Most of us believe we are good listeners, when in fact we may not be.
Years ago, I taught a course on listening and counseling skills to clinical psychology graduate students. I used a role-play format to teach the basics of listening.
Year after year in this course, I noticed the students who felt most confident about listening were the poorest and didn’t realize it. Meanwhile, the students who were more timid in their abilities frequently demonstrated better listening skills.
Why? Because good listening is not about doing more. It is often about doing less.
The largest obstacles are empathy blockers, which we often resort to in an effort to be “a good listener.” Empathy blockers are responses that come from a genuine desire to help or contribute to the dialogue, but end up as barriers to effective listening.
What Are Empathy Blockers?
Empathy blockers are conversational habits that unintentionally prevent someone from feeling heard and understood.
Empathy blockers shift the conversation away from the speaker’s experience. They interrupt the very thing the speaker is hoping to receive.
Once you begin to recognize these patterns in yourself, you can learn how to be a better listener by replacing them with curiosity, empathy, and validation.
Though they harm the dialogue, empathy blockers almost always come from a desire to be helpful. The listener often uses them as a way of trying to relieve the speaker’s suffering, relate by sharing their own story, or encourage positive thinking.
Let’s look at three of the most common empathy blockers.
Providing Unsolicited Advice
When someone we love is struggling, our natural instinct is often to solve the problem they are facing.
If you see a clear path forward, why wouldn’t you share it?
In many relationships, the partner who quickly moves toward solutions is often someone who is highly capable and action-oriented. They are used to identifying problems and fixing them.
But in emotional conversations, offering a solution too quickly can unintentionally communicate something else: that the speaker’s experience has been skipped over.
When someone shares a struggle, what they usually want first is not a solution. They want to feel known, understood, and accepted in what they are experiencing.
Finding the Silver Lining
Another common empathy blocker is trying to highlight the positive side of the situation.
This response also comes from a compassionate place. A partner might say something like:
- “At least it’s not as bad as it could be.”
- “Maybe it will turn out to be a good thing.”
- “Everything happens for a reason.”
These statements are usually attempts to bring hope or optimism into a difficult moment.
However, they unintentionally minimize the speaker’s experience. Skipping ahead to the silver lining of the storm cloud can make the speaker feel their emotions are being brushed aside or minimized.
Empathy requires us to stay with the person in their experience, not rush them past it.
Simply witnessing their struggle and acknowledging it can be far more meaningful than trying to make the moment better.
“Me Too!”
This third empathy blocker shows up when we respond to someone’s story by sharing our own similar experience.
For example:
“Oh, that happened to me last year…”
The listener’s intention here is connection and relating to one another on a shared topic. People use this to show that they understand.
But when someone is in the middle of sharing a personal struggle, shifting the focus to our own story redirects the conversation away from them.
Now the speaker has to pause their experience, listen to ours, and eventually try to return to what they were saying.
Even though the goal was to relate, the result can be sidelining the speaker’s story.
In these moments, people usually don’t want you to insert your story into the dialogue. They want you to remain present in their story.
Why Empathy Matters
Empathy communicates that you are seen and understood.
Some people may not realize they are looking for empathy when they speak. But when they receive it, they feel it immediately.
When someone feels understood:
- Stress becomes easier to manage
- Emotional safety increases
- People become more open and willing to share
- Connection deepens
In relationships, this kind of emotional understanding creates the foundation for intimacy and trust.
How to Be a Better Listener
If empathy blockers are barriers to effective listening, the solution is not to speak more skillfully — it’s often to do less and listen more intentionally.
Many people feel uncomfortable with this at first. They believe they need to offer advice or say something impressive to be helpful.
But the most powerful listening often comes from simple, focused responses.
Reflect What You Heard
One of the most effective ways to listen is to reflect the speaker’s experience back to them, using some of their own words.
Reflective listening keeps the focus on the speaker and communicates that you are trying to understand. When done properly, reflective listening encourages the speaker to clarify and continue their story.
Identify the Emotion
People often feel deeply validated when their emotions are recognized.
If you hear sadness, worry, or disappointment, naming that emotion can be deeply powerful.
For example:
“It sounds like you felt scared when that happened,” or “So you reacted in fear when that happened?”
Validate the Feeling
Validation communicates that the person’s reaction makes sense.
A simple framework I often teach couples is:
“It makes perfect sense that you feel ___ because ___.”
For example:
“It makes perfect sense that you feel disappointed because you worked so hard on that project.”
Validation does not mean you agree with every detail of the story. It simply communicates that their emotional experience makes sense to you, given their experience as conveyed in the story.
Listen With Curiosity
Curiosity helps you stay inside the speaker’s experience.
Be careful not to think of responses, rebuttals, or solutions. Stay engaged and focused on their story and emotional experience.
Curiosity creates interest and understanding. Leading with curiosity keeps the speaker’s story at the center of the conversation and will help you gain a better understanding of what they are experiencing.
Notice Empathy Blockers in Your Conversations
One powerful way to improve your listening skills is simply to notice when empathy blockers show up.
You might catch yourself about to:
- Offer advice
- Point out the silver lining
- Share your own story
When that happens, pause.
Instead of redirecting the conversation, step back into the speaker’s experience. Reflect what you heard, identify the emotion, and validate the emotion.
Ironically, this kind of listening can feel like you are doing very little.
But in relationships, joining someone in their experience without solving anything opens up many helpful possibilities.
When people feel understood, they relax. They share more openly. And over time, the relationship deepens with greater trust and stronger connection.
