Empathy as a skill, part 1
I asked over on LinkedIn what people wanted to hear me write about in May, and Empathy as a Skill won the poll, so here’s a newsletter on it!
There’ll be three newsletters on this, one on empathy as a skill for communicating outwardly, one on uncontrolled empathy, or keeping yourself safe, and the final one on empathy as a skill for communicating inwardly.
Empathy is a skill. It’s a form of communication. Someone communicates emotions and you pick up on them and respond to them and then together you can communicate back and forth.
First, what is empathy? There’s no one accepted definition of empathy, but there was a review done on scientific papers that talk about empathy to see if there is some consensus across scientific fields.
The authors of the review found 4 themes that were seen consistently in definitions of empathy:
In empathy, the empathizer (1) understands, (2) feels, and (3) shares another person’s world (4) with self-other differentiation.
(that last bit means that you’re grounded in your own feelings and experience, not getting swept up in the other person’s emotions).
I want to cover the first point here, then the fourth one in the next newsletter, as these are the ones I’ve had people ask about most often. But first, let’s talk about what empathy can help with:
connection to other humans, which is fundamental to our wellbeing
asking relevant questions, getting deeper answers
building a psychologically safe space
also a crucial factor in building an inclusive, open space
understanding people, understanding their problems, their needs, etc
Growing and deepening your empathetic practice is personal. It requires self awareness and curiosity, so I’m going to pepper some reflective questions throughout these posts and invite you to take some time to think about them.
Reflection
Think about a time you had a conversation or interaction where you felt empathy, or felt that you were understood. Write about it, and reflect on how it felt. How does it feel looking back on this interaction?
The thing with empathy I’ve realised is that we often think about empathy as something we do for others, which is true, but our own experiences of receiving empathy can really help us with our own practice.
Let’s talk about understanding, as I think this blocks a lot of people from engaging with empathy fully. Carl Rogers describes this part of empathy as ‘to perceive the causes [of emotions] thereof as he perceives them.
I prefer this wording. There are some things you’ll never fully have understanding of, but you can still be with that person empathetically while they talk about it, because you can hear and see the emotions and causes they talk about, and you can accept them.
I’ve experienced people be blocked to empathy when I talk about being estranged from my family. Most of the time when I speak about it, I’m fairly casual, and I emphasise that I’m happy now. Some people, who are with me empathetically in that moment, accept and reflect that.
Other people will be sad, which is understandable. Some people, however, will respond with things like ‘But they’re your family’ and ‘I can’t imagine not speaking to my family’. That last one is a good thing! I’m so glad you can’t imagine it, it’s not a fun thing to experience. But that lack of understanding is blocking them from being with me empathetically. Instead of accepting my congruent feelings, they’re trying to put themselves in my shoes and failing.
This is the folly of ‘putting yourself in someone’s shoes’. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the person in front of you as they are now. Not in the situation they’re going through, because your reaction to that situation could be so different to theirs as to stop you being empathetic.
The same example from the other side: I have to actively remind myself that other people look forward to spending time with their family over the holidays. Imagine if every time someone told me they were going to spend time with their parents for Christmas I responded with ‘oof, that sucks’ or ‘but you have something fun planned for yourself when you get back, right?’ It would be ridiculous and unhelpful. So, I am with them empathetically, and I share in their happiness, because they’re happy that they’re spending time with loved ones.
This is where empathy can help you be open to other experiences. In learning therapy, I’ve done a lot of work on diversity and difference, and putting assumptions and my own experiences aside to focus on my client’s experiences. You have to be open to experiences that you’ve never had, or are completely different to your own.
Reflection
Think back on some times you’ve found empathy difficult. Without judgement, try to remember what you found difficult about being empathetic to that person. What about the situation was difficult? How does it feel reflecting on that time? What would you do differently now?
This understanding can be difficult to come by. So often we want to understand, and then accept. I think, in cases of empathetic communication, accepting can help us understand. If we accept first, we’re signalling to ourselves and others that we’re open, curious, and willing to be with that person. Then, when we’re sitting in this connection, we can explore our way through the situation.
Part two, uncontrolled empathy: https://buttondown.email/SelfCareBackpack/archive/uncontrolled-empathy/
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