To fully communicate with other people, a person must be able to understand their feelings and experiences. This is the key to building strong relationships in society. The ability that allows a person to share the emotions of other people is called empathy. Let's look at what empathy is, how it's useful, and whether it can be developed.
What is empathy
The concept in question appeared thanks to the research of the American psychologist E. Titchener.
Empathy
- this is a response, an acute internal reaction to the feelings and emotions of other people. This is the ability to understand and see what is happening psychologically with an opponent, the ability to feel his experiences.
Each of us has the ability to empathize; it is innate. Remember the child’s behavior: the mother laughs and he laughs, the mother bursts into tears and the child sheds tears. With age, this quality disappears or becomes less pronounced in most of us, as self-defense mechanisms against negative emotions are activated.
Empathy is activated when someone around a person experiences negative emotions: sadness, sadness, fear. A sensitive person in such a situation also begins to worry and tries to provide support.
Sensitive people react sharply to not only reality events. They know how to put themselves in the shoes of a book character or a movie hero, feel his feelings, and cry when watching the corresponding scenes.
Psychology considers two types of empaths
:
- People who are good at reading the emotions and states of others, but at the same time internally remain cold and rational. Such people can be dangerous because, having studied a person, they can begin to manipulate and use another.
- Those who not only see the opponent’s psyche, but also feel his pain or confusion as their own.
The concept of the second type is the most common and is accepted as the basis. In our article we will talk about highly sensitive people who sincerely empathize with others.
Characteristic
Empathy is characteristic of all healthy people, so it is neutral in nature. But the depth of manifestation of states of controlled empathy can be positive or negative. It all depends on the situation.
Empathy is demonstrated through various signals:
- actions,
- speeches,
- facial expressions,
- gestures
pros
Empathy is necessary for full socialization. The feeling of controlled empathy is formed in childhood, when the child sees the involvement of an adult, parent or other loved one in his condition. This behavior is adopted. Empathic states make it easier to find a common language, to feel involved in the life of a family, community, others, country, nation.
Having empathy brings significant benefits in the profession. The ability to adapt to the state of your interlocutor is important when conducting negotiations, making professional sales, establishing connections and contacts.
Minuses
A high level of empathy often has a negative impact on the bearer of this feeling. Thus, it has been noted that acute empathy increases the likelihood of developing depressive processes, stress, mental disorders and phobias.
A low level of empathy significantly complicates life in the social sphere. People who have a low level of it are more likely than others to encounter problems in communication and building close relationships.
Types of empathy in psychology
Particular sensitivity to the inner world of others is classified into the following types.
Rational or intellectual (cognitive)
In this form, the state of the individual is, first of all, subject to analysis and study. We compare a person's actions with his actions and knowledge of how people act when experiencing the corresponding emotions.
This type is based on the experience of similar experiences by humans. His facial expressions, gestures, gaze, and voice are of great importance in determining the state of another individual. From them you can tell what a person is experiencing. However, it is important to be able to “read” non-verbal symbols so as not to make mistakes.
The cognitive form of empathy helps in personal and business communications and allows you to achieve what you want by understanding the personality of your opponent.
Emotional
Based on the mechanism of mental infection. There are particularly sensitive individuals who literally read the emotional state of their interlocutor. There is a deep immersion into the inner state of another person.
Such people have a special nervous system and can experience the pain of others as their own personal tragedy. It is not surprising that they experience significant emotional and nervous overload.
Any story about a catastrophe that has occurred in the world can plunge them into a state of prolonged experience of tragedy and compassion for strangers.
Intuitive (predicative)
This type presupposes the ability to anticipate, predict the reactions and emotions of interlocutors. A person understands in advance how his partner will react to one or another of his actions.
A predictive empath not only understands the internal state, he is aware of the motives of actions. Therefore, he tries to act in such a way as not to disturb the psychological comfort of another person.
A person may have the properties of empathy of one, two or all three types. There are individuals who do not understand the moods of other people at all and do not spare their personal inner world, i.e. have no empathy.
The Four Immeasurable Qualities of Mind
The Buddha taught monks and laymen to develop the four noble qualities of mind (cattāro brahma·vihārā), which he called “boundless” or “boundless” (appamannya). In Sanskrit and Pali they are called "brahmaviharas" or "abodes of Brahma." This means that those who have perfectly developed these qualities are in pure and sublime states of mind like the gods of the Brahma world. And these qualities of the mind are called “immeasurable” because they extend to countless living beings living in different worlds, beings of various forms of life, and not to any specific beings of a single group living in a certain place. The following will be a definition and a brief description of these four immeasurable qualities of the mind.
- Loving-kindness (metta)
- Compassion (karuna)
- Rejoicing (mudita)
- Impartiality (upekkha - in Pali; upeksha - in Sanskrit)
Metta is boundless goodwill towards living beings, mercy, the wish to achieve true (and not short-term and transitory) happiness for all beings, without exception, living now and those who have yet to be born.
Karuna is compassion for living beings who are suffering physical or mental suffering, wishing them liberation from all types of suffering.
Mudita is rejoicing at the well-being of living beings, their good successes, good achievements, their joy achieved in a righteous way.
Upekkha is equanimity, i.e. the ability to maintain a balanced mind and self-control under all the vicissitudes of life. There is also an opinion that upekkha is an egalitarian attitude towards living beings, based on the position that all beings want to be happy and do not want to suffer, and that “the true nature of every living being is freedom”1. In this respect, all beings are equal, and this basic equality must be fully realized.
What signs indicate the existence of empathy?
Signs of empathy are
:
Full readiness to support
Each of us may need support and comfort. There are many difficult and unforeseen situations in life, and not everyone is ready to endure them steadfastly and adequately. Having a strong shoulder nearby, capable of not only sympathizing, but also providing real help, is one of the conditions for overcoming the crisis and minimizing psychological trauma.
A person with a high level of empathy always strives to help, to do everything in his power. He will arrive at night to give you a pill, he will rush to pick up a comrade who has gone on a spree from the police, and he will not leave a dog or other animal to die on the road.
Without receiving any return in return, such an individual still continues to do good deeds, thereby strengthening his self-esteem.
Ability to hear your interlocutor
We have met people who like to talk only about themselves and their problems. They will listen to us reluctantly and again turn the topic to their loved ones.
If there is empathy, a person notices our every word. There is not even a shadow of condemnation in it, there are no moral teachings or moralizations. Even if a morally bad act is committed, an empath will find the right words and support.
The interlocutor understands that his problems are important and significant, which means he himself is interesting and needed. A sincere person will always give real and useful advice based on what he hears.
Sincere sympathy
Empathy involves sincere and open empathy. You can give advice and help with a cold heart, without being imbued with the misfortune of another. And you can feel the pain as if it were your own.
Highly empathetic individuals can suffer no less than their wards, forget about peace and sleep until the situation is resolved. They cry when experiencing touching or tragic scenes from films, and then cannot forget them for a long time.
Should we learn empathy?
Sympathy and compassion border on such human traits as empathy, responsiveness, empathy and other positive qualities that have an impact on the development of a full-fledged personality. Everyone wants to see people capable of kind, selfless and sincere actions, can this be without sympathy? From childhood, we learn to respect our elders, help our parents, we are taught that we need to protect and take care of weak animals; it is impossible to do all this without empathy.
Try to explain to your child that everyone around them feels pain and resentment, discuss your feelings, together with your child you can assign each feeling its own color, this will be interesting for both the baby and you. If disagreements arise, it is worth discussing why this happens and what the participants in the conflict are experiencing. The parental home should be filled with an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. If your child has shown anger towards you or others, ask what exactly caused it and how it is possible to change this situation. A child who has been instilled with empathy and compassion since childhood will not treat animals roughly, offend younger ones, or generally prove that he is right with his fists. Explain to your child that expressing sympathy is not a sign of weakness, but an indicator of intelligence and proper upbringing. If you show how you can express sympathy, then in the future the baby, first of all, will care about the feelings of others and will look for a way out without resorting to aggression. Books can be an excellent way to instill compassion and empathy in a child. In all fairy tales there are characters who experience the whole gamut of emotions: fear, anger, pity, compassion and empathy. By going on a journey with your favorite characters, your child will learn to show kindness. All children from birth are filled with love for the world, and the task of parents is to develop a positive attitude further, and not allow it to give way to anger and aggression.
Growing up, we are faced with cruelty, which is explained by the fact that individual people do not have empathy.
People of this nature are difficult to contact; they are rude, selfish and do not spare the feelings of others. Very often the root of the problem goes back to childhood; they did not have an example of a parent who would show them how to express sympathy (in many cases such people are repressed and emotionally closed). Such individuals are avoided and tried to be kept at a distance. But you can help cope with this by showing that empathy and compassion are the norm. Suppressed emotions accumulate inside us and can cause harm to our health. To achieve peace of mind, tranquility and harmony with yourself and the world, do not be afraid to show your emotions. Sympathize with the troubles and failures of your loved ones, support them and motivate them to continue moving forward, not letting the bad take over, help people open their lives to all the good things that lie ahead! We are on Telegram! Subscribe and be the first to know about new publications!
Is it possible to develop empathy?
If you wish, empathy can be cultivated in yourself.
This should be done for several reasons
:
- it will become much easier to negotiate with other people in the professional sphere;
- there will be an opportunity to have close friends nearby;
- self-esteem will be increased;
- empathy gives rise to creativity and creativity;
- An empath is very difficult to deceive; he senses insincerity.
Advice from psychologists on strengthening the ability to be compassionate
If for some reason you lack such a trait as empathy, practice the following skills
:
- Get to know yourself and your feelings, reflect
. In the evening, you can think about what events the day was filled with, what emotions you experienced in a given situation. - Every word heard from another person should reach the heart, understand what the person is saying
. Listen carefully. - Become an actor
. Imagine yourself in the role of this or that hero, try to understand his emotions. - Do not refuse to help colleagues, friends or loved ones
. If they ask for your advice, then listen and help. - Pets are very good at awakening frozen empathy
. Every adequate person, at the sight of kittens and puppies, has feelings of tenderness, kindness, and a desire to protect.
The main condition for the development of compassion is the ability to love, to experience kind feelings towards the whole world. If you have fear, anger, malice, and selfishness in your soul, then you won’t be able to become an empath even if you follow all the tips listed above.
Positive and negative sides of empathy
In the article, we have already talked about the positive aspects of empathy: success in negotiations, a positive emotional climate at home and at work, and good self-esteem.
But, like any thing, empathy has a reverse, “dark” side, namely
:
- Strong emotional and nervous stress
. A person constantly passes through the problems and pain of others as if it were his own business. He suffers, worries, wastes his energy and emotions. - Strong empaths take responsibility for everything in the world
. They believe that they are obligated to help everyone, and if this does not work out, they feel guilty. The desire to help extends not only to family and friends, but also to strangers.
- A person suffers from an extreme degree of altruism, i.e. helping others to the detriment of oneself
. In this regard, their problems and troubles accumulate, and, as a rule, no one is in a hurry to help.
In addition, high empaths simply physically cannot say rudeness in response to rudeness and hurt the person who offended them. Therefore, sometimes people give the impression of being weak and weak-willed, although this is not at all the case.
Many people use this feature when solving personal issues. There are very few true HSPs (highly sensitive people) and they need to be protected.
What is more important: sympathy or real help?
Have you ever faced the question: how to help a loved one? Will you listen and provide moral support or throw all your resources into resolving the complexity? It is impossible to give a categorical answer to this question; you should start from the prevailing circumstances, conditions and the person who approached you. For one person, a financial problem is just a temporary difficulty, for another it is a complete disaster! Therefore, when providing support, it is necessary to take into account the characteristics and characteristics of a person. Regarding your direct participation, there are big risks here; by solving problems for your loved ones, you are placing obligations for their lives on your personal account. Subsequently, he will lose the incentive to solve on his own, and at the first difficulties he will simply look for someone else to find a solution instead of him. Also, your sincere help will not be appreciated and as a result there will be more complaints and reproaches against you than the gratitude you deserve. With empathy, things are a little different. When a person speaks out, shares with you the moments that bothered or upset him, feels that he is understood and supported, he has resources for further movement. By also discussing the problem with loved ones, you can find a solution where it was not even considered before. But if we become too immersed in the problems of others, then we begin to live someone else’s life, while devaluing our own. The main thing is to realize that empathy and compassion are wonderful, but how do we deal with our own questions? Do not lose sight of the fact that everyone is responsible for the outcome of their decisions and actions. Protect yourself from the burden of other people's problems.
Don’t rush to improve someone else’s life, listen, help the person not to keep everything to himself, because sometimes even silent participation is enough to help.
Rules for controlling the ability to empathize
In psychology there is a concept called “empathic fatigue.” It affects people whose jobs involve compassion and empathy every day: medical personnel, social service workers, rescuers. Faced with blood, pain and death every day, such people experience emotional empathic burnout syndrome.
If a person feels that he is an HSP and is gradually becoming emotionally exhausted, then preventive measures should be taken on “mental hygiene”.
You should learn to control and restrain your emotions. Move from identical suffering to rational help. Try to help the person in a detached manner, without letting his grief pass through you.
Empaths tend to be embarrassed to ask for help themselves. There is no need to do this. If you are in trouble, find yourself in a difficult situation, or just need someone to cry to, then feel free to contact people. You have helped many, let them help you too. It will happen that your imaginary loved ones will not want to sympathize, analyze whether you are wasting your life on people who will not tear themselves away from the sofa for you. Think rationally!
Avoid watching programs that will evoke emotions of sadness and compassion. Your films are comedies!
To gain energy, follow the banal rules: get enough sleep, spend time in nature, eat right.
What is pity and compassion in our society?
“Pity is our treasure,” wrote Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. After all, if people stop feeling sorry for the weak and those in need of help, then the world around us will simply become stale, dry up, become depraved and barren. Help, comfort, support - and the world will become a little kinder.
But, unfortunately, at present, pity and compassion mean nothing to many. Man is so selfish and self-centered that pity is beyond his understanding. Such a person will calmly observe the suffering of another person, will not offer help, and will pass by. “Not with me, and that’s okay”, “My house is on the edge” - these are his mottos in life.
Spiritually, our society is rotten to the core. We do not know how to sympathize, worry about loved ones, and do not know how to forgive. Someone else's grief is not our business at all.
Indeed, not everyone is ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. Only a truly kind and merciful person is able to show pity and lend a helping hand. Love for one's neighbor and mercy are the main problems that many famous writers touch on in their works.
How is empathy diagnosed?
Diagnosis of the level of empathy is carried out using tests, the number of which is huge today. These tests are available to anyone on the Internet.
The technology for determining the level of empathy is identical for all tests: a series of questions are proposed that must be answered honestly (after all, no one can see you). Based on the results of the answers, the level of empathy will be assessed.
The most common is the express method of I. Yusupov. Its essence lies in the assessment of several judgments that, at first glance, are not related to empathy. For example: “Young people must satisfy any eccentricities of old people,” “A person gets out of a difficult conflict situation on his own,” etc. Based on the answers, a conclusion will be drawn about the level of empathy.
There are other tests, for example, the “Emotional Response Scale” questionnaire by A. Mehrabyan. You can take several tests online, then the results will be more reliable.
What does it mean to be compassionate from a psychological point of view?
According to psychologists, compassion means:
express true love and understanding for others; imbued with the suffering of another person; respect the high level of emotionality and experiences of others, without diminishing their importance; act for the benefit of someone, sometimes to the detriment of oneself; the ability to help unselfishly.
Difference from pity
Compassion and pity are different, even opposite concepts. But sometimes they are confused. For example, take grieving relatives near a seriously ill person, how do they feel? Relatives feel sorry for the patient. And this only aggravates the suffering of a seriously ill person. Thus, negative emotions definitely do not help in such a situation.
Compassion is to alleviate the patient’s condition, to distract, to switch attention to the positive. And it really works
A positive attitude is truly miraculous. In other words, to feel sorry is to be inactive and destroy, and to sympathize is to help and heal.
Qualities of People Who Are Compassionate
People who are endowed with the ability of compassion have the following qualities:
- mercy - the ability to provide any help to others without self-interest (transfer an old man across the road, give a smile to a passerby, share with people in need, etc.). Compassionate people exude positivity and have good intentions;
- kindness - the ability to act sincerely for the benefit of someone, to show concern for someone (for example, a kind person who forbids his child to eat a lot of sweets, because he is worried about his health);
- respect - a quality without which it is impossible to have compassion. A person who does not respect others can only feel sorry, demonstrating condescension and his advantage. Only by respecting other people's torment and pain can we empathize with the suffering of another, and thereby alleviate them;
- patience - the ability to prove one’s selflessness, faith in the good of one’s intentions and actions. Unfortunately, good deeds are not always appreciated and accepted by others;
- love is a multifaceted feeling, without which it is impossible to have compassion. True love is not afraid of any obstacles or obstacles; it overcomes even what our mind is not able to overcome.
What does it mean to empathize with others?
Empathy combines the experiences of one person with the experiences of others. To empathize is not the same thing as to have compassion. Often we empathize with someone in an unpleasant situation, misfortune, or grief. But such a feeling also manifests itself in cases of joint envy, satisfaction, sympathy, anger, etc.
To empathize means to sympathize with someone. This is an immersion in any feelings of someone else. And this brings us together and makes us feel support, sympathy, and confidence in understanding the problems. According to the definition of psychology, the ability to empathize is the ability to consciously empathize with an emotional state, to accept the subjective point of view of someone, without losing sight of the source of the experience. This is closely related to the concept of emotional intelligence.
Compassion: how to understand what it really is?
Understanding will come to a person with the help of:
religions and spiritual literature - all religions talk about helping your neighbor. A highly spiritual person knows how and should have compassion for the people around him. In spiritual books you can find many examples where such a quality occurs; Charity - such activities are popular. And it concerns not only wealthy people. Everyone can contribute. Even a small amount can sometimes help save someone's life. And if it is two or more people, then this is already a significant help. Volunteers know firsthand how to show compassion and empathy. They give their attention and love to those in need.
Indeed, for many, this is so vitally important and necessary; self-improvement and interest in the environment - only selfish people do not understand others, do not love or respect anyone. Being preoccupied only with one’s own life and one’s problems gives rise to indifference. Only developing and improving oneself, understanding the importance of life goals, makes it possible to learn to show sincere interest in the environment and provide all possible assistance.
Throughout their lives, many are just learning how to build the right relationships with their loved ones. Every day in small things we can help, sympathize, sympathize, empathize with someone
This could be attention to a colleague’s problem, help with everyday issues, and much more.
For those who want to know themselves better, for whom self-development is important, who are interested in how to learn to sympathize, the portal https://www.arcanum.ru/ has been created. There you will find answers to many exciting questions
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