Empathy is the ability to understand another person's perspective and experience. There are three main types of empathy - cognitive empathy, which involves understanding another's thoughts and perspectives; affective empathy, which involves sharing another's emotions; and compassionate empathy, which combines understanding and emotion with a desire to help. Maintaining empathy is important for managing stress and conflict in relationships. The document provides guidelines for developing empathy through attentive listening, reflecting back what one understands of the other person's perspective, and suspending one's own judgments.

1. COPING WITH STRESS
THROUGH EMPATHY
S.Lakshmanan,
Psychologist, and
Ex. Project Officer, NYK,
Puducherry.

2. UNDERSTANDING EMPATHY
• Sympathy – “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
• Empathy – “I see your pain and I understand.”
• Compassion – “How do you need me to
help?”

3. EMPATHY
 Get quiet/ Get present
 Listen to and Share our Stories
 Identify & Accept all Feelings
 Share examples of Empathy in action
The ability to recognize, understand, and relate
to the humanity in each other.

4. DEFINITION OF EMPATHY
• Empathy is the capacity to understandor feel what another
person is experiencing from within the other being's frame of
reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position.
• Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with
the earsof another andfeelings with the heart of another.
• There aremanydefinitions for empathywhich encompass a
broad range of emotional states.Types of empathy include
cognitive empathy,emotional empathy,andsomatic empathy.

5. • Empathy hasmanydifferent definitions that encompass abroad
range of emotional states, including caring for other people and
having adesire to help them;experiencingemotions that match
another person's emotions; discerning what another person is
thinking or feeling; andmakingless distinct the differences
between the self andthe other.
• It also is the ability to feel andshareanother person's emotions.
Some believe that empathy involves the ability to matchanother's
emotions, while others believe that empathyinvolves being
tenderhearted toward another person.

6. PSYCHOLOGIST MARTIN HOFFMAN
Martin L. Hoffman is an American psychologist, a professor
emeritus of clinical and developmental psychology at New York
University.
His work largely has to do with the development of empathy, and
its relationship with moral development. His research also touches
on areas such as empathic anger, sympathy, guilt and feelings of
injustice.
Hoffman did his undergraduate studies at Purdue University,
receiving a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1945. He earned a
master's degree in psychology at the University of Michigan in
1947 and his PhD in social psychology at the University of
Michigan in 1951. In the 1960s, he became editor of the Merrill-
Palmer Quarterly, and oversaw its conversion from a newsletter to
an academic journal.
According to Hoffman everyone is born with the capability of

7. ROGERS’S INFLUENCE IN EMPATHY
 In humanistic psychology, the meaning of empathy is taken into
serious consideration, and thanks to Rogers’s influence, empathy has
been approached by researchers with scientific methods.
 Rogers perceives empathy as a necessary and sufficient condition
for psychological change, has been a key concept in understanding
why and how therapy works, and has been seen as a way of knowing
and understanding another person or an object.
 The therapist uses empathy to understand the client’s mental state
and attempts to communicate that experience. He also explains
empathy by describing an empathic person as seeing the situation “as
if one were the other person”

8. EMPATHIC RESPONDING
Maintaining a sense of emotional relatedness may be a critical
factor in determining how people experience and manage
stress. One critical determinant of maintaining satisfying
relationships during times of stress may be the extent to which
persons can respond with an empathic orientation.
Empathy has long been considered a quintessential footing
of emotional attunement, promoting prosocial and caring
actions between people

9. EMPATHIC RESPONDING
Maintaining a sense of emotional relatedness may be a critical
factor in determining how people experience and manage
stress. One critical determinant of maintaining satisfying
relationships during times of stress may be the extent to which
persons can respond with an empathic orientation.
Empathy has long been considered a quintessential footing
of emotional attunement, promoting prosocial and caring
actions between people. Though few coping measures tap
empathy as a mode of coping, the notion that people use
empathy as a means of managing stress within the social
context is not new.

10. EMPATHIC RESPONDING
Haan (1977) identified empathy as a mode of coping that
involves attempts to formulate an understanding of another
person’s feelings and thoughts.
In stressful marital and family contexts, empathic responding
may serve a myriad of purposes, such as managing or
preventing conflict, dealing with the distress of loved ones,
minimizing negative attributions or blaming others, and
maintaining closeness, emotional intimacy, and relationship
quality and satisfaction

11. Empathic responding as a mode of relationship-focused coping differs
significantly from emotion-focused modes of social support seeking.
Emotion-focused modes of support seeking are generally construed
as efforts to get support from another person.
Empathic responding is construed as efforts to understand another
person and efforts to behaviorally respond to the other person in the
stressful situation in a supportive, caring manner as a means to
defuse interpersonal stress and maintain the relationship.
With empathic responding, it is the coper who engages in empathic
processes and who provides caring gestures to the other person in
the stressful situation. With social support seeking, it is the coper who
tries to elicit support from others.
EMPATHIC RESPONDING

12. The present research examined the role of empathic responding in marital tension
among community-residing married couples living within a stepfamily context.
This study permitted a naturalistic examination of everyday interpersonal
processes in stress and coping. In addition, both same day and next day effects
of engaging in empathic responding on daily relationship functioning were
investigated.
The present study employed a structured diary methodology to assess repeated
measures of stress and coping processes occurring within couples. Use of a
structured diary approach permitted a microanalysis of the within-couple relations
among stress, coping, coping efficacy, mood, and daily relationship functioning.
Such a methodology offers ecological validity and the advantage of examining
processes occurring within marriage across time. Retrospective contamination is
generally minimized
EMPATHIC RESPONDING IN PRESENT STUDY

13. EMOTIONAL STATE OF PEOPLE
• Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other
people, the way it is characterized is derivative of the way emotions
themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be
centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily
feelings of another will be central to empathy.
• On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a
combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and
desires will be more essential to empathy.
• The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated
imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions
is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be
trained and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

14. • Empathy necessarily has a "more or less" quality.
• The paradigm case of an empathic interaction, however,
involves a person communicating an accurate
recognition of the significance of another person's
ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states,
and personal characteristics in a manner that the
recognized person can tolerate.
• Recognitions that are both accurate and tolerable are
central features of empathy.

15. TYPE OF EMPATHY
• Empathy is generally divided into three major components:
• Affective empathy, also called emotional empathy: the capacity to
respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental states. Our ability
to empathize emotionally is based on emotional contagion: being affected
by another's emotional or arousal state.
• Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand another's perspective or
mental state. The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind are often used
synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind with
types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are equivalent. Although science
has not yet agreed upon a precise definition of these constructs, there is
consensus about this distinction
• Compassionate Empathy: Feeling someone's pain, and taking action to help.
Feeling someone's pain, and taking action to help.

16. AFFECTIVE EMPATHY
 Affective empathy, also called emotional empathy:. the
capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's
mental states. Our ability to empathize emotionally is based
on emotional contagion, being affected by another's
emotional or arousal state.

17. SCALES OF AFFECTIVE EMPATHY
• Affective empathy can be subdivided into the following
scales:
• Empathic concern: sympathy and compassion for
others in response to their suffering.
• Personal distress: self-centered feelings of
discomfort and anxiety in response to another's
suffering. There is no consensus regarding whether
personal distress is a basic form of empathy or
instead does not constitute empathy.
• There may be a developmental aspect to this
subdivision. Infants respond to the distress of others
by getting distressed themselves; only when they are
2 years old do they start to respond in other -oriented
ways, trying to help, comfort and share.

18. COGNITIVE EMPATHY
 Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand another's
perspective or mental state The terms cognitive
empathy and theory of mind or mentalizing are often used
synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of
mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are
equivalent.
 Although science has not yet agreed upon a precise definition of
these constructs, there is consensus about this
distinction. Affective and cognitive empathy are also independent
from one another; someone who strongly empathizes emotionally
is not necessarily good in understanding another's perspective.

19. SCALESOFCOGNITIVE EMPATHY
• Cognitive empathy can be subdivided into
the following scales:
• Perspective taking: the tendency
to spontaneously adopt others'
psychological perspectives.
• Fantasy: the tendency to identify with
fictional characters.
• Tactical (or "strategic") empathy: the
deliberate use of perspective-taking to
achieve certain desired ends

20. IN BALANCING ALL TYPES OF EMPATHY
 1. Cognitive Empathy: Under- emotional, More-
logical
 2. Emotional Empathy: Over-emotional, Less-
logical
 3. Compassionate Empathy: Balanced Logic and
Emotion

21. EMPATHY AT WORKPLACE
 Do you think “Empathy” is essential at workplace?
 Millennia’s desire to have meaning and authenticity at workplace
 Employee's demand for “human face” from employer
 People’s desire to receive the word with humanity, personality, and
true feeling
“Many leadership theories suggest the ability to have and
display empathy is an important part of leadership”

22. NATURE, ROLE AND BENEFITS OF EMPATHY
 Q. Why does it matter for us to understand the needs of others?
 A. By understanding others we develop closer relationships.
 Q. What traits/behaviors distinguish someone as empathetic?
 A. Empathy requires three things: listening, openness and understanding.
 Q. What role does empathy play in the workplace? Why does it matter?
 A. When we understand our team, we have a better idea of the challenges
ahead of us.
 Q. So why aren’t we being more empathetic at work?
 A. Empathy takes work.

23. EMPATHY AT WORKPLACE IMPORTANCE
 Improve employee morale
 Build trust in professional relationship
 Helps in retaining clients
 Creates empathetic employee engagement
 Suspends disbelieves
 Reduce fear from ridicule

24. ELEMENTS OF EMPATHY
Daniel Goleman identified five keyelements
of empathy.
• Understanding Others
• Developing Others
• Having aServiceOrientation
• Leveraging Diversity
• Political Awareness

25.  Be attentive. Be interested. Be alert and not distracted. Create a positive
atmosphere through nonverbal behavior.

 Be a sounding board ~ allow the speaker to bounce ideas and feelings off you
while assuming a nonjudgmental, non-critical manner.

 Don't ask a lot of questions. They can give the impression you are “grilling ‘the
speaker.

 Act like a mirror ~ reflect back what you think the speaker is saying and feeling.

GUIDELINES FOR EMPATHIC LISTENING

26.  Indicate you are listening by
 Providing brief, noncommittal acknowledging
responses, e.g., "Uh-huh, I see.”
 Invitations to say more, e.g., "Tell me about it,""I'd
like to hear about that.”
GUIDELINES FOR EMPATHIC LISTENING

27. Follow good listening "ground
rules:”
 Don't interrupt.
 Don't change the subject or move
in a new direction.
 Don't rehearse in your own head.
 Don't interrogate.
 Don't teach.
 Don't give advice.
 Do reflect back to the speaker what
you understand and how you think
the speaker feels
GUIDELINES FOR EMPATHIC LISTENING

28. CONCLUSION
 Finally, shared representations on cortical level between self
and the other which are found in behavior analyzing, pain
processing, emotion recognizing etc., all provide
neurophysiological base for understanding empathy which
manifests through automatic activation of motor or affective
cortical representations.
 Further research in the field of empathy as one of the most
vital and flexible human ability will continue to explore and
develop in greater detail this very important phenomenon.