Empathy: Another Person's Point Of View

Empathy is a two way process, its about trying to fully understand what your client is saying and feeling and also showing your understanding to your client.

Empathy is therefore a vital link in the process of Emotional Intelligence. (Ioannidou, F. 2008). In relation to Nursing, it enables nurses who have well developed empathetic listening skills to establish a rapport with a patient which can assist in establishing effective solutions and building a trusting professional nurse/patient relationship. By using effective skills in empathetic communication, Nurses have the ability to divert a potential highly emotional situation into effective and positive interactions. (Halpern, J. & Ebrary 2001)

Empathy should play an active role in the daily lives of everyone, but in particular in the day-to-day lives of a healthcare professional. Healthcare professionals have the unique and challenging job of counseling patients in times of need, whether that is in the setting of a newly diagnosed disease or in the death of a family member. This unique challenge requires all healthcare professionals to be skilled at using empathy in the appropriate circumstances.

If you looked in the dictionary it would tell you empathy is being able to relate or understand the feelings of another person. Which is true but it’s also being able to stand in the other person’s shoes and seeing it from their viewpoint. Many people confuse empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is the feelings towards a person but unlike empathy you are not sharing the feelings. When you show empathy you would not be

The definition of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

The first concept i will be discussing is empthy, which is discussed in Chapter six (Shebib, 2003). Empathy is the ability to correctly interpret another person's feelings to show them you understand. So, empathy is not something we have, but something we do. Empathy is a skill and an attitude and not a feeling (sympathy is a feeling). It is about being able and willing to understand another person from their own point of view, without your own thoughts, feelings, opinions and judgements getting in the way of this understanding. This

During English class we talked about empathy and how in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout showed empathy to her brother, Jem when he was moody and silent. Scout showed a great deal of maturity at the age of seven when she was empathetic to her brother. Many people nowadays have trouble showing empathy for others around them. Empathy is the ability to not only detect feelings of other people but also experience the emotion yourself. Empathy can be both a blessing and nuisance. If a person can read someone else’s emotions they can help and understand them, it will be easier to connect with that person. But empathetic people may end up experiencing the negative feelings and emotion around them which can be a major problem for some people.

• Empathy: Empathy is someone who is able to feel what others feel and see things in other people’s point of view.

I have always been great at communicating with my peers due to the fact that I’d always be willing to listen and feel what they were feeling at the moment. I strongly believe my upbringing has tremendously influenced this characteristic of empathy . I was originally raised with two older brothers, but unfortunately they both passed in just the span of five years. Since then I have realized I’ve become more aware of my surroundings and have become a truly empathic individual. I also got the great opportunity to take two sociology courses through high school which

When someone has empathy if gives them the ability to look at the situation from the perspective of the client. According to Martin (2014), “empathy in a counseling relationship, involves the ability and willingness to experience a client’s beliefs, thoughts, and feelings through the client’s personal lens” (63). Consequently, by having empathy it will allow you to properly evaluate the whole situation, and provide sustainable help. An empathic heart will promote active listening skills. Being empathic will give you an engaging mindset. Martin states (2014), “Active listening counseling relationship also includes behaviors such as maintaining direct eye contact and observing the client’s body language. This will make for better

From a counseling stand point empathy is more meaningful than sympathy. Empathy is when we have the ability to understand and then reflect that understanding and those feelings back to the client. Sympathy is when you feel sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. Some clients come to counseling to seek sympathy and not empathy those types of clients want the counselor to feel sorry for them. Another barrier to the development of empathy could be the pressure we put on ourselves to say the right things. Empathy is about listening and acknowledging feeling and/or understanding. We may overcome these barriers by simply just listening for understanding and remembering that the counseling sessions are not for the counselor but for the client, so we must not impose our emotions and feelings on the

Social Justice is defined as “the equal distribution of opportunities, rights, and responsibility despite differences in physical traits and/or beliefs and behavior. It is an international and multifaceted issue that fights for better treatment and equality of people.” (“Pachamama Alliance,” 2017). According to this definition, my understanding of social justice is that it is a way to advocate for other individuals in order to assist their needs in society. For example, I would want to advocate for Hispanic mothers and children who have been through abuse. My empathy towards this group started because of my personal history with an abusive father who suffered from alcoholism. “Empathy involves thinking about a person and the challenges he or she is facing and coming to understand what it is like for that person to have that experience.” (Cameron & Keenan, 2013, p. 72).

Most definitions of empathy are based on the same core idea - empathy is the ability to understand and identify someone else’s thoughts and feelings, as if they were one’s own (wordreference online dictionary, 2016). Although it’s been said “there are probably nearly as many definitions of empathy as people working on the topic.” (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006, p.435) suggesting that there is no singular way to even define empathy, let alone explain its impact on our behaviour. Due to the sheer depth and complexity of empathy it’s understandable that each discipline within psychology presents it’s own explanation for why we experience it, and how it can affect our interaction with the world around us. Psychologists have been exploring empathy for decades, in hope of gaining a complete grasp of what it means and how it can vary between each person, therefore its important we look at different psychological perspectives to try to understand it’s many dimensions.

According to Counseling Resources(2015), Carl Rogers describes the important role of empathy in counseling as a therapists understanding the client 's feelings and thoughts according to the client 's own perspective. Empathy is an important element in counseling between a therapist and the client. The therapist has to make the client feel respected and understood. According to David Martin(2011), an empathetic therapist sees the client as the source and problem solver. An empathetic therapist can help a client with past experiences and develop a better understanding of the experience and their feelings. Ed Neukrug(2013) describes Robert Carkhuff 's Five Level Empathy Scale: Level 1- reflections are inaccurate, Level 2- feelings or content not quite accurate, Level 3- accurate feelings of both feelings and content, Level 4- reflections of feelings

Empathy is a feeling of putting yourself on others situation, giving caring and understanding the circumstances of someones who need help, being aware of what others felt behind his/her struggles and also a feeling you want to comfort his/her despite of their worst experiences.