Definition of Empathy

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Join the Definition Project

We are forming a group to work on clarifying the definition of empathy. Join the Facebook workgroup and check the shared Google Doc if you would like to actively be involved in this project. Empathy is most often defined by the metaphors of 'standing in someone else's shoes' or 'seeing through someone else's eyes'. After combining and synthesizing the different ways the word is used, here are the four basic aspects of empathy that I have come up with. One way to think of it is as the 'Wheel of Empathy' and the "Feel of Empathy". There are 4 major spokes to the wheel but we can keep adding more and more to become more and more 'granular' in describing the process. The wheel is more the model of empathy and how it works, while the feel of empathy is looking at if from the personal felt experience of it. 1. Self-Empathy Sensory awareness of our own internal feelings and internal state.

Turning your attention inwards into your inner visceral feelings.

Getting connected with yourself.

Becoming self aware of what is happening inside ourselves without judgments.

Listening to your inner feelings and experiences.

Facilitating inner dialog between different feelings.

Labeling your inner experiences, feelings and needs.

Translating inner judgments into feelings and needs.

When we are heard by someone else, it actually helps us feel into our own self more deeply. This is the essence of much of therapy. Having good friends listen to us has the same effect

Anything that reduces stress and raises the level of Oxytocin in our bodies helps. Meditation, mindfulness practices, focusing, yoga, aikido and the arts, for example, are a few of the many ways to foster self-empathy.

2. Mirrored Empathy (Emotional Empathy) Emotional empathy of others via mirror neurons - reflecting others in ourselves and ourselves being reflected by others.

With mirror neuron, the same neurons in our brain fire when we do an action and see the same action happening in someone else.

This is also called emotional or affective empathy.

Emotional contagion is when we catch the emotions of others. The “process in which a person or group influences the behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotional states and behavioral attitudes” (Schoenewolf 49-61). Empathic (active) listening and physical mirroring exercises can help foster this.

3. Imaginative Empathy Perspective and role taking of others. This is based on the sense of self-awareness, when we recognize ourselves as separate beings. We can imagine being someone else or imagine being another person, animal, object, etc. and take on the role of that. “imagining yourself as” (other-perspective) versus “imagining yourself in” (self-perspective)





4. Cognitive Empathy When we empathize with others, we gather insights and understandings of them which we form into mental models of who they are.

Within the human-centered design model they use an Empathy Map to understand who the person is.

5 . Empathic Arising, Creativity, Action

I'm starting to like the term Empathic Creativity and Empathic Arising for this.

Once connection is created, taking creative action together.

There's a quality to the action which is very connected and has a deep resonance.

It's responding in an appropriate way to the other by holding their needs, values, feelings, (common humanity) etc. in mind in the action process.

Empathy is when the blocks to action are removed, that do not exclude.

Until an adequate level of self, mirrored and imaginative empathy are in place, empathic action may be blocked.

Also looking for creative ways to resolve conflict.

Our minds are like a puzzle solving machine, through Self-Empathy, Mirrored Empathy and Imaginative Empathy we see ourselves reflected in others and they in us. Our minds automatically try to solve the puzzle of organizing our shared experience, which is Empathic Creativity.

6. The Feel of Empathy

The wheel of empathy represents a model of empathy. Another way of defining it is what does it feel like to you as a sensed body feeling? Warm, relaxed, open?

Metaphors of Empathy: Also what is empathy like as a metaphor? Metaphors can carry an emotional or sensory quality of the experience. For me, empathy is like a cornucopia (horn of plenty), I can feel a wide variety of rich feelings, sensations, nourishment and experiences that come from other people through empathy. My life feels enriched. My life would be like a barren desert (lonely, monotone, sterile, monotonous, etc.) without empathy.



How does compassion relate to empathy?

Just like with empathy, there are many definitions of compassion and it can get confusing. There seems to be 2 major ways it's defined.

One, it is a sub category of the empathic experience. It is empathy applied to suffering. A feeling into the suffering of someone, often with a sense of deep presence and consoling. Also with a desire to alleviate the suffering. This is the definition I use.

Two, it is seen as form of sympathy. First we empathize with someone, feel their suffering, but then a secondary feelings comes up where we feel sorry for them. This is more of a patronizing looking down on the person approach.

We can empathize with all the different motions, sensations and feelings that someone may have; joy, sadness, caring, fear, loneliness, creativity, connection, grief, excitement, boredom, pain, suffering, etc. etc. Compassion is the name applied to what happens when we empathize with pain and suffering. This can also be called empathic concern by some. It follows the same process as empathy. So compassion is a subset of the empathic process and there is the wheel and feel of compassion.

1. Self-Compassion

Feeling compassion for your own pain and suffering. (self consoling)



2. Mirrored Compassion

Via mirror neurons, feeling someone's suffering. When we see someone in pain our own pain neurons fire. 3. Imaginative or Cognitive Compassion

This is based on the sense of self-awareness, when we recognize ourselves as separate beings. We can imagine the suffering someone is going through from their perspective. 4. Compassionate Action

The desire and action to alleviate the suffering, often with consoling. Some call it empathic concern. 5. Feel of Compassion.

Feeling: What does compassion feel like as a sensation in your body. Warm, comforting, safe, etc?

Metaphor: What is your metaphor of compassion? I have heard it described as being like putting out a fire. The fire in your house or wanting to put out the fire in someone else's house. (See Thubten Chodron)

Empathy Circles Prezi

My partner, Lidewij Niezink created this Prezi of the basic outline the stages of empathy we work with in our Empathy Circles.







More Definitions



Carl Rogers

EARLY DEFINITIONS: The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth. If this "as if" quality is lost, then the state is one of identification. (pp. 210—211. See also Rogers, 1957.)

A CURRENT DEFINITION: With this conceptual background, let me attempt a description of empathy that would seem satisfactory to me today. I would no longer be terming it a "state of empathy," because I believe it to be a process, rather than a state. Perhaps I can capture that quality.

An empathic way of being with another person has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in the other's life, moving about in it delicately without making judgements; it means sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover totally unconscious feelings, since this would he too threatening. It includes communicating your sensings of the person's world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he or she is fearful. It means frequently checking with the person as to the accuracy of your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a confident companion to the person in his or her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of another person's experiencing, you help the other to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing.

To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish. Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong - yet also a subtle and gentle - way of being.

Carl Rogers

To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth. THE PERSON-CENTERED APPROACH The first quality is empathy. Many people believe that this is the single quality which is most important in all forms of therapeutic listening. It means getting inside the world of the person who comes for therapy (usually called the client, though some people not in this group prefer other words such as patient or consulter) so that that person feels accepted and understood. Two things are important about this: (1) that the empathy be accurate, and

(2) that the empathy be made known to the client.

Both of these are learnable skills, and they do make a huge difference to the relationship between client and counselor or therapist. The second quality is genuineness. If empathy is about listening to the client, genuineness is about listening to myself - really tuning in to myself and being aware of all that is going on inside myself. It means being open to my own experience, not shutting off any of it. And again it means letting this out in such a way that the client can get the benefit of it. Genuineness is harder than empathy because it implies a lot of self-knowledge, which can really only be obtained by going through one's own therapy in quite a full and deep way. It is only a fully-functioning person (Rogers' word for the person who has completed at least the major part of their therapy) who can be totally genuine.



The third quality is non-possessive warmth. It means that the client can feel received in a human way, which is not threatening. In such an atmosphere trust can develop, and the person can feel able to open up to their own experiences and their own feelings.

Daniel Batson

8 Definitions of Empathy

(from The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, These Things Called Empathy, Daniel Batson )

"The term empathy is currently applied to more than a half-dozen phenomena.



Frans de Waal

Author of 'The Age of Empathy'



This definition by Frans De Waal uses the metaphor of the Russian Doll. Empathy is a layered process that parallels the evolutionary layers of the brain. The most basic functions of the brain are found in many animals, then there are ever more higher layers that integrate with each other. The top layers are animals that have self-awareness like humans, dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees, etc. What exactly is empathy?

" Empathy: The capacity to a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another, b) assess the reasons for the other's state, and c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective. This definition extends beyond what exists in many animals, but I employ the term "empathy" even if only the first criterion is met as I believe all of these elements are evolutionarily connected...."more. The Antiquity of Empathy - Frans B. M. de Waal "The Russian doll model of multilayered empathy. The doll's inner core consists of the perception-action mechanism (PAM) that underlies state-matching and emotional contagion. Built around this hard-wired socioaffective basis, the doll's outer layers include sympathetic concern and targeted helping. The complexity of empathy grows with increasing perspective-taking capacities, which depend on prefrontal neural functioning, yet remain fundamentally connected to the PAM. A few large-brained species show all of the doll's layers,

but most show only the inner ones." Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases

"Preston, Stephanie D. and de Waal, Frans B. M. (2000) Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. The empathy literature is characterized by debate regarding the nature of the phenomenon. We propose a unified theory of empathy, divided into ultimate and proximate levels, grounded in the emotional link between individuals. On an ultimate level, emotional linkage supports group alarm, vicariousness of emotions, mother-infant responsiveness, and the modeling of competitors and predators; these exist across species and greatly effect reproductive success. Proximately, emotional linkage arises from a direct mapping of another's behavioral state onto a subject's behavioral representations, which activate responses in the subject. This ultimate and proximate account parsimoniously explains different phylogenetic and ontogenetic levels of empathy."

Term Definition Self-other distinction? State matching? Implications for helping? Synonyms Emotional contagion Similar emotion is aroused in the subject as a direct result of perceiving the emotion of the object. Lacking Yes None Personal distress,

Vicarious emotion, emotional transfer Sympathy Subject feels "sorry for" the object as a result of perceiving the distress of the object. Intact No Depends on the costs and benefits of the situation. Empathy Subject has a similar emotional state to an object as a result of the accurate perception of the object's situation or predicament. Intact Yes Increasing with familiarity/similarity of object and salience of display. Cognitive empathy Subject has represented the state of the object as a result of the accurate perception of the object's situation or predicament, without necessary state matching beyond the level of representation. Intact Partial, because it can be arrived at in a "top-down" fashion, involving emotional circuits to a lesser extent. Likely, because it is more likely to be invoked for familiar/similar objects. True empathy,

Perspective-taking Prosocial behaviors Actions taken to reduce the distress of an object. Depends Not necessarily Inherent Helping, succorance TABLE 1: Usage of terminology by most current researchers divided into main variables of classification.

Figure 1: In order to unify the various perspectives, empathy needs to be construed broadly to include all processes that rely on the emotional linkage between individuals.

Greater Good Science Center

Compassion & Empathy at Greater Good Science Center Wiki

"Strict dictionary definitions have a hard time separating the feelings of empathy, sympathy, compassion, and pity. Often these words are used to define each other. However research on the concepts has begun to pull them apart. Empathy is considered a mirroring or vicarious experience of another's emotions, whether they be sorrow or joy.

Sympathy on the other hand, is a feeling of sorrow associated specifically with the suffering or need of another. These are examples of fellow-feeling, and they require a certain degree of equality in situation or circumstances. (more on sympathy)

Pity which regards its object not only as suffering, but weak, and hence as inferior.

Compassion is much like sympathy in that it stems from the suffering of another, but it also includes the need or desire to alleviate suffering" (Eisenberg, 2002).

Paul Ekman

Daniel Golman credits Paul Ekman for his model of empathy which is three parts; cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathic concern. You can see my interview with Paul where we discussed his definitions.

"Since I got to know the Dali Lama 11 years ago I became interested in compassion it differs from emotions this got me interested in empathy which is a bit of a minefield I don't consider myself an expert on empathy I never studied empathy per se. I have to think about it to write about compassion There are two kinds of empathy Cognitive I appreciate how others are feeling, but I don't feel it. Affective can and do feel in my body what others are feeling empathy is broader than compassion - compassion is with suffering if I feel your joy, you're not suffering but that's an empathetic response if I feel your anger, and I join you in your anger, is it empathetic Compassion is a subset of both the Cognitive and Affective parts of empathy focused on trying to deal with the suffering of another person Compassion is a much more narrower slice from the world of empathy "





Daniel Goleman

Goleman points to the three types of empathy in the self-awareness domain.

(I heard somewhere that he based this on the work of Paul Ekman. )

1. cognitive empathy. “This is about being able to understand how the other person thinks. Leaders who are good at this are able to express things in a way that impacts people, that reaches people effectively.

2. emotional empathy

3. empathic concern



Different Kinds of Empathy

June 12, 2007 - Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate

" Being cool in crisis seems essential for our being able to think clearly. But what if keeping cool makes you too cold to care? In other words, must we sacrifice empathy to stay calm? That’s the dilemma facing those who are preparing top teams to handle the next Katrina-like catastrophe we might face. Which gets me to Paul Ekman , a world expert on emotions and our ability to read and respond to them in others. Paul and I had a long conversation recently , in which he described three very different ways to sense another person’s feelings."



Tania Singer

From Emotional Contagion through Empathy to Compassion

from Tania Singer - Breaking the Wall between People @Falling Walls 2010

This is a definition and model by Tania Singer. Starts in this video clip at around 2:50 min.



Emotional Contagion babies crying contagion baby laughing contagion - [video] eye pupil measurements of emotions - are also contagious see someone that is sad, you mirror it. unconsciously this is not yet empathy

Empathy self other distinction differentiating my pain and your pain. people think empathy is a good thing, if you have too much empathy, like in caregiver profession, this can be a problem you can burnout you can turn it into compassion

Compassion you can turn it into sympathy, compassion, concern for the other a real motivation for the welfare for the other a concern for the other a warm feeling

Theory of Mind (TOM) - there are different routes into the brain/mind of another person Theory of Mind - a cognitive perspective taking not an affective root into the other but a cognitive route. Psychopaths for example have (TOM) good at manipulating others, know the others needs and beliefs are but they lack empathy







Marshall Rosenberg

F rom Marshall Rosenberg's book "Non-Violent Communication"

"Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.

In nonviolent communication, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy, allowing others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief.

We need empathy to give empathy. When we sense ourselves being defensive or unable to empathize, we need to (A) stop, breathe, give ourselves empathy, (B) screamed nonviolently, or (C) take time out."

Question: "What is the Definition for Empathy?" Marshall Rosenberg: "Empathy, I would say is presence. Pure presence to what is alive in a person at this moment, bringing nothing in from the past. The more you know a person, the harder empathy is. The more you have studied psychology, the harder empathy really is. Because you can bring no thinking in from the past. If you surf, you'd be better at empathy because you will have built into your body what it is about. Being present and getting in with the energy that is coming through you in the present. It is not a mental understanding."



Question: "Is it speaking from the heart?"



Rosenberg: "What? Empathy? In empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with the eyes. You speak with the body. If you say any words at all, it's because you are not sure you are with the person. So you may say some words. But the words are not empathy. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection to with what's alive in you."

Various Definitions