What Is Apathy And Empathy

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 differs from sympathy ('Poor you; I wish you could feel happier') and compassion (Things are tough for you; you seem to need help'). Simply put, empathy is, 'I know how you feel'. Psychologists note that we

Hannah, B.B. & Virginia, T. (2012). The use of empathy in human services: Strategies for diverse professional roles. Journal of Human Services, 32 (1): 72-84

Bohart, A. C., Greenberg, L. S., Elliot, R., & Watson, J. C. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy , 48 (1), 43-49.

According to Gerdes and Segal (2001), empathy is the ability to perceive, understand, experience, and respond to the emotional state of another person. They advocate that therapists should be able to pay attention to clients’ “behavior, facial expression, the tone of voice, choice of words, and so on, should be able to keep objectivity and regulate emotion (Gerdes and Segal, 2001). In Thelma’s case, Yalom shows highly empathy to Thelma. During the sessions, Yalom kept paying attention to Thelma’s tone of voice, behavior, and choice of words. For example, Yalom (1989) wrote that “Thelma’s tone of voice contained no invitation to come closer,” “Thelma turned away and looked out the window…she was speaking more deliberately, in a bitter, forlorn

Indifferent. Detached. Desolate from any kind of emotion. This is how one “feels” when apathy sneaks its way into their brain. Everything they have ever felt becomes a vague and distant memory, a vast void. There is nothing that can be done, so it seems to the individual. This leaves him/her quite helpless. And more often than not, the phrases “I don’t care!”, “Why does it even matter?”, and “It isn’t important” are overlooked and are labeled rebellious. But should those phrases not spark a greater concern? It must be terrifying to view a human being who carries on their lives with lassitude. Whether or not they know wrong from right, their lack of care and concern instigates negative consequences from loved ones and society. When one is empty of emotions, there is nothing stopping them from doing wrong, but there is certainly nothing stopping them from doing right. The notion that apathetic human beings need supervision, due to fear, needs to be reevaluated. This concern for those with apathy must be aimed at the reason why. This way, individuals will have a greater understanding of a realm that is so vastly hollow.

What is the true meaning of Apathy? Well, if one were to search the definition of apathy on google they would probably get something like, “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” It is but it also isn’t the definition of apathy. The whole meaning behind apathy is more than just a lack of interest it’s simply the explanation of today’s society.

Shulman defined empathy as “helping the client share the affective part of the message; a social worker’s effort to feel, as best as possible, the emotions of the client” (2009, p.815). My understanding of empathy is the emotional ability to understand the client’s current situation, and the ability to understand what the client’s situation is without actually experiencing it. It is about having the ability to listen and hear what the client is saying. Being able to understand where the client is coming from, having the ability to engage and to have a sense of warmth towards the client.

Empathy is a complex concept encompassing behavioural, moral, cognitive and emotive behaviours (Mercer & Reynolds, 2002). Clinical empathy is “the ability to understand the patient’s situation, perspective and feelings and to communicate that understanding to the patient” (Coulehan, 2000, p. 221). Being empathetic helps to build the relationship with the client, where they feel they are being listened to and understood. When a client feels understood and validated they are more likely to disclose more relevant information about their situation or issue, providing the practitioner with a much better foundation to develop a good quality treatment plan. This increases the perceived quality of the care provided to the client and can improve the outcome of the care (Mercer & Reynolds).

As with many other skills, empathy is a learned skill that requires an awareness that other people think, feel, and behave in ways that are both similar and different from one’s self, or put simply, being able to relate to and understand what another person is experiencing or feeling (McDonald & Messinger, 2011). One of the first experiences that people have with empathy frequently appears as a baby when we hear another infant cry (Szalavitz, 2010). Other research has shown that infants not only favor adults who appear to be more helpful, but they also tend to offer voluntary help to adults who appear to be having difficulties when reaching for something (Szalavitz, 2010). Therefore, according to this research, it might be suggested that whether

I have been in Hawaii for two years. This is my first time outside my country. I soon found a apartment in Makiki to share with my four roommates. Two of them are from Malaysia, but there english is pretty good. The other one, Mei, is an immigrant from Singapore. She graduated from high school here then joined the marines. She speaks English real good. The four of us share a two-bedroom apartment. There are several reasons why I enjoy living in my apartment.

Sympathy is feeling pity or sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. Living in a life without sympathy would be a very dull emotionless life. According to Candace Clark, there are three sympathy rules in the American culture, which include: do not make false claims to sympathy, do not claim too much sympathy, and claim some sympathy. Not making false claims to sympathy means that to not lie while being sympathetic and do not exaggerate. Do not claim too much, too often, and too often sympathy.

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

Before inspecting the root causes and solutions to the problem of apathy, a uniform definition of apathy must be obtained to be used throughout this thesis. In the Oxford English Dictionary, the word apathy is defined as: lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. The usage of the word apathy can be traced back to 17th century France, and then still further back to the ancient greek word apathēs, which meant without feeling.

In Sabah and Sarawak, they consists a large number of ethnic groups even I never heard of! Although living in the same country, I still do not know much of my people; it is a shame for many young people nowadays too, all they know are mainly the three main ethnic groups. Besides that, another we must not forget about is that many foreigners, or shall I say legal immigrants came to our country live as citizens of Malaysia. For example, the Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, Indonesians, etc because of the way we live.