an interesting topic at emotions lecture today. empathy.
From the notes: Empathy is an attempt by one self-aware self to comprehend unjudgmentally the positive and negative experiences of another self. An more effortful process in which the observer tries to understand the target by delibrately "reaching out" to the other. Empathy has a dual nature, the cognitive and emotional.
Questions from the heart: Who is to determine whether the observer has successfully performed empathy or not? If someone undergoes too much empathy with another, will he start to neglect or lose his own feelings becoz he is always immersing himself in other pple's feelings?
As for the first question, this is what i can gather after some thought:
All in all it takes two hands to clap. One is willing to take extra effort to empathize with the target while on the other hand, the target should be able acknowledge that the observer was able to empathize with himself. In this way then there will be development of better relationships. The latter part seemed really uncontrollable because I guess it is based on the relationship of both parties, plus the observer's behavior in showing empathy and the target's propensity to accept such behavior as empathy. Sometimes, it could also be due to the target's perception: whether or not the target thinks that the observer will be able to empathize with him. I do agree that there is no way that the observer can feel exactly the same way with the same intensity because he is really not the target himself.
That brings me to another point about empathy: that the intensity of the feeling felt does not matter as long as the observer was able to feel the same feeling as the target.
But the target who has closed his doors on the observer will never be able to see that the observer is actually going the extra mile to place himself in the shoes of the target. Empathy is the most admirable human activity and even its efforts, I believe... is worth commending even though it may not be successful every time.
