What is Empathy?

Cognitive Empathy describes the logical understanding of another individual’s perspective and emotions. This is often associated with emotional intelligence and being able to identify what someone else is feeling. When a doctor seeks to understand a patient’s symptoms and pain, this is Cognitive Empathy.

Emotional Empathy describes the feeling of someone else’s emotions, or connecting what another is feeling to a similar experience you have had so that the emotion is shared. Humans are literally hard-wired for Emotional Empathy through mirror neurons, which interpret what others are feeling and respond by mirroring that emotion. If you see someone smile at you and it makes you smile, or if when your favorite athlete scores on the field you feel explosive joy like you just scored, these are your mirror neurons helping you feel Emotional Empathy. It’s almost as if the emotion you’re feeling is contagious, which, depending on the emotion, can be difficult to handle.

Compassionate Empathy describes a combination of Emotional Empathy and Cognitive Empathy. The Emotional Empathy, instead of over- whelming an individual, drives a spontaneous urge to help. Cognitive Empathy can then kick-in, creating solutions to assist in a way that is truly connected to the needs of the other. An example would be when someone sees a natural disaster, such as a flood, and immediately jumps into their own boat to rescue others from the water.