DEFINITIONS OF "EMPATHY"

(Various Sources)

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• The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1999 edition) defines empathy as:

  "The ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on "sympathy." The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing. With other works of art, a spectator may, by a kind of introjection, feel himself involved in what he observes or contemplates. The use of empathy is an important part of the counselling technique developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers."

   

• "Psychology - An Introduction" (Ninth Edition) by Charles G. Morris, Prentice Hall, 1996.

  "Closely related to the ability to read other people's emotions is empathy - the arousal of an emotion in an observer that is a vicarious response to the other person's situation... Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy: The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for empathy develop only as a child matures..". (page 442)

  "In empathy training, for example, each member of the couple is taught to share inner feelings and to listen to and understand the partner's feelings before responding to them. The empathy technique focuses the couple's attention on feelings and requires that they spend more time listening and less time in rebuttal." (page 576).

   

• Definitions of Empathy:  From Wikipedia

  Edith Stein: “Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general” (1989/1917, p. 11). Source: Stein, E. (1989). On the problem of empathy. Washington: ICS Publications. (Original work published 1917)

  Heinz Kohut: “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.” (1984, p. 82). Source: Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure? Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  C. D. Batson: “Other-oriented feelings congruent with the perceived welfare of another person.” Source: Batson, C. D. (1994). Why act for the public good? Four answers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 603-610, p. 606.

  Nancy Eisenberg: “An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel” (2002, p. 135). Source: Eisenberg, N. (2002). Empathy-related emotional responses, altruism, and their socialization In R. J. Davidson & A. Harrington (Eds.). Visions of compassion: Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists examine human nature (pp. 131-164). London: Oxford University Press.

  Martin Hoffman: “An affective response more appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own” (1987, p. 48) Source: Hoffman, M. L. (1987). The contribution of empathy to justice and moral judgment. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development (pp. 47-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Roy Schafer: “Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the mometary psychological state of another person” (1959, p. 345) Source: Schafer, R. (1959). Generative empathy in the treatment situation. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 28, 342-373.

  D. M. Berger: “The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes”. Source: Berger, D. M. (1987). Clinical empathy. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc.

  R. R. Greenson: “To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.” (1960, p. 418). Source: Greenson, R. R. (1960). Empathy and its vicissitudes. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 418-424

  Carl Rogers: “To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the “as if” condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth." (1959, s. 210-211)” Source: Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science, (Vol. 3, pp. 184-256). New York: Mc Graw Hill.