People are all so different, but as they say, a kind word is also pleasant for a cat. And those who know how to understand and feel other people's experiences, sometimes become a real outlet for those who need such participation. This ability is called empathy. And who is an empath from the point of view of different spheres of human activity?
I feel your feelings
Personal feelings and emotions are an integral part of every person ’s life. The ability to respond to the psycho-emotional state of others is inherent in all people to varying degrees of intensity. This is how empathy is defined.
For some people who are interested in certain sciences or knowledge, the answer to the question is interesting: "How to understand that you are an empath?" The answer to it can be obtained by passing certain tests, which will be described below.
So different empathy
If we consider empathy as a sphere of psychology, we can see three main types of such a state, distinguished by scientists:
- Emotional empathy rests on the ability to project and imitate other people's emotional reactions to what is happening.
- Cognitive empathy basically has the ability to understand another person’s train of thought. Its basis is intellectual processes, such as analogy, comparison, opposition. This type is useful in discussions and disputes.
- Predictive empathy makes it possible to predict a person’s reaction to ongoing events.
Such a division reflects empathy from all sides, but for a simple layman, the question is unimportant: how to recognize empathy? Empathy and empathy - this is what most people expect from friends and relatives. In these two definitions lies another side of empathy. These forms are much closer to each person than cognitive or predicative ones that are incomprehensible to many. Empathy is the experience of another person’s emotions as a result of identifying oneself with him. Empathy is an aspect of socialization, the ability to feel the experiences of another.
The term "empathy"
Many have heard about the various terms used in narrow areas of knowledge, but not everyone knows the designation of some of them. For most non-professionals, only a guess and a common understanding of the issue are characteristic. The same thing happens with the term empathy. What are these simple words?
The most accurate definition was given to the concept by Sigmund Freud: "To understand the mental state of the interlocutor, putting himself in his place, while comparing his own and other people's experiences." Here you can see the significant difference between reflection and empathy. Empathy and sympathy, but not immersion in the mental emotional state of another is the basis of empathy, while reflection is the complete dissolution in the interlocutor’s experiences, without the remainder of his self.
Interestingly, the term "empathy" was introduced by the German philosopher Theodore Lipps back in 1885. Then, in his work, the founder of American experimental psychology, Edward Titchener, calculated him. The term entrenched in the science of psychology, becoming one of the defining ways of talking about feelings in many areas of life - from medicine to esotericism.
Science and art
Delving into psychology, esotericism, and art, one can often hear such a thing as empathy. What are these simple words? The ability to feel, respond to the emotions and feelings of the interlocutor, although the definition of empathy will slightly change for each area of a person’s life. So, in psychology as in the field of medical knowledge, empathy means understanding the emotional state of another person and demonstrating this understanding. For a psychologist (doctor, teacher), an empathic hearing is important, which enables the interlocutor to speak frankly without hiding their feelings and emotions.
Psychiatry and psychology define empathy as the norm, which has different degrees of manifestation in different people - from complete indifference to complete immersion. Here passes the line of the "normal" state and mental pathologies requiring diagnosis and treatment.
Another area where the term empath is actively used is esotericism and art. Here, a person who has the ability of emotional telepathy related to extrasensory perception is defined. Whether such an ability is real, science has yet to determine.
Empathy levels
The answer to the question "Who is an empath?" simple enough if you understand that empathy is the ability to respond to the feelings and experiences of another person, identifying yourself as a person. For science, empathy is divided into levels of intensity of its manifestation:
- a low (first) level is characterized by indifference to the experiences of others; these are hermit people, closed in themselves, not having relatives, friends;
- the middle (second) level is characteristic of most modern people - other people's feelings and emotions have no meaning in life, empathy can be shown, which is the basis of empathy, but your own self for such personalities always remains in the foreground; for these people, the main thing is action, not feelings;
- a high (third) level, quite rare - people with this ability to perceive other people's feelings and emotions often cannot identify their own condition. They respond to any request without thinking about the consequences for themselves.
Also, a separate group can distinguish professional empaths - those who have learned to feel other people's experiences and manage them according to their needs.
How to identify empath?
As professional psychologists say, the higher the level of spiritual and intellectual development, the higher a person's ability to empathy is developed. It is not difficult to determine the empathic traits if we single out the main points characteristic of this state:
- understanding of the feelings and conditions of others at the level of intuition;
- ability to experience the emotions of the interlocutor;
- the role of the “other” is given very easily;
- the ability to take someone else's point of view on events without evidence and discussion;
- the ability to see everything that happens "not from your bell tower."
A different degree of severity of features characteristic of empathy is the basis of different levels of development of the ability of empathy in a person.
Is it good or bad to be an empath?
The ability to feel other people's experiences is inherent in all people in varying degrees of intensity. Someone reacts brightly to what is happening around, someone is closed in the sink of their emotions. What are the empathies in a relationship? Is it good to be sensitive and is it good to communicate with empath? There is no single answer.
The only thing that scientists unequivocally say is that a high level of sensitivity to other people's emotions can cause mental disorders and phobias. The complete lack of ability to empathy makes a person an outcast, a hermit, unable to find those who want to get at least a drop of his attention. So the rule of the middle ground in empathy is very important.
Personal testing
Empathy manifests itself from early childhood, the vast majority of babies relate to their loved ones, primarily parents or those who are engaged in raising a child. But the ability to experience other people's experiences may fade over time. For a person who consciously decides for himself the question of empathy, several test methods have been developed. A popular empathy test is called the Emotional Response Scale. This self-test consists of 25 questions, each of which should be given one of 4 possible answers:
- is always;
- often;
- seldom;
- never.
This technique was developed by the American psychologist Albert Mehrabian and has been actively used in self-knowledge for half a century.
There are many such personality checks, and more than one test will help to answer the question "am I empathetic"? For example, Boyko’s questionnaire also allows you to identify the level of personal empathy, but it is considered simpler - the answers “yes” and “no” to 36 questions developed by a psychologist make it possible to determine the level of empathic predisposition.
Several exercises to develop empathy
Adults consciously set themselves tasks and look for ways to solve them. For some, the ability to empathy becomes the step that will provide an opportunity to better understand others. To do this, you must first pass an empathy test to identify the level of your own ability to feel other people's experiences, and then do self-training on the development of empathy. These simple techniques, which are developed by psychologists, will allow you to learn to more subtly feel the people around you, serve them as a support for psychological comfort, be able to anticipate conflicts and “extinguish” them in time.
- The ability to listen and hear the interlocutor will help to better understand the partner in the conversation.
- The desire to understand others - what they think, what they do in life, where they live.
- Talking with strangers in the transport, although they will serve as a sign of curiosity, but will allow you to learn how to subtly feel other people.
- The ability to try on the role of another person in a difficult situation: what steps should be taken to get the best solution to the problem; you can use the heroes of a psychological drama film.
- Self-determination in feelings and emotions is the basis of empathy for the golden mean.
- The development of emotional memory - "such-and-such and such-and-such happened, it aroused in me such-and-such feelings."
Such self-exercises are supplemented by exercises with a partner or in a group. Children's fun "Monkey and Mirror" is quite an adult training on the development of empathy. Another simple but effective exercise is “Phone”: you need to use facial expressions and gestures to tell about an event so that the partners in the lesson understand what happened and what feelings this caused the narrator.
I do not need it!
Empathy is one of the main components of empathy. But for many people, such sensitivity becomes a burden, there is a desire to remove acute sensitivity to other people's experiences from their character. How to do it? Devote more time to yourself, find a new hobby, an activity that can captivate, taking a lot of time. But it should be remembered that the complete rejection of the ability to empathize and sympathize will be through loneliness, misunderstanding by others. You need to be able to find a middle ground - human attention and their own experiences.
Esoteric and Empathy
Art and esotericism answer the question "Who is empath?" somewhat in its own way. In these areas, empathy is a person who has the ability at the level of extrasensory perception to plunge into the emotional background of other people. Often this feature is described in books and films. Practicing psychics also use empathic abilities to work with parallels of reality. Science conducted research on the “ability” to plunge into the emotional world of other people to obtain any information, but no confirmation was given to them. Therefore, empathy as part of esoteric abilities can be said conditionally.
The ability to sympathize and empathize, to respond to the experiences of living beings - a distinctive feature of man. Therefore, the question of who such an empathy has a very wide range of answers, because each of the people is looking for someone who can understand him, answer his feelings. And the ability to empathy becomes the basis of relationships.