Empathy

From MetaWiki

Empathy is the ability to control or feel others emotions, or send others your emotions. For an empath on a day of little balance, they could broadcast their emotions to others unintentionally. In some cases, they would be in a cheerful mood and thus everyone around them is also in that pleasant mood, and responds pleasantly to the empath. On occasions when the empath is upset or angry, the entirety of the people surrounding them would become overwhelmed by this emotion and act out at others including the empath, or end up with sporadic emotions ranging from rage to uncontrollable laughter. Empathic suggestion fits normally in this same package, for they are suggesting to others how to feel in general, and how to feel towards them. . [1]

Etymology

The English word empathy is derived from the Greek ἐμπάθεια (empatheia), "physical affection, passion, partiality" which comes from ἐν (en), "in, at" + πάθος (pathos), "feeling"[2]. The term was adapted by Theodore Lipps to create the German word Einfühlung ("feeling into") from which the English term is then more directly derived.[3]

Terminology

Measurement and Observation

Practical Issues

In addition to the above use, the term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. Empathy may be here conceptualized as the ability to fully "read" another person, completely translating each movement into understandable conversation. This, reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, or overwhelming stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "white noise" or multiple emotions as they pass through it, a phenomenon not to be confused with agoraphobia and sometimes informally known as crowd-sickness. A recurrent theme of discussion on such websites relates to the impact upon individuals, and therefore also methods (including mental practices, emotional processes and ritual) which anecdotally can help reduce the intensity of empathic reactions to others' feelings to a more bearable level (informally called 'shielding' or emotional detachment).

Empathy in this sense is ascribed by such people to various mechanisms. These include simply more sophisticated subconscious processing of sensory cues or stronger emotional feedback than the norm, (i.e. the normal human experience but more so), and therefore fit within present models. Some people, perhaps due to synesthesia, believe it instead to be a direct emotional sense or a feel for others' "energy". The New Age religion(s) have constructed belief systems around anecdotal evidence of persons who claim to be empaths in this sense. This aspect of empathy is not clinically recognized, and someone calling themselves an "empath" usually does not intend to imply that they are gifted with any psychic ability.

In general empathy may be painful to oneself: seeing the pain of others, especially as broadcasted by mass media, can cause one temporary or permanent clinical depression; a phenomenon which is sometimes called weltschmerz. However, since a basic emotional understanding of others is an important pre-requisite of human relationships, subjects face a dilemma to protect oneself from the pain of empathy or seek to relate to other humans despite the potential risk of injury. [4]

Notable Claimants of Empathy

Skepticism and Controversy

Empathy in Popular Culture

See also

References