Empathy: Overcoming Obstacles In My Adult Years

Empathy is a central theme that runs through the entire book. Dr. Bromfield highlights the importance and significance of empathy, understanding adolescents while balancing the need to challenge and push them. Empathy is an emotion, I value highly as a future humanistic counselor as I believe it can be a very potent tool in therapy. “ As to this day I am awed at empathic understanding’s near miraculous power to soften children’s and adults’ defensive resolve” (p48), he describes the miraculous power of empathy and how it can allow persons in therapy to uncover those other emotions that they may have suppressed quite well.

Empathy is a trait that allows someone to put themselves in the perspective of another person, a trait that allows being a good friend and a true human. Sophie’s secret is life-threatening if anyone is to find out. “I simply hit out and did my furious best. My intention was to gain a few minutes for Sophie” (Wyndham, 44) When another boy, Alan, almost finds out that Sophie has an abnormality, David physically attacks him because he understands how important it is that nobody else knows. Not only does he feel so much empathy that he attacked someone but is also there for her emotionally. The empathy he feels for her brings them closer together and strengthens their friendship. When Sophie is hurt David still helps her despite her toe, even though he has learned that abnormalities make someone a monster. “ ‘You’re a good boy, David. You were very kind to Sophie.’ ” (Wyndham, 12) This is what Sophie’s mother tells David after she learns he helps her daughter when she was injured. He is there for her, he empathizes with her, even though he does not need to. The empathy David shows makes their friendship strong and friendship is what makes a person

Carl Rogers describes empathy as the ability to sense the client’s world as if it were your own. Sanders (1999)

Through these experiences, my moral compass shifted from one that lacked empathy to one where I could find appreciation for others, which birthed inside me a strong desire to help those in need. Now, as a senior, I am able to observe how my judgments can be used for something beneficial, rather something

Empathy and caring is an essential part of human health. We love because we can empathize (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). Empathy underlies everything that makes society work; such as altruism, collaboration, love and charity. Failures to empathize are a key part of social problems, such as crime, violence, war, racism, child abuse and inequity. Although we are genetically predisposed to care for others, the development of empathy requires a lifelong process of relational interaction (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). More importantly, the first relationship humans experience, the

• empathy is created as we grow fond of the protagonist who shares a story of hardship

The importance of empathy in any helping profession, medical or social, cannot be overstated. The workers that exemplified it in their practice did the best that they could with their limited resources.

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings of others, particularly others’ suffering. Humanity’s gift of understanding complex emotions ushers in a new way of understanding ourselves and how we react to stimuli. This ultimately leads to questioning of everything, leading us to one strong notion: Does empathy guide or hinder moral action?

“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself” (Mohsin Hamid). Many people, including Barack Obama, believe that the cure for all the world’s evil is empathy. Paul Bloom, in his article, “The Baby in the Well,” writes about the role of empathy and reason in improving society, published on May 20th, 2013 by The New Yorker. Bloom used ethos in almost every paragraph and backs it up with logos. He used credible sources and people.

Society is built upon a foundation of norms, but not all individuals adhere to said norms, some are outliers. If the actions of an individual causes pain onto another, society defines that the normal reaction for that individual would be to exhibit a state of empathy, but this is not always the case, as there are those who do not feel or exhibit the normal psychological reactions to differing scenarios (sociopaths). As individuals’ progress and experience obstacles in their lives, they become familiar with the different aspects of their mind, such as their persona, shadow, and self, ultimately achieving individuation. In

Professor Paul Bloom states he is against empathy. He believes it is wrongfully used in our society and should not be used in certain situations. He still thinks it is important sometimes, but should not be primarily used as a result of anger, depression or retaliation. He believes compassion is the solution to empathy. In the long run, Bloom states that empathy will fail or burnout in a person. Hannah the extremely empathic person will eventually burnout according to Bloom. The use of empathy everyday as a core moral code will eventually be overwhelming and burned out and used up. The person will change direction and use empathy less in their lifetime. This essay will explore Paul Bloms opinion of empathy in his article, “Against

Empathy (“Walking in another’s shoes”): What does this novel teach about the importance of empathy?

Next is Jeremy Rifkin’s book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. This book explores the development of empathy from the beginning of studied history to modern time. Rifkin makes predictions about what the world will become as humanity moves towards the Age of Empathy. Rifkin uses many areas of study to prove his point including, but not limited to, psychology, philosophy, biology, anthropology, history, etc. Rifkin stresses the “Age of Faith and Age of Reason” becoming the “Age of Empathy, without, however abandoning the special qualities of the previous worldviews.” Therefore when the Age of Empathy arrives, there will still be faith and reason. It is not an all or nothing situation.

The overall purpose of this article is to show how empathy and emotional experiences are linked. This article also gives various theories and ideas by world renowned psychologists. The theme of this article is how much empathy we have toward others in social experiences. A few new ideas and purposes of this article were when they talked about all the different Theories based on appraisal and empathy in certain situations. It’s really important to publicize these ideas because for one this stuff is very interesting, it could help others discover new approaches to situations, and it would very well help people themselves deal with empathy.

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.