Empathy in Psycholgy (my College Comp Essay)

[joannbeatty]

Empathy and its Importance in Psychology

Empathy is an important skill for students to have and perfect in the field of psychology, it helps us to understand patients and improve their health and lives. There are a great many benefits to using empathy, both for yourself and for your prospective clients. When you open up empathic channels with your clients it can build trust and respect, reduce tension, and enables them to release their emotions in a more comfortable and safe feeling environment, which can help encourage problem solving and cooperation. These benefits are not instantaneous, just like any relationship, an empathic relationship takes time, effort, and perseverance. I hope to help you explore empathy, what it is, why we are hardwired for it, and to learn for yourself why you should develop or enhance your own empathic abilities and use them in your day to day life.

There are many misconceptions about empathy; empathy is not mystical, magical, or a type of psychic ability, and it should not be confused with sympathy. Webster’s Dictionary defines empathy as “the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions.” Researchers define empathy as “the ability to sense someone’s emotions, with the ability to imagine what someone else may be feeling or thinking.” The difference between sympathy and empathy is that sympathy is to acknowledge someone’s emotional hardships and provide comfort and assurance, while empathy is an understanding of what others are feeling and to feel it yourself.

Researchers commonly agree upon and identify two types of empathy, affective empathy also known as emotional or primitive empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is the ability to respond to another’s emotional state, it is something that happens in our brains automatically, it causes us to respond appropriately to another’s emotions and most often happens unconsciously. Cognitive empathy mostly the conscious process of empathizing, with cognitive empathy we consciously recognize and understand another’s feelings. The best way to remember these two types of empathy is affective empathy is to feel and cognitive empathy is to understand. When you understand these types of empathy and are able to identify them in daily interactions with others you can further develop your empathic abilities.

In the last two to three decades scientists have made advances in the understanding of empathy and how humans and animals alike are hardwired to have empathy due to mirror neurons. Mirror neurons were discovered between the 1980s and 90s in Parma, Italy by researchers using MRI machines on macaque monkeys to monitor their brain activity. The discovery of mirror neurons happened by accident, scientists monitored the monkeys while they attempted to crack open and eat nuts, the monkey had stopped and one of the scientists had decided to try. As the monkey watched, his brain showed the exact kind of activity as if it were attempting to crack open and eat it itself. So as the monkey observed its brain “mirrored” the activity of the human’s brain, thus the name mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons give us the ability to empathize, a simple example of mirror neurons and empathy is when you see a spider crawling up someone’s arm and you get a disturbed feeling while watching it. The reason this happens is because you mimic their feelings and actions subconsciously, as if you were personally having the experience, with your mirror neurons. Karen G. and Elizabeth S. (2011) explain empathy and mirror neuron interactions as “When we listen to someone describe his or her feelings verbally or observe gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tone, and so forth, neural networks in our brains are stimulated by the feelings within us. This is involuntary action of mirror neurons and is therefore automatic.”

Studies have shown that more often then not empathy depends on your relationship with another person and studies have also shown the differences of empathy between the genders, females being more inclined to have a better developed sence of empathy. To develop an empathetic relationship you must first build trust, without trust there is little chance of a connection. There are many suggestions on how to enhance ones empathy, many articles have suggested things that may seem a little unscientific to many, but there is no magic pill or method to developing empathy. There aren’t very many scientific ways to enhance empathy, it requires self-motivation and awareness as well as awareness of others.

First and foremost you have to learn to quiet your mind. You must learn to clear away all the clutter that is blocking you off from others, which also means removing distractions that you may have while dealing with clients. After you clear the clutter from your mind and your environment it gives you the chance to focus fully on watching and listening. Watching and listening is important, as you listen to your clients you can watch how their emotions come out physically. This may helps in future interactions so that if your client isn’t fully forthcoming about how they are feeling or perhaps they are finding it difficult to express it to you, you may be able to interpret their actions to understand their feelings. This could particularly help in situation in which you have a client who is developmentally disabled and is not able to express themselves.

Watching and listening can be practiced in a very relaxing and entertaining way, you could envelop yourself in culture in the form of movies and documentaries. When I say movies I am mainly suggesting dramas, romance, romantic comedies, as well as films based on real events but this can only help if you truly pay attention. While you watch these films question the characters, their emotions, and motives. Try to imagine yourself in their shoes; why are they crying? Why are they laughing? And try to understand them. Documentaries can be useful, for instance I myself do not have much experience with the developmentally disabled and find it hard to relate to them on an empathic level, I can’t very well just walk up to someone who is developmentally disabled and give them an interview or a questionnaire, it’s unethical to intrude on someone personal life. So instead I could find a documentary or movie that portrays persons with these disabilities that I am unfamiliar with. Movies and documentaries give us insight into others’ lives, feelings, and predicaments that we may otherwise never experience or learn about.

One of the most important steps to enhance your empathy is self-reflection. Analyze your own feeling, ask yourself why you feel the way you do, the more you understand yourself the more you can understand others. Last but not least is to test your instincts, you should only do this in appropriate situations as it could make someone uncomfortable otherwise. To test your instincts is simple, ask your clients “are you happy?” “Are you angry?” “Are you sad?” etc. when you feel that they are feeling this way. It gives you the chance to know what you are feeling from them is actually how they are feeling, if they confirm then it helps you to know that you were correct, letting you know that you are on the right track with using empathy.

Studies have shown that in recent years interactions with patients have decreased dramatically. Lisa M. (2006) states that on average a physician spends about 11 minutes with their patient, in those 11 minutes the patients usually only had an opportunity to speak for 4 minutes and were usually interrupted twice. When patients have interactions like these with their caregivers it can tend to have a negative effect, when you are rushed and distracted you tend to be carless with how you act, your facial expressions and bodily gestures may be construed as angry, annoyed, and uncaring. That is how empathy can help is in our professional lives, it reminds us that we must take our time with our clients even in this busy world and that we must pay close attention to our actions because they do speak much louder than words.

Empathy is very important to the any relationship you have whether it be with your clients, coworkers, friends, or family. Without empathy your clients may feel that you don’t care and they will mistrust you which could lead to major consequences. Such consequences can be a client not taking your advice or not following through with treatment or even worse decide to drop treatment altogether. Empathy is a dying skill and learning it now will help you dramatically in all walks of life. Science will continue to advance and help us to understand empathy much more then what we do and I encourage you to advance with it.

References

Gerdes, K. E., and Segal, E. (2011). Importance of empathy for social work practice: Integrating new science. Social Work, 56(2), 141-148

May, T.S. (2006, May 6). Terms of Empathy. Retrieved from www.dnalc.org

Moore, L. A. (2006). Empathy: A clinician’s perspective. The ASHA Leader, 11(10), 16-17.

Reynolds,M. (2011, November 26). Give Your Empathy a Boost. Retrieved from www.psychologytoday.com

Note:

I thought that I would share this with others, I hate to write a paper and only get to share it with classmates and teacher. Maybe others would like to see what I have written and learn from it.

[Letoria]

Outstanding! I'm a hospice nurse, and genuine empathy is required skill. As an aside, a bit more empathy in our day to day interactions with our fellow human beings isn't such a bad idea either. I don't know what you got for a grade on the paper, but I would have given it an A+

[DemonGoddess]

Letoria, what a tough, tough job you have. Having just lost two this year to cancer, I know that you who work in this field have a difficult job to do when it comes to dealing with the patients and the families. I know we all certainly appreciated our hospice contacts, as they all did their very best to make the transition a little easier on all concerned.

[Letoria]

Please, accept my condolences on your losses. Losing two loved ones to cancer in one year is a cruel and difficult thing to deal with. Truly, my heart goes out to you. I hope you avail yourself of Hospice follow-up services when you need them.

I very often get asked how I can deal with a job that's all about death. The thing most people don't understand is that it isn't about death, it's about life, a life lived, and a life to be celebrated and embraced. It's about reflecting on the lessons of life, which can then be used to pass on one's accumulated wisdom. It's a wonderful job, and I am most assuredly the one who is blessed for being given the opportunity to be a part of people's lives. May I always remember that.

[BronxWench]

I will second what DG said. My dad received the most incredible care from the hospice nurses and caregivers, both at home and at the hospice itself for the last three days of his life. Their caring extended very much to all of us who were left behind, and I am so very grateful for all they did to ease our pain, and to give my dad the passing with dignity that he wanted so very much.

To this day, I have these lovely little prayer beads they gave me hanging on my desk, my touchstone and reminder that life is meant to be celebrated, and that those we love live on in our hearts and memories.

[pippychick]

I'm really, terribly sorry for your losses, DemonGoddess and BronxWench. I am glad the hospice helped you out with it all though. It does get easier eventually, and I know that phrase gets thrown around a lot, but that doesn't make it any less true. I speak from experience. All of their good things still live on in you, and they don't fade.

Regarding the article (which is briliant, btw): I just wanted to say that it is now a proven fact that dogs have mirror neurons too. It must be why we two species' get along so well.

Mine have been sticking to me like velcro for the last day or two. I'd like to think it's because they care, and not because they're just waiting for me to have that one big accident that will mean they can eat me. Actually, now I've said that it is kind of suspicious that the greyhound hasn't been eating her breakfast... like she's holding out for something better...

Back to the topic, after reading what you wrote, I'm sure that whatever field you go into will benefit from having you involved in it. I've always thought a well-developed sense of empathy is one of the markers of a truly civilised and healthy society. It's important for everyone.