATION

If one of the most mature forms of empathy is the cognitive ability of “perspective taking’’ (Hatcher et al., 1994), then both the client and the counselor can experience a more empathic process through the use of possible selves. Because possible selves encourage exploring one’s self-representations, both the client and the counselor can increase their perspective-taking abilities. This expansion of perspective-taking bol- sters the process of empathy, because empathy (as previously defined) involves exploring the client’s cognitive and affective world view. Hence, possible selves can encourage shifts in perspective that originate in the client’s self-representations. Various facets of an individual’s self-concept can be explored: images of oneself from the past to the future, from the feared to hoped-for selves, and among all possible images of oneself, particularly in the employment setting.

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Possible selves give the counselor a tool to increase empathic communication with the client because of the counselor’s enhanced ability to objectively take dif- ferent perspectives (i.e., the expected, hoped-for, and feared selves). In turn, the client can benefit from the counselor’s use of possible selves by observing how the counselor can shift a perspective about the self by using the framework of possible selves. The client can profit not only by experiencing a more flexible perspective- taking ability, but also by learning to accept or confront the different images in his or her own self-concept. Hence, possible selves can encourage perspectives-expansion for both the counselor and the client, which may facilitate a more developed form of empathy (Hatcher et al., 1994), because possible selves allow greater objectivity of perspectives and exploration of various aspects of the client’s self-concept.

Clients usually are already aware of their shortcomings, weaknesses, and doubts. Possible selves can help them expand their self-views and their ideas about future possibilities. For example, Meara et al. (1997) depicted how possible selves were used to help women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds successfully formulate ideas about their career directions. Meara, Day, Chalk, and Phelps (1995, p. 265) offered the following reasons that possible selves would be useful in career counseling to (a) “generate and nurture additional personalized occupational selves, including ones that are both consistent and inconsistent with one’s background and beliefs; (b) explore feelings associated with different occupational options; and (c) practice being planful and future oriented” (p. 265). To summarize, three potential benefits of using possible selves in career coun- seling are perspectives-expansion, affective exploration, and the encouragement of the client’s future orientation toward a career.

IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELORS

If possible selves are used in employment counseling, this technique may “provide insight into what may be erroneous foreclosure of future possibilities” (p. 221) of clients about their career choices (Plimmer & Englert, 1997). By expanding clients’ horizons through possible selves, counselors would have a powerful tool to stimu- late an enhanced ability in the client to consider a range of previously constricted options. Encouraging such imagination and exploration should facilitate client growth, which, as Rogers (1961) described, occurs when

the rigid ways in which he has construed the meaning of his experience are looked at, and he finds himself questioning many of the ‘facts’ of his life, discovering that they are only ‘facts’ because he has regarded them as so. (p. 285)

Possible selves can provide a framework in which the counselor can interact with the client to (a) explore the client’s self-concept and the client’s cognitive and affective responses to particular careers or to other types of roles and (b) examine the client’s thoughts about suppressed or discarded career possibilities. Furthermore, the technique of possible selves can enhance the empathic response from the counselor by encouraging perspective-taking within the multifaceted process of empathy with its perceptual- affective-cognitive-communicative components (Goldstein & Michaels, 1985).

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Finally, the multifaceted aspects of clients’ self-concept can be explored to heighten clients’ awareness of the range of career possibilities and career choices that are avail- able to them. Possible selves allow career counselors to use the perspective-taking ac- tivities inherent in its construct in order to express greater empathy toward clients through a bolstered ability to explore clients’ perceptions of hopes, fears, and expectations about employment. Clients’ perceived possible selves can serve as a way of exploring the dy- namic process of the self-concept expression, such that clients can seek the unique self-concept that they want to manifest in employment settings. Therefore, possible selves may encourage clients to examine many possibilities for themselves and thus build a bridge to the future, when no bridge is currently imagined.

REFERENCES

Buirs, R. S., & Martin, J. (1997). The therapeutic construction of possible selves: Imagination and constraints. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 10, 153-166.

Carver, C. S., Reynolds, S. L., & Scheier, M. F. (1994). The possible selves of optimists and pessimists. Journal of Research in Personality, 28, 133-141.

Chalk, L. M., Meara, N. M., & Day, J. D. (1994). Possible selves and occupational choices. Jour- nal of Career Asessment, 2, 364-383.

Goldstein, A. P., & Michaels, G. Y. (1985). Empathy: Development, training, and consequences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Hatcher, S. L., Nadeau, M. S., Walsh, L. K., Reynolds, M., Galea, J., & Marz, K. (1994). The teaching of empathy for high school and college students: Testing Rogerian methods with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Adolescence, 29, 961-974.

Kohut, H. (1984). Introspection, empathy, and the semicircle of mental health. In J. Lichtenberg, M. Bornstein, & D. Silver (Eds.), Empathy I (pp. 81-102). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954-969. Meara, N. M., Davis, K. L., & Robinson, B. S. (1997). The working lives of women from lower

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Meara, N. M., Day, J. D., Chalk, L. M., & Phelps, R. E. (1995). Possible selves: Applications for career counseling. Journal of Career Assessment, 3, 259-277.

Nurius, P. S. (1989). The self-concept: A social-cognitive update. Social Casework: The Journal of Contemporary Social Work, 7 0 , 285-294.

Olinick, S. L. (1984). A critique of empathy and sympathy. In J. Lichtenherg, M. Bornstein, & D. Silver (Eds.), Empathy I (pp. 137-166). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Plimmer, G., 13 Englert, P. (1997). Downsizing and vocational guidance: The erroneous interest in interest inventories and the possibilities of possible selves. In G . M. Habermann (Ed.), Looking back and moving forward: 50 years of New Zealand psychology (pp. 215-223). New Zealand: New Zealand Psychological Society.

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