– What is empathy and how does one feel it?

Question

I’m not sure what empathy is or how to feel it. It’s sometimes left friends and partners feeling frustrated with me when I can’t comfort them in the way they need and it causes me to be upset that I don’t understand it. I want to understand what it’s like.

Edit: tagged as chemistry because I guess technically it’s brain chemistry.

Edit: I’m talking about this issue with my therapist later today.

Edit: just got done with therapy. Turns out I do feel empathy, but it just comes off as not caring because I get frustrated that I can’t always figure out how someone needs to be comforted. I might look into getting tested for autism because it happens a lot.

In: 7230

Answer 1

Empathy is kind of a vague term, and there are (at least) 3 separate things that people may be referring to when they use it.

**Cognitive empathy:** this is the ability to understand what another person is feeling; to get in a person’s head and read them emotionally. For instance, if someone says everything is totally fine, but you can tell by reading their body language that there is something wrong. This is the kind that Autistic people are said to have less of.

**Emotional empathy:** this is the tendency to feel something that another person is feeling. For instance, if someone is going through a very difficult time and crying and it makes you feel sad by extension. This is the kind of empathy that people with antisocial personality are said to have less of. If someone says “I feel your pain,” they’re expressing emotional empathy.

**Compassion:** compassion is just the tendency to want the best for another person. For instance, if someone is in pain and you help them simply because you want them to feel better, rather than because you necessarily feel their pain, then this would be a better example of compassion than empathy.

Of course, people can and do use these terms in different ways, and that’s valid. But, I’m just trying to point out that there are distinct concepts here and they are often meshed together under one umbrella term: “empathy,” which can cause some confusion and vagueness. Hopefully this helps answer the question.