On Empathy

Sam Vaknin's psychology, philosophy, economics and diplomacy website Britannic Encyclopedia (1999 edition) defines sympathy as follows: "Imagine yourself in a different place and feel each other's emotions, desires Understanding thinking and behavior.The coined word was modeled based on "empathy" in the same way as Einfühlung in German at the beginning of the 20th century.

Most people think sympathy is simply to understand others or to confuse with sympathy. But psychologists distinguish between two major empathies, recognition and emotion. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand the mental state of others, emotional empathy is the ability to respond to the mental state of others with appropriate emotion. For example, if you see someone falling down dismantling your jeans, sympathy of experiencing recognition involves yourself in troubles and that others may think that "what is troubling" It is to understand. That is a nuisance for them, and there is a desire for compassion to help them then.

According to scholars, there are three types of empathy: emotional or emotional sympathy, cognitive empathy, sympathetic sympathy. Emotional resonance is our emotional response to the emotions of others, or the emotion evoked by us when we hear others' happiness or struggle. Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, is information to recognize and understand others' emotions. Compassionate sympathy combines emotions with understanding of others' emotions, but it requires the next step, to take action at the right time.

Empathy has two distinct, equally valuable functions. First of all, empathy is an intuitive and spontaneous emotional identity with other people, so-called emotional sympathy. Emotional sympathy is a direct and unwilling sensory experience caused by emotions when witnessing the pain or suffering of others. Emotional empathy is a direct sensory response to the emotional state of others, an emotional and spontaneous perception of others' pain and emotions. It happens multiple times in clinical work, for example when a healthcare professional feels emotionally touched by seeing a patient's pain, or worrying about the psychological state of mourning of a serious child's relative. Emotional sympathy is like you are uncomfortable with the pain of others without you copying his emotions or feeling the same pain as him or her. And you can not get such experiences through similar reasoning or projection of imagination.