As No One Else Can Know How

It Is That The Individual Has Within Him Or Herself Vast Resources For Self-understanding, For Altering The Self-concept Basic Attitudes, And His Or Her Self-directed Behavior - And That These Resources Can Be Tapped If Only A Definable Climate Of Facilitative Psychological Attitudes Can Be Provided

The Genuinely Significant Creation, Whether An Idea, Or A Work Of Art, Or A Scientific Discovery, Is Most Likely To Be Seen At First As Erroneous, Bad, Or Foolish. Later It May Be Seen As Obvious, Something Self-evident To All. Only Still Later Does It Receive Its Final Evaluation As A Creative Contribution. It Seems Clear No Contemporary Mortal Can Satisfactorily Evaluate A Creative Product At The Time It Is Formed, And This Statement Is Increasingly True The Greater The Novelty Of The Creation.

Unless Man Can Make New And Original Adaptations To His Environment As Rapidly As His Science Can Change The Environment, Our Culture Will Perish.

When Someone Really Hears You Without Passing Judgment On You, Without Trying To Take Responsibility For You, Without Trying To Mold You, It Feels Damn Good. . . . When I Have Been Listened To And When I Have Been Heard, I Am Able To Re-perceive My World In A New Way And To Go On. It Is Astonishing How Elements Which Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens. How Confusions Which Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

An Empathic Way Of Being Can Be Learned From Empathic Persons. Perhaps The Most Important Statement Of All Is That The Ability To Be Accurately Empathic Is Something Which Can Be Developed By Training. Therapists, Parents And Teachers Can Be Helped To Become Empathic. This Is Especially Likely To Occur If Their Teachers And Supervisors Are Themselves Individuals Of Sensitive Understanding. It Is Most Encouraging To Know That This Subtle, Elusive Quality, Of Utmost Importance In Therapy, Is Not Something One Is "born With", But Can Be Learned, And Learned Most Rapidly In An Empathic Climate.