The Art of Empathy (5 page)

As we move into a deeper study of empathy, beginning with a short history of the concept, we'll revisit abusers and predatory people not as ominously inhuman specimens with terrifying empathy deficits, but rather in a more empathic way altogether.

A SHORT HISTORY OF EMPATHY

Empathy and compassion have a long history in spiritual traditions. In Judaism, God is called the father of compassion, and in Islam, chief among Allah's attributes are mercy and compassion. In Christianity, Jesus had such compassion and empathy that he chose to be crucified in order to take the pains of the world into his body and cleanse humanity of its sins. In Buddhism, the bodhisattva is an enlightened being who, in boundless compassion and empathy, forgoes Nirvana until all beings have achieved enlightenment. In Hinduism,
daya,
or compassion, is one of the three central virtues, and in Jainism, compassion for all life is the central tenet of the faith and of the Jainist dietary tradition of veganism. Compassion and empathy are vital aspects of sacred traditions all across our planet and all throughout recorded history.

Our current Western idea of empathy arises from two places. In English, the word
empathy
comes from the Greek root
pathos,
which means “emotion, feeling, suffering, or pity” (it also comes from a German word, as we'll explore below). The English words
empathy
and
sympathy
are used interchangeably to refer to the sharing of or knowledge of emotions, whereas
apathy
relates
to lack of emotions, and
antipathy
relates to antagonistic emotions. Some sources make a distinction between empathy (the ability to share an emotion viscerally) and sympathy (the ability to understand the emotions of others without actually feeling them yourself ), but this distinction isn't concrete or stable. In some dictionaries, the definitions of empathy and sympathy are the exact opposite of the ones I just gave you. So, from this point forward, I'll be folding the contested word
sympathy
into our larger definition of empathy, and I won't focus on sympathy as a separate entity in this book.

In the research, these two seemingly separate categories of empathizing have now been renamed as
affective
(viscerally feeling) empathy and
cognitive
(objectively understanding) empathy. Although these new terms address the sympathy–empathy confusion very nicely, they create a distinction that is problematic (and we'll come back to that problem later in this chapter).

I was surprised to learn that the English word
empathy
was coined in 1909.
¹²
That's so recent! I was also surprised to learn that the word came into our language as a translation of the German word
Einfühlung
(pronounced EIN-fhoo-loong), which means “in feeling” or “feeling into” and which first appeared in print in German philosopher Robert Vischer's 1873 PhD dissertation on aesthetics.
¹³
Vischer used the word to describe both our capacity to enter into a piece of art or literature, to feel the emotions that the artist had intended, and our capacity to imbue a piece of art (or any object) with meaning and emotions. Einfühlung adds a wonderful dimension to empathy because it helps us view empathy not only as our interactional capacity to share emotions with others, but also as our ability to engage emotively with the world around us and with the nuances and intentions underlying art, music, literature, and symbolism. With the concept of Einfühlung, we can easily see that men—great artists, writers, musicians, thinkers, and lovers of aesthetics—are absolutely equal to women in their capacity to interact deeply and empathically with the world. The same is true for people on the autism spectrum.

You may have already noticed that when I explain the act of empathizing, I don't refer specifically to other
people.
Instead, I refer to
others,
because empathizing is not limited to human beings. The concept of Einfühlung really helps us encompass the larger aspects of the empathic experience, and it helps us include animals, art, literature, ideas, and symbols in the category of things we can empathize with. The concept of Einfühlung also helps us clearly identify people on the autism spectrum as empaths
¹⁴
who, in some cases,
focus their intense sensitivities, empathy, and interactional capacities on things other than human beings.

There's a beautiful documentary from 2010 called
Loving Lampposts,
which filmmaker Todd Drezner made about his autistic son, Sam. In it, you can use your own Einfühlung capacity to watch Sam interact adoringly and completely with his beloved lampposts—he communicates with them wordlessly, interacts with them, and has full-bodied, aesthetic Einfühlung with those lampposts right in front of your eyes. It's clear that the lampposts soothe, calm, and ground Sam. Empathy is an active, interactional, and deeply emotional skill, but it is not—and never has been—restricted to human relationships.

The concept of Einfühlung really resonates with my experience (does this mean I'm having Einfühlung about Einfühlung?), because the people I know who are most empathic are often very deeply engaged with the nonhuman world. Nature, animals, art, music, movement and exercise, dance, drama, literature, ideas, concepts, symbolism, science, mathematics, philosophy, and spirituality resonate very profoundly for my fellow empaths—and their empathic abilities help them develop not just talent in their chosen interests, but also intensive
relationships
with their interests. For an empath, playing music, for instance, is not just a physical act of hitting the right notes in the right order with the right intonation; rather, the musical experience is a fully embodied, fully emotive interaction between the empath and the art form.

We'll return to this process of empathic embodiment and deep aesthetic engagement throughout this book, because for empaths, these full-bodied, sensual interactions with nonhuman entities can be vital healing activities. In a hectic world filled with the unmet (and often disowned) emotional needs of others, empaths can attain deep relaxation, restoration, and rejuvenation by focusing their full-bodied empathic abilities on art, nature, music, animals, intellectual pursuits, ideas, and interactions with other nonhuman entities. Nearly all current definitions of empathy focus on human interactions, but thankfully, the concept of Einfühlung will help us enormously as we learn how to become healthy and balanced empaths in a human social world that is often stunningly unempathic.

For empaths, interaction is food; it's oxygen; it's everything. Yet, if we mistakenly think that empathy can
only
occur in human relationships (and if we can't find enough good and deep relationships), then our empathic capacities can wither on the vine. When empathic people can't find deep and
meaningful interactions, they can sometimes feel out of place in the social world. Unseen. Inappropriate. Unwanted. Too much.

If this form of social dislocation has been your experience, there is a cure—you can redirect your empathy toward healthy and delightful nonhuman entities, such as art, music, animals, literature, ideas, movement, dance, tactile activities, gardening, building, mathematics, physics—anything that engages you. A huge part of the art of empathy is to learn to behave empathically toward yourself and to honor your empathic nature, no matter what unempathic or counterempathic shenanigans are occurring in the human social world.

THE SIX ESSENTIAL ASPECTS OF EMPATHY

Empathy is an innate and accessible skill; however, because it operates in the often-hidden interactional world of nuance, gesture, and undercurrent, it can be a somewhat mysterious process. After many decades of helping people balance their empathic skills and increase their emotional awareness, I've separated the processes of empathy into six discrete (but interrelated), step-by-step aspects.

I've organized empathy in this way for two important reasons. First, I want you to understand empathy as a
process
that is accessible and malleable (no matter where you currently reside on the empathic continuum). That way, if you have issues with empathy, you'll be able to zero in on your specific area of concern. Second, I'll be using these six aspects throughout this book to explain the purpose of the empathic skills and practices I'll be teaching you and to help you learn how to identify your strengths and challenges (and those of your loved ones). I'll first quickly define my six aspects of empathy before I move into a deeper examination.

1. 
Emotion Contagion:
Before empathy can take place, you need to sense that an emotion is occurring in another or that an emotion is expected of you. There is currently great debate about how Emotion Contagion occurs and how we realize that emotions are required from us, but it is agreed that the process of empathy depends on our capacity to feel and share emotions.
Empathy is first and foremost an emotional skill.

2. 
Empathic Accuracy:
¹⁵
This is your ability to accurately identify and understand emotional states, thoughts, and intentions in yourself and others.

3. 
Emotion Regulation:
To be an effective empath, you have to develop the ability to understand, regulate, and work with your own emotions; you have to be self-aware. When you can clearly identify and regulate your own emotions, you'll tend to be able to function skillfully in the presence of strong emotions (your own and others'), rather than being overtaken or knocked out of commission by them.

4. 
Perspective Taking:
This skill helps you imaginatively put yourself in the place of others, see situations through their eyes, and accurately sense what they might be feeling and thinking so that you can understand what they might want or need.

5. 
Concern for Others:
Empathy helps you connect with others, but the quality of your response depends on your ability to care about others as well. When you feel emotions with others, accurately identify those emotions, regulate them in yourself, and take the perspective of others, your sensitive concern will help you engage with them in a way that displays your care and compassion.

6. 
Perceptive Engagement:
This skill allows you to make perceptive decisions based on your empathy and to respond—or act (if necessary)—in a way that works for others. Perceptive Engagement can be considered the pinnacle of empathic skill, because it combines your capacity to sense and accurately identify the emotions, thoughts, and intentions of others; to regulate your own emotions; to take the perspective of others; to focus on them with care and concern; and then to do something skillful based on your perceptions. Notably, in Perceptive Engagement, you'll often do something for another that would not work for you at all and that might not even be in your best interests. Perceptive Engagement is about meeting the needs of the other.

These six aspects of empathy build upon one another. Although Emotion Contagion tends to occur instinctively, the rest are more intentional. However, all of these aspects can be developed (or calmed down in the case of hyperempathy) with the empathic skills you'll learn in this book.

Let's look at each aspect in a bit more depth.

EMOTION CONTAGION

Emotion Contagion is central to an understanding of empathy, which always includes some form of transmission of emotion from one to another. There is currently a great deal of debate about how this transmission occurs. Is emotion transmitted primarily through the face? Is it moderated through a few specific visual structures in the brain? Is emotion copied in a more intentionally cognitive manner, such that I can only feel an emotion from you if I can understand it in myself? Or is there more to the story?

As I write this book in 2013, a great deal of our capacity to empathize is being attributed to a group of structures in the brain called
mirror neurons.
These structures are thought to activate movement-related areas in your brain when you view movement in someone else (for instance, if you see someone moving his or her arm, your brain will fire the same neurons you use when you move your own arm). The mirror-neuron hypothesis puts forth the idea that these structures do the same kind of thing in response to emotions—that is, when you see someone feeling happy or sad, for instance, your brain might fire the same neurons that you use when
you
feel happy or sad.

The hypothesis behind mirror neurons is that they help you empathize because you can actually feel the movement or the emotion of another in your own body—the idea is that you can empathize because you can actually
feel like
the other person. However, I don't find this to be a full enough explanation for empathy. Because this hypothesis focuses so much attention on visual cues, I'm concerned that it leaves out a great deal.

Emotion Contagion is so much more than simply mirroring emotion. To accurately pick up on the emotion of another, you also have to understand social contexts and the specific display rules
¹⁶
of your community. (Each family, community, and culture has a different set of rules about how emotions are displayed, which emotions are accepted, which emotions are denied, and how intensely group members can feel and display some or all emotions.) You also have to be able to identify moods and multiple gradations of emotion, hear vocal tone changes, watch for subtle body-language cues, understand social relationships, and read nuances, undercurrents, and gestural language—you even have to rely upon your sense of smell in many cases (most of us are not consciously aware of the many decisions we make based on our very sensitive noses). There's a great deal more to this contagion process than mirroring others
¹⁷
—you really have to understand the full context in which the emotion occurs in order to sense which emotion it is. Although this contextual
sensitivity is a part of the second aspect of empathy—Empathic Accuracy—it's important to mention it here. Emotion Contagion can feel completely autonomic, as if it somehow happens to you without your involvement; but it is also something you learn how to do as a social being.
¹⁸