Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feelings with the heart of another. There are many definitions for empathy which encompass a broad range of emotional states. Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and somatic empathy.

The English word empathy is derived from the Ancient Greek word εμπάθεια (empatheia, meaning "physical affection or passion"). This, in turn, comes from εν (en, "in, at") and πάθος (pathos, "passion" or "suffering"). The term was adapted by Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer to create the German word Einfühlung ("feeling into"), which was translated by Edward B. Titchener into the English term empathy.

Alexithymia is a word used to describe a deficiency in understanding, processing or describing emotions in oneself as opposed to in others. This term comes from the negation of two Ancient Greek words: αλέξω (alekso, meaning "push away, repel, or protect") and θυμός (thymos, meaning "the soul, as the seat of emotion, feeling and thought"). Thus alexithymia literally means "pushing away your emotions".

Empathy has many different definitions that encompass a broad range of emotional states, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling; and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other.

It also is the ability to feel and share another person's emotions. Some believe that empathy involves the ability to match another's emotions, while others believe that empathy involves being tenderhearted toward another person.

Having empathy also can include having the understanding that there are many factors that go into decision making and cognitive thought processes. Past experiences have an influence on the decision making of today. Understanding this allows a person to have empathy for individual's who sometimes make illogical decisions to a problem that most individuals would respond with a obvious response. Broken homes, childhood trauma, lack of parenting and many others factors can influence the connections the brain which a person uses to make decisions in the future.

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