...Do you listen and respond in ways that a significant person in your life would perceive as empathic? I would define empathy by the words of Rogers (1975), one of the most influential American psychologists in the exploration of empathy, that it means” entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it” (“Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being,” para. 17). In my mind, in this short definition there is everything what empathy consists of. To be attentive and delicate without making judgments or expectations, to be respectful and willing to center other person’s feelings and emotions, and to put aside our own needs and concerns for a while. The listener lets the speaker know, "I understand your problem and how you are feeling about it and I am interested in what you are saying and I am not judging you." When dealing with a person who is feeling troubled empathic listening and supporting response become the most important and powerful strategies to apply. As Adler, Rodman and Sevigny (2011) say that ” in empathic listening… the goal is to build a relationship or help the speaker solve a problem… to become better acquainted with others and show them that their opinions and feelings matter to you” (p. 152). From my point of view, neither advising response nor judging response is appropriate in such sort of situations. Furthermore, they more likely make the situation worse and make a person to feel more...
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...What empathy means to me is when we are making an attempt to understand another person feeling from their perspective. When you are trying to see and understand how they are feeling from their point of view. An example that I can use is a current situation that I am having with my son dad, I met him when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a junior. I was the less fortunate child with many home issues and he was a more fortunate person. Had no other siblings but had his own car, well-kept and athlete. We grew up completely different and was afforded different opportunities. We eventually took different routes and well mine went in a more positive direction and he ended up being kicked out of the military and doing a few stints in prison for drugs and other violations. He now loves back home with his mother is a no where job barely making ends meet and just a lot of issues. I on the other hand am the complete opposite. I’m doing well, my own home, cars, family etc. Its hard for me to empathize with him because he was given this opportunity but chose to take the wrong path and do illegal things. I don’t feel sorry for people who screw themselves out of a good opportunity. I would not do anything different than I am doing now, he is an adult and he made those decisions knowing he has responsibility. I a firm believer is not raising an adult. When meeting someone for the first time in a common friendship I’m looking for someone that has similar interest that I do. When...
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...JAN REVIEW PAPER Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review Juping Yu & Maggie Kirk Accepted for publication 16 July 2008 Correspondence to M. Kirk: e-mail: mkirk@glam.ac.uk Juping Yu MSc PhD RN Research Fellow Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK Maggie Kirk BSc PhD RN Head of Research/Leader Genomics Policy Unit and Lead Professional Specialist (Nursing Professions) NHS National Genetics Education and Development Centre Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK YU J. & KIRK M. (2008) Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 64(5), 440–454 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04831.x Abstract Title. Measurement of empathy in nursing research: systematic review. Aim. This paper is a report of a systematic review to identify, critique and synthesize nursing studies of the measurement of empathy in nursing research. Background. The profound impact of empathy on quality nursing care has been recognized. Reported empathy levels among nurses range from low to welldeveloped and there is clearly debate about what constitutes empathy and how it can be measured and improved. Data sources. Searches were made of the CINAHL, MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases, using the terms ‘empathy’, ‘tool’, ‘scale’, ‘measure’, ‘nurse’, and ‘nursing’, singly or in combination to identify literature published in the English language between 1987 and 2007. Methods...
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...EMPATHY Empathy is the ability to recognize and relate to other people’s emotions and thoughts. Empathic thinking is often characterized as the willingness and ability to place oneself in another person’s situation, to feel another person’s feelings, or to recognize that another person might experience feelings in the same way as oneself. When we feel sympathy for someone we might view them with pity. While pity makes a victim of the sufferer, empathy empowers them: "i have a sense of your world, you are not alone, and we will go through this together". Carl Rogers(1969), the founder of person centered counseling, concluded that the important elements of empathy are: • The therapist understands the client's feelings • The therapist's responses reflects the client's mood and the content of what has been said • The therapist' tone of voice conveys the ability to share the client's feelings. 1.1 Role of Empathy in Therapy Empathy is considered essential to therapy because for any therapeutic tactic to work, the therapist has to make the person in treatment feel understood. To do this, the therapist must not only understand what a person says in a therapy session but also understand what the person is not saying and communicate this understanding. Therapists who are highly empathic can help people in treatment face past experiences and obtain a greater understanding of both the experience and feelings surrounding it. Empathy is different from sympathy, which can imply...
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...Study of Attitude, Empathy, and Human Uniqueness of Emotion in Animals Abstract This correlational study was conducted to determine and explore the relationships between empathy, attitudes towards animals, and beliefs about human uniqueness of emotion. This was a quasi- experimental because we studied man versus women and also pet owners versus non-pet owners. We expected to find a positive correlation between the empathy and AAS score. While also exploring the relationships between the HUES and empathy or AAS score. We predicted that women would have higher empathy and AAS scores than men as well as pet owners having higher AAS scores than non- pet owners. This study was conducted in New York, where 60 voluntary participants completed surveys. The results of the study illustrated and provided a statistically significant positive correlation between scores on the E-Scale and the AAS and a significant negative correlation between scores on the E-Scale and HUES and well as between the AAS and the HUES. There was also a significant gender difference in AAS scores with women having more positive attitudes toward animals compared to men. However, there was no significant gender difference in HUES scores. Similarly, there were significant effects of pet ownership on both E-Scale scores and on AAS scores. Specifically, pet owners had higher levels of empathy and also had more positive attitudes toward animals compared to non-pet owners. There was no significant effect of pet ownership...
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...I define self-conscious emotions as emotions that have to do with the perspective of one’s self and their awareness of other people's opinions to them like guilt or shame for example. For emotion contagion I define it as the connection between people that can cause them to spread and share similar emotions for example a positive emotion begets more positive emotions and negative emotions creates negative emotions. Lastly I define empathy as a person’s ability to understand what another person is feeling and/or experiencing When I was about 10 or so years old my parents brought me to see my cousin, she was a year older than me but was quite meek. Her parents had brought her over from overseas and wanted to give the opportunity to live in America....
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...Empathy is a very important trait in people because it shows that you care about the other person. It shows that you care even if you have went through the same thing. There's also a lot of different kinds of empathy. First of all, there's different kinds of empathy. First there is effective empathy, that is where you can share the emotions of others. Then their is cognitive empathy where you understand the emotion but don’t share them. Like a psychologist who who gets the emotion in a rational way even though client tells them. Last their is emotional regulation in this you can regulate someone’s emotion like a surgeon needs to control their emotions during operating on a patient. Secondly, we need to have empathy to feel someone's emotions....
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...Abstract Counselors are faced with emotional stress every day. Without proper self-care, counselors will experience empathy fatigue. Empathy fatigue is a serious condition which impairs counselors. Impaired counselors are unable to fulfill the responsibilities of their helping role. Practicing regular self-care is crucial to the well-being of the counselor and therefore, the counselee. Centering Prayer is a form of self-care. This paper will discuss literature on the topic of Centering Prayer and explore two studies on the effectiveness of Centering Prayer in relieving stress. This information will be applied to preventing empathy fatigue in counselors. Research shows that counselors suffer empathy fatigue (Stebnicki, 2007). This condition “results from a state of emotional, mental, physical, and occupational exhaustion that occurs as the counselors’ own wounds are continually revisited by their clients’ life stories of chronic illness, disability, trauma, grief and loss” (Stebnicki, 2007, p. 318). Empathy fatigue is a state of counselor impairment. Conversely, the soul of the helping relationship is wellness....
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...Scenario 1- The empathetic response would be, “It must be heartbreaking...” This response acknowledges how she feels. It allows her to open up and further elaborate on her feelings of hopelessness. As stated in our book, “Empathy is “tuning in” to what, how and why people feel and think the way they do” (pg 135). The response, “Now of course George is going to get well” does not reflect on what is being said by Mrs. Raymond. It also appears to be passing judgment, challenging her feelings on why she should feel that way. This response is just the opposite of expressing empathy, “you admit its existence without passing judgment on its validity” (pg 136). Scenario 2- The most empathetic response would be, “You seem discouraged.” This response is putting her feelings first. The response is reflecting on her feelings by starting the statement with “you”. In this response you are putting her first. “Empathetic statements usually begin with the word “you” (pg 136)....
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...many individuals who believe that empathy is the solution to all of life’s problems; however, the truth of the matter is that empathy alone is not enough. This reality is demonstrated through various forms of literature. To begin with, in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose battles with a terminal illness and morphine addiction. Regardless of the amount of compassion the other characters may show towards her, it is not enough to save her life. Likewise, in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, Mrs. Schächter suffers from terrifying hallucinations which cause her to scream relentlessly about fire and flames. Even if the other individuals on the train try to empathize with her, they are unable to help her...
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...To me the word empathy, means the experience of understanding another person’s feelings. When someone is going through a hardship, someone with empathy will know how to comfort them without having to experience it themselves. Empathy also relates to how someone can share their own feelings to others and connect with similar or different experiences. A part of being open minded is showing empathy to others and seeing the situation through their perspective. Empathy relates to the trust disused in the sixth chapter of This I Believe because when someone is empathetic to others, trust is built between the two. In relationships, when one person shows understanding of the other’s viewpoints, then it becomes easier to trust them with their problems...
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...When reading chapter six I came across the words empathy, communication, and self-awareness. Each one of the words has a meaning behind it and they have a personal meaning for me also. Empathy means to me the ability to share feelings with others which is actually really interesting to me. My personal definition for empathy would be the ability to make conversations with others and share stories. I feel like communication is an area that I need to become more educated on due to the fact that it plays a vital role in nursing. Self-awareness means to be self conscious of everything around you and to be aware. My primary communication style would be be a mixture of assertive style and passive-aggressive style. I agree that sometimes I will...
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...“Empathy needs no genius” (Beta, 2000-2016). In Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams she makes the point of you being a good doctor does not just have to do with knowing all the medical situations, but also being able to empathize with patients. Showing empathy to a patient can help the doctor-patient or nurse-patient interaction because it will make the patient feel more like a human being. Jamison says empathy suggests “… you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another country, through immigration and customs, border crossing by way of query: What grows where you are? What are the laws? What animals graze there?” (Jamison, 2014). The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison emphasizes how important empathy is important in healthcare workers and patient...
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...According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the definition of empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings of another without having the experiences fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Empathy is conducted internally; it is a mindset. When empathy is combined with action, the power of our convictions can be used to effect change around us. Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, does this in excess. Atticus has so much empathy for others that it actually clouds his judgement. Excessive empathy leads Atticus to make excuses for other’s behaviors, and to justify their wrongdoings. Atticus also lacks confidence to stand up for what and who...
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...Empathy is more than just a characteristic of one's personality; it's a way of life. It's a way of viewing the world through other people’s eyes, and being able to truly understand their struggles and hardships. Although, one must go through a very complex and dramatic process in order to obtain this attitude. Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird describes this process. As Daniel Goleman once said, "if you're emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self– awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far." This quote adequately describes this trait. Empathy, although sometimes difficult...
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