How to Comfort Someone

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is John Bosworth. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in St. Pete, Florida. I want to speak about how to comfort someone. Usually if somebody is in some kind of emotional upset, or in some kind of, you know, trouble in their lives, comforting them can be a problem for some people. Some people don't really know how to do it. One of the best things that we found through research, one of the best most effective ways to comfort somebody is just to be there with them. Now what does that entail? You think, okay, being that I am there for them. But if you're there in a kind of an anxious way or you're really worried about that person, you're probably not going to be much comfort to them. Why not just be there with them? Listen to them, okay? Provide empathy for them. Empathy is our ability to it's kind of a human capacity, we don't know if other animals are capable of. But being able to put ourselves in that person's shoes and recognizing why they must feel really bad. Because when I was in a similar situation I know how they felt. Just literally providing that empathy and some feedback to that person about that can be very comforting to them. Also another strategy that helps people to feel a little bit more comfortable is help them recognize that most of their suffering or most of their discomfort doesn't really come from the situation that they're involved in. But it comes from how they think about it or what they're telling themselves about it. And usually when somebody's uncomfortable, it's in the form of you know, a little frustration. I can't stand this or it's going to be awkward or I'm too tensed, or this and that. So what you can do is kind of help them look at the language they use and stay more in the present moment and recognize that although the situation is not good, it's really not as horrible as they might be making it in their heads. So usually our imagination can create a lot more suffering than the situation itself. My name is John Bosworth and we're speaking about how to comfort somebody."