The Clown's Use of Empathy: An Interview with Bob Berky

Abstract

Excerpts from an interview with Bob Berky reveal the clown's keen understanding of empathic attunement, what psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, and persons in pastoral care maintain is a vital correspondence toward authentic interpersonal presence. Berky discusses the use of silence and movement to free the individual with whom he invites to his stage from rigid personas and limiting preconceptions. He underscores the life-giving possibilities of the “laugh of recognition”—the realization that we share a kindred experience of being human, and can release our unique potentials toward creative connection and difference.