Landing At EWR
In last week’s column, I introduced my acronym, EWR, which represents three essential features for helping others who are suffering or struggling. In that article, “Flying Into EWR,” I discussed the E of EWR which represents empathy. Empathy, unlike sympathy, is the skill of responding to another person based on the feelings they express, not by diverting their focus to how we, the supportive listener, are reacting to what they share with us. Sympathetic people might cry along with a sad person and talk about how they too have been through similar suffering. Empathic people attune themselves to the other person’s own plight, echoing and validating the other person’s sadness, pain, or other reaction.
The W in EWR refers to warmth. This is the concept of therapeutic or supportive warmth which should be displayed when someone turns to you in distress and wants to talk it out. There are many ways to behave when someone else is unloading their pain, sadness, or frustration while you listen. The other person is the “sender” and you have chosen to be the “receiver.” How much and how effectively you receive that information has to do with how much warmth you display.
Supportive warmth is in fact something that is displayed. It involves active and attentive listening, as opposed to looking at your watch or phone while the other person tries to open up to you. Warmth is looking them in the eye, which many of us have trouble doing. I instruct my students in an exercise which involves looking each other in the eye for one minute without laughing and without breaking the gaze. Try it! Can you sustain eye contact? Another exercise I give involves one person focusing internally and silently on an emotion that they are trying to convey in their eyes and their facial expressions, and the second person attempting to detect what feeling is being expressed. Try it! Can you read another person’s internal experience through eye observation?
Displaying supportive warmth means appearing interested and concerned about what the person is sharing, by maintaining an attentive posture, avoiding judgmental and critical comments, appearing to accept the other person’s experience rather than refute their reaction or question it, and as with Empathy (the E of our EWR), warmth keeps the focus on the other person rather than ourselves.
People are more likely to open up when in the presence of someone they trust. At times, this makes a good friend or loving family member a good candidate to be a supportive listener, since trust is already present. However, there are many situations when the person in crisis does not know you and they turn to you for help. In that situation, there’s no time to develop trust: you may never see that person again, yet they are turning to you for aid. I have been a passenger on an airplane several times when a person found themselves in distress. It has even happened twice with flight attendants, who turned to me spontaneously. In each case, neither of them knew my identity or profession. I happened to be sitting in my seat studying a sefer when a flight attendant asked to speak with me. In both cases, they prefaced their question with “You are a holy man. I need to talk to you.” In each of these two encounters, we did not have time to establish “trust” or a “rapport.” Yet my demeanor, my attentiveness, and my receptive expression communicated that I was trustworthy and safe. In the absence of formal developed trust, our warmth can convey a much-needed trustworthiness to another person gripped with fear and anxiety. Warmth signals safety, and when a person in distress knows they are safe in your presence, they will open up to you.
Warmth also means that your non-verbal responses mark you as secure and available. If I am restless, if my eyes dart around, if my feet are tapping, if I am busy scratching myself, or if my posture is slouched, rigid, or my arms are folded across my chest, I will seem preoccupied, defensive, uncomfortable, and even cold and unapproachable. One does not emanate warmth when their style conveys disinterest or impatience. There’s an expression about someone appearing “cold and clinical.” The reality is that when one is attempting to be clinical, i.e. when interacting with the sufferer, the appropriate modality is warmth, not coldness.
Last week we “flew into EWR” with Empathy. This week we have “landed at EWR” with Warmth. Stay tuned next week for the R of EWR.
Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at ChaiLifeline.org/crisis.
