Empathy
On "Learning" Empathy
The Myth: Empathy is a skill. So by definition, you can learn Empathy like any other skill ...
This is only possible under certain conditions
person is not a sociopath (or has an otherwise altered brain structure / psychiatric condition)
person has not been numbed yet
I.e, by ...
... repetition
... practicing it
Debunking Myths
Empathy and Self-Worth
The relationship between someone's Empathy and Self-Worth
A higher self-worth is always connected with being able to reduce empathy for self-protection, when needed. The "ability" to empathize does not mean one "has" to empathize.
This is something that so many of the "helping professions" have to learn. When you have this skill, then being highly empathetic AND being able to distance yourself form the suffering of others is possible.
Core Concepts
The "one-way mirror" metaphor
see CIT
Sympathy can become empathy
"Empathy is similar to sympathy, but empathy usually suggests stronger, more instinctive feeling. So a person who feels sympathy, or pity, for victims of a war in Asia may feel empathy for a close friend going through the much smaller disaster of a divorce."
Spectrum
continuous spectrum
0-10
useful and sufficient
Empathy has segmental properties
and sometimes not
“There is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.”―[https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/6fa3fb506dde394abf471145e0c8ad39 Alan Watts]
(Emotional) Pain
Empathy and (Emotional) Numbness
... are inversely related.
... describe opposite directions of the same phenomenon.
Numbness
Definition
Mirriam-Webster's Definition:
"the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner"
A property of Human Nature.
not a skill!
The ability to experience emotions on the basis of information that mainly affects another individual or entity.
Comments:
"individual or entity"
"entity" here can include many things: groups, abstract concepts like nature or even the whole Universe, etc.
"... affects the another ..."
"ability"
