Page 34 - Effective communication Skills by Dale King

Chapter 5: The Importance of Empathy

Empathy seems to be a unicorn in the communication world, yet it plays a
huge part in effective communication. Empathy is simply being able to

understand and share emotions with other people. It is made up of several
different components, each of which works in its own place in the brain. You
could look at empathy in three ways.

The first one is affective empathy. This means that you have the ability to
your emotions with other people. People who have a lot of affective empathy
are people who show strong visceral reactions to scary movies or violence on
the news. They can feel the pain and fear of others within themselves when

they see people in pain or fear.
The second is cognitive empathy. This type of empathy is having the ability

to understand other people’s emotions. A good example would be a
psychologist who understands their client’s emotions in a rational way but
doesn’t necessarily feel their client’s emotions in a visceral sense.

Lastly, there is emotional regulation. This refers to how well a person is able
to regulate their own emotions. For example, surgeons must be able to
control their emotions while operating on them in order to do their job
effectively.

Let’s take another look at understanding empathy to help distinguish it from
other similar ideas. For example, empathy means the person has to be self-
aware, and they need to maintain a distinction between self and other. This is
why empathy is different than imitation or mimicry.

There are quite a lot of animals that may show signs of mimicry or emotional
contagion when they see other animals in pain. But without some form of

self-awareness, and being able to differentiate self and other, it isn’t
necessarily empathy. Empathy isn’t the same thing as sympathy, either.
Sympathy is feeling concerned for a person who is suffering and having a
desire to help them.

That being said, humans aren’t the only species to feel empathy. In lab
settings, it has been spotted in non-human primates and rats.