I HEAR YOU: THE POWER OF
BY: DR. NURIT ISRAELI
“You never really understand a person until
you consider things from his point of view...
Until you climb inside of his skin and walk
around in it.”
– Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Harper Lee’s visual metaphor illustrates
with precision the meaning of empathy:
the capacity to climb inside of another’s
skin and walk around in it. More specifically,
empathy is the ability to place oneself in another
person’s position and envision what that person
is feeling. It is the ability to take over others’
perspectives, feel with them, and reflect back
to them what they are experiencing from within
their frame of reference.
Empathy and sympathy, often used interchangeably,
are not the same (though they may
overlap). Sympathy is feeling for someone (who
may be someone you have never met): feeling
compassion in response to another’s misfortune,
for example feeling sorry for a person who has
lost a loved one. Empathy is going beyond feeling
sorry for another person. Empathy requires
perspective.
Psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul
Ekman describe three categories or components
of empathy, which are often interrelated:
Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand
how another person feels and what he
or she might be thinking. It is the ability to
take over another person’s perspective, even
when we don’t agree with his/her viewpoint.
Cognitive empathy makes us better communicators:
it helps us convey information in ways
more likely to reach the other person.
Emotional empathy occurs when we feel
something because someone else does. We feel
with them. Emotional empathy helps solidify
EMPATHY
emotional connections with others. We can
never envision exactly how another person feels,
but we may come close.
Compassionate empathy goes beyond just
understanding others and sharing their feelings.
It is the type of empathy that prompts us to take
action: offer necessary help or support.
It is important to emphasize that to feel or
display empathy does not necessitate sharing
the same experiences or circumstances as others.
We also do not need to agree with others’
viewpoints in order to feel empathic. Empathy
can be viewed as a bridge connecting people, in
spite of their differences. It is critically important
in any interpersonal relationship, a necessary
ingredient to successful conflict resolution, and
a fundamental prerequisite for effective leadership.
Regardless of the differences between us,
our need to be understood is universal. When
we are treated empathically we feel heard,
understood, and supported.
The psychologist who first popularized
empathy and researched it was Carl Rogers.
According to Rogers, empathy is, in essence,
attunement. It is the ability to perceive the
internal frame of reference of another – with
all its nuances of feeling and meaning. It is the
capacity to imagine oneself inhabiting another
person’s reality as if you were that person, but
without losing the “as if” quality.
How do we become empathic? Is empathy
a trait we are born with, or is the capacity for
empathy a competency that can be developed?
It is actually both! The human potential for
empathy is innate. We are wired for empathy,
i.e., have a fundamental ability to be empathic.
Research documents that there are specific
genes that seem to be associated with empathy,
particularly genes that trigger oxytocin. We also
possess a network of “mirror neurons” which
“mirror” the actions and behaviors of others
and tend to prompt intuitive, emotional empathy:
If someone in your presence is expressing
an emotion, you may feel a reflection of that
emotion. The brain activity, heart rate, and skin
conductance of empathic people mirror those
of a person undergoing a stressful experience.
Hence, many empathic processes are automatic.
However, empathy may also be learned. It
can be a developed and reinforced. Our home
environments and other environments that
shape our behaviors may increase or diminish
our capacity for empathy. Attuned caretakers in
a child’s early years, who recognize and respond
to the child’s emotions, may be helpful in modeling
and reinforcing a child’s ability to develop
empathy. But empathic skills can be acquired at
any life cycle phase. In recent years, numerous
training programs for physicians include modules
for enhancing empathy. These modules
focus on the social and cognitive components
of empathy, helping trainees become better
listeners, attend to nonverbal cues, learn to
more accurately infer their patients’ emotional
states and respond in ways that make patients
feel understood and supported.
In 2018, Dr. Helen Reiss, a physician at
Harvard Medical School, published her book,
The Empathy Effect, which is based on neuroscience
research. She claims that we are all
connected on a neurobiological level far more
than we have previously realized: Our capacity
for empathy is an innate trait, but also a skill
that we can learn and expand. Dr. Reiss created
a training curriculum now used internationally
in health-care, education, and business.
As a result of nature, or nurture, or both –
people do differ in their capacity to experience
and express empathy. The capacity for empathy
is related to emotional intelligence and to
self-awareness. The better we are at identifying
our own emotions, the more likely we are to
22 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ July 2021