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Empathy
Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to suffer with") is commonly defined as
one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the
emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are
intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able
to more effectively define another's modes of thought and mood.
Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's
shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself,
a sort of emotional resonance.Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to suffer
with") is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly
experientially feel the emotion of another.
As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined
with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more
effectively define another's modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often
characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or
experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of
emotional resonance.
Definitions of Empathy
Theodore Lipps: Einfühlung ("feeling into").
Edith Stein: Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general
Heinz Kohut: Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner
life of another person.
Nancy Eisenberg: An affective response that stems from the apprehension or
comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to
what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel
Roy Schafer: Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and
comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person.
D. M. Berger: The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from
within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the
feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes.
R. R. Greenson: To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of
another person.
Wynn Schwartz "We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have
accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our
values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but
especiallly as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a
manner that we can tolerate their being recognized."
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.
Jean Decety: a sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the
other, without confusion between the two individuals
Back to Definitions
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