My commitment is to provide a gracious and generous listening – empathy – as a stepping stone to transforming emotional pain into positive and productive engagement in relationships, career, and community. If you work with me, you are going to get a good listening – empathy.
I see people in person in the office and/or via Zoom, depending on their preference, scheduling, and vaccination status.
It is my practice to have a complimentary phone conversation with a prospective client to understand how I can best be of service. Let’s talk!
If you are struggling with issues in relationships, lack of emotional energy, unfocused energy, anxious energy, debilitating stress, self-defeating behavior, under-achievement, or lack of satisfaction and meaning in a key area (or areas) in life, then an empathic conversation for what is possible can make a profound difference.
Empathy is like oxygen for the soul. So if one is experiencing a shortness of breath, stress, or roller coaster emotions in one’s life, relationships, career, or commitment, maybe one is not getting enough empathy. Empathy – a gracious and generous listening – does not just mean “being kind” – it means meeting and engaging the other person (you) where the individual is at in life.
I have made a profound, positive difference in working with clients recovering from domestic violence, date rape, abuses of psychiatry in the former USSR, bullying bosses, and diverse traumatic, confronting, unintegrated experiences.
The way things work best for me is to have an initial confidential complimentary conversation in which I gather confidential data about you and get a sense of what is the challenge(s). If I believe that I can make a difference (and if you agree), then we agree on a flexible fee and schedule, based on your income and our mutual schedule and availability. We get to work.
It sometimes happens that a person is stuck due to a lack of empathy in his or her life – at work, at home, at school, in relationships. I am committed to providing you with the empathy you need to get unstuck. I am able to help you master empathy lessons so that you can get expanded empathy for yourself and, should you choose to do so, even provide empathy to those in your world lacking empathy. Give you a fish in the short term to overcome a crisis or breakdown; but also teach you how to fish. The result is a positive feedback loop in which you flourish and are able to contribute to the community.
It sometimes happens that people are stuck due to too much empathy. (Strange but true!) Natural empaths can’t seem to get any empathy. The same is the case for a lot of other folks, too, but it is especially frustrating to natural empaths. I guide (train) natural empaths (and others) that empathy is not an “on off” switch, but a dial, a tuner, that we can turn up or down, depending on the needs of the situation. Get the details and a complementary initial conversation (contact data below).
Please allow me to say that I am familiar with all the hundreds of diagnostic categories in the diagnostic manual (and I might consider adding a few extra), but I find them to be of limited value in shifting emotional, behavioral, and relationship issues. If you want or need a diagnosis, I can work with you on one [really no problem]; however, experience has demonstrated to me that when all the diagnostic categories are implemented and all the labels applies, one is still in the presence of another human being.
Relating to that human being is one key to shifting out of “stuckness” using empathic methods as depicted in the graphic. My commitment to you is to relate to that human being and to do so with empathy.
Find your power and get it back in the fact of life’s challenges through empathic listening and responsiveness. Contact: 1-773-203-0269 LAgosta@UChicago.edu “On the Forward Edge in the Edgewater Community, Chicago, IL 60660” http://www.LouAgosta.com (c) Lou Agosta, Ph.D. and the Chicago Empathy Project
Lou Agosta, Ph.D., Listening With Empathy 