Understanding the 3 Types of Empathy

<p><b>Understanding the 3 Types of Empathy</b></p> <p>Empathy is a wonderfully selfless response to someone else's plight. Not only do you feel sympathetic for someone in a bad situation, but you understand their feelings. You fully experience the event from the perspective of the person going through it.</p> <p>In some cases, it's almost as if you're physically and emotionally living through the experience yourself. This can be very draining for the highly empathetic individual. They're always seeing situations where they internalize another person's emotions and feel they have to help in some way.</p> <p>Some people don't have that level of empathy. They will happily help another person and might even understand the point of view of an individual. They don't necessarily identify with what caused the problem in the first place. Even so, they still respond with empathy.</p> <p>To understand more about yourself and your feelings, let's take a look at the three different types of empathy. One isn't better than another. They're just different ways of responding to the same situation.</p> <p><b>1 – Understanding Emotional Empathy</b></p> <p>We'll introduce you to cognitive empathy in a minute. One of the best ways to understand emotional empathy is with a comparison to the cognitive variety. Just remember this.</p> <p><b>"Cognitive empathy is an attempt to walk a mile in another person's shoes, while emotional empathy is screaming in pain when someone else steps on a nail."</b></p> <p>That definition from the MasterClass website hits the nail on the head, pun intended. </p> <p>This almost always occurs when someone experiences something you've been through before. You might not respond in that way if you never stepped on a nail yourself. If you have, and you see someone else do it, your mind and body can go through a nearly identical physical and visceral experience. </p> <p>This is truly understanding what another person is experiencing because it's accompanied with a physical response of some kind.</