Recovering Empathy in a Changing World

In contrast to previous decades, national surveys of college students indicate that the skill to care, empathy, is being corroded and currently diminishing across campuses. In 2009, the average American college student scored less than 75% of college students surveyed in 1979. This can give account for many that are noticing a drastic shift in an American culture that has become callous, indifferent, and disconnected. As with the loneliness epidemic, there is an ongoing migration to metropolitan cities where many find themselves alone and in solitary experiences that contribute to loneliness. Rather than having ongoing contact and regular interface as with bowling leagues, shopping for groceries, or other social rituals, researchers are now stating that the current landscape is resorting to the online platform for their needs. This series of withdrawn and hermitic pursuits equate to a more tribal mindset with fewer social interactions and thinned-out anonymous relations that have ultimately become barren soil for empathy to bloom. 

Within the history of psychopathology, alexithymia (literally, having no words for emotions) is the expression of a psychiatric concept that has been used to describe people that are devoid of empathic skills. Specifically, these individuals: have difficulty with gaining awareness and identifying the feelings of their inner experience and others, have an ongoing struggle with differentiating their own feelings and bodily sensations as emotional arousal, tend to have significant difficulty describing their emotions to others, maintain limited ability to imagine and have underdeveloped and age-appropriate fantasies, and process their external world at a cognitive level with little reference to their internal world. This is not a DSM-5 diagnosis, but rather characterizes how an inability to express, attune to, and develop understanding of emotions relates to a deficient interior life. Alexithymia can play a significant role in Autism, various personality disorders, conduct circumstances and substance abuse, and also weaken and wreak havoc on marital and family relationships. Empathy has been seen in the research literature with multiple pro-social benefits with extensive evidence as: increasing a sense of altruism, decreasing bullying and aggression, decreasing marital conflict while maximizing intimate connection and satisfaction, resolving conflict, reducing prejudice and racism, countering inequality, improving business and health care while promoting acts of heroism. Developing the capacity for empathy is truly a correlate for mental, behavioral, and relational health. 

We must become convinced of the power of empathy and its implications for improving, satisfying, and healing relationships. Carl Rogers, a grandparent of the contemporary counseling movement, acknowledged and defined empathy as the ability “to sense someone’s private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality” within the interpersonal context. When we possess and demonstrate empathic reflection, it causes us to sense another individual’s anger, fear, or confusion as if it were our own but without getting our own anger, fear, or confusion entangled in the process. Ultimately, empathic reflections and empathetic contacts allow for us to step into someone else’s space without bias or a sense of imposition while acknowledging and connecting deeply with the other’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences in an authentic and deeper way. Given the genetic makeup, family background, and varied life experiences of the other individual, creating an empathic connection implies understanding how the other individual feels in that particular situation, similar to the proverbial expression of “walking in another’s shoes.” Author and researcher Brené Brown describes empathy as “the real antidote to shame in which there is no script. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredible healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’” Psychologists and teachers alike are now incorporating invitations to grow in empathy through evidence-based techniques involving meditation, fiction reading, acquiring a diversity of friends from different groups, and increasing social connectedness for a pervasive increase in capacity for empathy. Ideally, the goal of empathy is to understand how the person you are with feels within the situation, not how you would feel since the matter is not about you in the moment. On one hand, empathic reflection and empathetic connection can be hard and on the other, it can be simple. Yet, those that are skilled consider listening well as of paramount importance in the process of establishing an empathic connection. You can read more about Active and Empathic Listening skills for cultivating true intimacy. 

Empathic reflection and connection maintains both the skills of reflecting content and reflecting feeling so that the what and the why of an individual’s feelings becomes paramount. There are both the cognitive (intellectual) and affective (emotional) components of empathy that are essential to navigate what an individual is experiencing. Cognitive empathy is seen as a way to use our mental capacities for understanding what an individual is experiencing and could involve a mental checklist to determine which feeling words can best fit the individual’s circumstances, crafting a descriptive but succinct summary of the content shared and reflecting back the content and feelings in dialogue, and using perception and reflection to better understand what the individual has communicated. Affective empathy, on the other hand, is meant to engage the other individual’s emotions and feel with the person. This skill set is not just a matter of behaving differently, but having an internal shift to connect with the feelings and experiences of the other individual without losing your sense of self. 

Placing yourself consistently in other people’s shoes and remaining cognizant of the feelings of others around you can gain traction in creating your success profile as a better employee, leader, family member, and friend.

Focus on promoting empathy and emotional intelligence in your environment by regularly self-assessing if:  

• I compromised with those around me 
• I practiced active listening 
• I sought to create an environment of compassion and demonstrated it today
• I thought about what I was going to say before jumping into a conversation
• I set realistic expectations with others, my subordinates, and myself 
• I embraced an alternative point of view
• I asked when I do not understand something 
• I openly discussed my feelings when necessary
• I worked to inspire others instead of bringing them down 
• I understand how my behavior can impact others 
• I admitted when I made a mistake 
• I tried to see things from someone else’s perspective 
• I maintained humor in the face of adversity
• I did not become defensive when criticized 

Developing skills in both empathy and emotional intelligence are being taught regularly through many different platforms in order to become winsome, cunning, caring, and competent in various spheres of influence. Skill sets in empathy allow for a generation to move past self-absorption, narcissism, and the inability to adopt alternative perspectives. Recovering empathy is a battleground for restoring true intimacy through connection.

Recommended Resources: 

• Rising Strong by Brené Brown
• Empathy: A History by Susan Lanzoni 
• 4 Effective Keys to Communication by Bento Leal III 
• Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell
• The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World by Jamil Zaki