“I’m an empath”..?
Jessica Chang, MHC-LP
Within this writer’s past week, the topic of empathy has been brought up multiple times in various contexts. In one situation, people who declare themself an empath were in question. “People who say they’re an empath are actually the least empathetic people - they take on other people’s emotions and make it all about themselves and how much they are suffering,” says one amongst a general air of agreement. On a different day, someone expresses that they are trying to become a more empathetic person, feeling as though they lack empathy and inquiring about how to gain empathy. Further recent discussions have involved empathy leading to burnout that can feel like paralysis and having to look away from atrocities of the world, while others uphold empathy as paramount to collective liberation and encourage the perseverance and embracing of whatever feelings come up in seeing these atrocities. Empathy can be a skill and, like many skills, it can be used as a weapon. So is it good or bad to be an empath? What space should one hold or make for empathy? Should energy be put into fostering, managing, or dampening empathy?
What is empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand a person from their frame of reference rather than one’s own. Researchers distinguish between affective (emotional) empathy and cognitive empathy. Emotional empathy involves sensations and feelings in response to others’ emotions and consists of three separate components:
feeling the same emotion as another person,
feeling distress in response to perceiving another person’s plight,
feeling compassion for another person.
Cognitive empathy involves the ability to identify and understand another person’s emotions and accurately perceive what is going on in their mind. Studies suggest that autistic folk have a difficult time empathisizing in this way. Another category of empathy has also been defined as somatic empathy, which involves a physical reaction to what someone else is experiencing (i.e. experiencing nausea or sweaty palms upon seeing someone who is nervous).
Neural mechanisms and theories of empathy
Mirroring the mind
Recent research has identified specific areas of the brain and neural pathways involved in empathy. Not only is the visual cortex activated in witnessing another’s experience, but one’s actions, sensations, and emotions are activated as though they are executing their actions and experiencing their feelings firsthand. Parts of the brain in the medial prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher-level thinking, also show overlap in activation in other-focused and self-focused thoughts and judgments. Mirror neurons may explain this overlap in the neural networks activated in vicarious and first-hand experiences of action, pain, or affect.
Theory of Mind
Alternatively, Theory of Mind posits that humans can use cognitive thought processes to predict or explain others’ actions. In this theory, one develops rules on human behavior and understands what another person is thinking or feeling based on these rules. A study involving psychopathic individuals showed reduced vicarious activation in comparison to neurotypical peers when passively witnessing pain but a rise in activation to baseline levels when asked to attempt to empathize with the person in the video. This provides evidence that individuals’ abilities to empathize may be about the same, but one’s propensity to empathize may differ. Most likely, many processes are involved in empathy which may be activated amidst various circumstances, including automatic, emotional responses and learned conceptual reasoning.
Pain systems
Studies on animals have shown regions of the brain associated specifically with socially triggered fear, separate from fear of their own pain. It has been found that rats are more likely to freeze after witnessing another rat receive an electric shock if they themselves had experienced an electric shock in the past. Empathy has also been shown to be positively correlated with pain, with more or less self-experienced pain corresponding to one’s empathy for another’s pain. The linkage between pain and empathy shows how one represents another person’s pain within their own pain systems.
Evolutionary adaptations
Human brains are hard-wired to respond to other’s suffering and human survival depends on mutual aid, which acts of mutual aid have been noted in the earliest reports of tribal behavior. Empathy can promote connection between people and can be seen throughout the animal kingdom in raising the young and responding to babies’ needs. As an evolutionary development, affective empathy most easily and commonly occurs among members of the same “tribe”. Empathy is greatest between those who look or act alike, those who have suffered similarly, or those who share a common goal. Affective empathy thus creates biases and automatic fear responses which have proven to be harmful and problematic. With the absence of affective empathy, cognitive empathy is important in combatting biases pertaining to, for example, racial, ethnic, or religious differences. Having empathy does not always lead to helping others, but it is salient in practicing compassionate care and action.
Cultivating empathy
It was previously thought that empathy is a trait one is born with and cannot be taught. Although studies have revealed a genetic base to empathy, research has also shown that empathy can be trained.
Empathy as good or evil?
Empathy is a powerful predictor and motivator in prosocial behavior such as forgiveness, volunteering, and helping others, and it is further negatively associated with opposite behaviors like aggression and bullying. Empathy can benefit society, individuals, and relationships and allow people to pause before judging or acting in favor of harmful biases.
Empathy can also be draining and at times lead to burnout or physiological health consequences. Empathy can be blinding, misleading, and used to intentionally cloud one’s judgement (often used in political campaigns). Biases in empathy can promote antagonism and aggression as well as numbness to mass suffering.
To be the “right” kind of empath…
When cultivating empathy, it is important to cultivate the right kind of empathy. Below is a list of ways to help one get started on this journey:
Be willing to grow - being open to empathizing more can lead to increased empathy through intention alone.
Expose yourself to differences - immerse yourself amongst unfamiliar perspectives in order to expand your own.
Read fiction - practice empathy in safe spaces through stories and fictional characters.
Identify common ground - focus on similarities and expand your concept of who is included in your ingroup(s).
Understand your blocks and ask questions - question your assumptions and work towards learning what you do not know and unlearning what you thought you knew.
Work with a therapist - empathy involves an understanding of and relating to emotions and experiences, which stems from a connection with one’s own feelings. Many factors can inhibit this self-connection and ability or willingness to relate to others in this way. A therapist can help provide a nonjudgmental space to explore these factors and feelings and help foster empathy in a way that makes sense to you.
Sources
Abramson, A. (2021). Cultivating Empathy. American Psychological Association.
Armstrong, K. (2017). ‘I Feel Your Pain’: the Neuroscience of Empathy. Association for Psychological Science.
Cherry, K. (2023). What is Empathy? Very Well Mind.
Riess H. (2017). The Science of Empathy. Journal of patient experience, 4(2), 74–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373517699267
What is Empathy? The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Young, P. (2022). Why Some People Have a Lack of Empathy (And How to Deal with Them). LifeHack.