Meaning of empathy (what is it, concept and definition)

What is Empathy:

The empathy is the intention to understand the feelings and emotions, trying to experience objectively and rationally what another person feels. The word empathy is of Greek origin "empathy " which means "excited".

Empathy makes people help each other. It is closely related to altruism - love and concern for others - and the ability to help.

When an individual manages to feel the pain or suffering of others putting himself in his place, he awakens the desire to help and act following moral principles.

The ability to put yourself in the other's place, which develops through empathy, helps to better understand the behavior in certain circumstances and the way the other makes decisions.

The empathic person is characterized by having affinities and identifying with another person. It is knowing how to listen to others, understand their problems and emotions. When someone says "there was an immediate empathy between us," it means that there was a great connection, an immediate identification.

Empathy is the opposite of antipathy since contact with the other person generates pleasure, joy and satisfaction. Empathy is a positive attitude that allows healthy relationships to be established, generating a better coexistence between individuals.

In English, empathy is "empathy".

Empathy in psychology

According to psychology, empathy is the psychological or cognitive ability to feel or perceive what another person would feel if they were in the same situation lived by that person.

Empathy as a value

Empathy can be seen as a positive value that allows an individual to relate to other people with ease, and pleasure, being related to others important to maintain a balance in their emotional state of life.

On the other hand, empathy allows one person to understand, help and motivate another who is going through a bad time, achieving greater collaboration and understanding between the individuals that make up a society.

Empathy and assertiveness

First, assertiveness is expressing at the right time, and appropriately, both positive and negative ideas and feelings in relation to a situation.

Therefore, empathy and assertiveness are communication skills that allow for better social adaptation, despite the fact that both skills show differences.

The assertive individual defends his own convictions, while the empathetic individual understands the convictions of other people. Despite this, all ideas that arise in the discussion regarding a given situation must be respected and tolerated.

Empathy and sympathy

As such, sympathy is a feeling of affinity that attracts and identifies people. It takes one individual to create harmony and alliance with another. Specifically, it is when someone likes her, that it feels good to her because of her way of being or feeling.

For its part, empathy, as previously stated, is the understanding that one person feels for another in a given situation.

However, one person may feel sympathy and empathy at the same time for another