Lesson 3 – Conclusion & Review: Deconstructing Empathy

CONCLUSION – Deconstructing Empathy

A working definition of empathy as a two-way communication process.

• Why are some people more empathic than others? While we are all born with hard-wired capacity for empathy, our empathic ability develops beginning in childhood. If the individual was the recipient of sufficient nurturing & empathic attunement experiences, the neural representations for empathy were established to allow for the cognitive developmental process to unfold.
• Cognitive override is also essential to establish and maintain a separate sense-of-self and may operate in such a way as to enhance or encumber phenomena like embodied simulation and emotional contagion.
• Relational factors can also limit your ability or willingness to be empathic and to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
• “Two-Way Empathy” Working Definition – Empathy is a multi-step, bi-directional communication process between two people. Key elements include…

1. The observer attempts to put him/herself in the other person’s shoes by attempting to tune in and accurately understand the “What” and “why” of the other’s inner experience, while maintaining their own perspective.
2. This assessment is then communicated to the recipient to seek confirmation about the accuracy of the observer’s supposition, and to discover more about the context of the other’s feelings.
3. To complete the two-way process, the recipient then provides verbal or non-verbal feedback about the accuracy of the observer’s supposition

QUICK REVIEW – Deconstructing Empathy

1. Empathy is a two-way communication process.
2. Compared to the other pro-social responses (sympathy, pity) empathy is potentially growth inducing, where pity and sympathy run the risk of having a negative impact on the recipient.
3. Humans are born with the hard-wired components of a basic form of empathy, a natural and automatic capacity to feel the other person’s feelings. But this potential must be developed if it is to grow beyond a rudimentary level.
4. The cognitive aspects of empathy and the importance of the perspective taking process can (consciously or unconsciously) impede or augment the hard-wired ability to tune into the feelings of others. As such, cognitive aspects of empathy are essential in helping to maintain self autonomy and facilitate the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.