2. Empathy
• Empathy is the capacity to recognize and to some
extent, share feeling that are being experienced
by another (Rogers, 1959)
• Having a great capacity of putting oneself in
another persons shoes.
• THERES AN OLD INDIAN SAYING:
Walk a mile in another's moccasin...
3. SO WHAT IS
EMPATHY?
• Empathy is a quality and a virtue. This quality
enables a person to understand and feel concern
for others situation or feelings. Empathy means
to identify with the problems or situations of
people and understand their thoughts and
condition.
• It is an action of being sensitive to
others and their feelings without them explicitly
airing them. It is different from sympathy.
Empathy means 'to suffer' in Greek language. It
was first used in the English language during the
early 20th century.
4. Empathy involves two
major skills:
Perceiving and
Communicating
• To perceive and be aware of another’s
situation while taking into account anothrs
point of view. ( e.g. putting yourself in their
shoes)
• Using both verbal (words) and non-verbal
(actions, physical cues) ways of
communicating helps you be perceptive to
other’s thoughts and feelings.
5. Types of Empathy
• Affective empathy, also
called Emotional empathy:
the capacity to respond with
an appropriate emotion to
another’s mental state.
• Cognitive empathy: the
capacity to understand
another’s perspective or
mental state.
6. Benefits of Empathy
• Builds trust and respect
• Enables the disputants to release their
emotion
• Reduces tensions
• Encourages the surfacing the information
• Creates a safe environment that is conductive
to collaborative problem solving.
7. Difference between pity, sympathy, emotional
contagion, empathy and apathy
• Pity is, “Things are bad for you, you seem as though
you need help”.
• Sympathy is, “I’m sorry for your sadness, I wish to
help you”.
• Emotional contagion is, “You feel sad and now I feel
sad”.
• Empathy is, “I recognize how you feel”.
• Apathy is, “I don’t care how you feel”.
