How to be empathetic:

1. Focus on the welfare, interests and needs of others

As mentioned before, develop empathy for others Mind, has a cognitive component. Meaning, you have to have certain knowledge to be able to empathize with the other person. First, one does not simply empathize with another person; one must empathize with the other person for something. This matter may appropriately be called the “subject” of empathy. The subject of empathy must be an event or situation that is contrary to the welfare, interests and needs of the target. By “welfare,” I mean the promotion of happiness (joy, the absence of pain or suffering). By "interests," I mean seriously held desires, goals, life plans, rights. By “needs,” I mean food, clothing, and shelter. (Non-entity needs, such as love, intimacy, freedom, friendship, and belonging, I classify as "interests.") Anything that affects the welfare, interests, and needs of others is also considered knowledge about empathy. .

So if you know that a person has lost a loved one, that fact counts as relevant knowledge. However, if you also know that this loved one was killed by a drunk driver, that fact is also relevant knowledge. Why? Because this fact explains the loss. Indeed, the fact that the deceased was victimized by such a random, unnecessary, and unexpected act emphasizes how traumatic this event can be for the target. Therefore, the subject of empathy must be an event or situation that is contrary to the welfare, interests, and needs of the target, which also includes any facts (or claims of facts) related to the adversity.

2. Integrate into the common values ??of mankind

This ability to integrate into the welfare, interests and needs of others also requires the ability to adopt the values ??of others. For example, most of us can relate to the pain of losing a loved one. But what if that loved one is a pet (like a goldfish)? Here, even if you don't mourn the death of a goldfish yourself, you may still know what it's like to lose someone you love, so your empathy may extend to the target's loss as well. The subject of this example, in a general sense, refers to the loss of a loved one, a universal human value. Likewise, one does not need to be gay to empathize with a gay person whose partner is unfaithful. Empathy, therefore, involves the ability to engage with common human values ??across multiple relationships and cultures.

This value dimension of empathy is an integral part of the emotional component of empathy. Merely knowing the facts about an empathic subject does not give you a sense of the subject's subjective world; you do not feel what he is experiencing. To be empathetic, you need to feel "heartache" for the target's situation. Here, you're not just dealing with facts, you're evaluating those facts. You assess how bad the target's experience was: his ordeal, the pain he felt at not being accepted by his peers, the death of a loved one, the pain of realizing the person he loved most in his life had been unfaithful, the fear of losing his livelihood, the constant The frustration of encountering bad luck, etc. To get to this point, one must first identify how the target's misfortune violates common human values. You have to put yourself in their shoes here and imagine how you would feel if you faced the same situation. From a phenomenological perspective, you are still different from that person, but from a psychological perspective, you are with that person and face the same adversity. From this perspective, you can become aware of the target's experience because you are going through this misfortune with them. Its badness, from this unique interpersonal phenomenological point of view, is now evident to you.

3. Suspend your considered criticism

Merely uttering manifestos, or platitudes about “recover and keep going” will not get you closer to your target’s subjective world . You won't feel pain or suffering, or muscle tension. If you want to feel this way, you have to get rid of your analysis and criticism, and you can't focus on solving the problem. In this respect, empathy is counter-realistic. If you are focused on solving the problem when facing your target, you will not share the real or subjective feelings of the problem with him. You will miss the opportunity to empathize with him. Moreover, people who are suffering don’t even want the people they talk to to help solve any problems, at least not yet. They may just want someone to know about their experience. Problem solving can occur only after empathy has established a close relationship and trust.

This does not mean that you must agree with or accept your target's views or assessment of values. Nonetheless, in the process of empathy, you must set aside your own evaluation, analysis, and evaluation in order to see the target's subjective world from a subjective perspective. Of course, this can be difficult if the target's subjective world is perverted or evil. This is why most of us have no empathy whatsoever for molesting children or committing mass murder.

4. Establish a connection with the target

Suspending value judgments and placing yourself in the subjective perspective of the target is a necessary condition for empathy. This psychological approach is called "connected knowing" by feminist psychologist Blythe Clinche. Clinche said:

The central concept of connected knowledge is imaginative attachment, which means: seeing things from the other person's eyes, from his point of view. …You have to suspend your disbelief, put your own perspective aside, and try to understand the logic. You don't need to agree with his idea in the end, but you must... "acknowledge" it while you're dealing with it. You need to empathize with the idea and feel and think with the person who had the idea.

To gain such knowledge, one must work hard to see the truth behind what the target is saying. "I can see how difficult it is for you to recover from your relationship with your old love, and I know you still love her so much; I can feel how much you long to be with her again, and the thought of her being with someone else makes you so heartbroken. "This is in harmony with the values ????of the goal. These values, namely wishful love, jealousy, despair, and a sense of deprivation, are the most common values ??of human beings. Therefore, you can establish a connected relationship with each other by adopting these values ??together.

This is different from what Clinche calls "separate knowing". "Separate awareness" means to be suspicious of the target in order to refute what he says. "I can't imagine that you can still love her so much when she treats you like this. What you need now is a good lawyer to prevent her from taking away your money." If you take the latter approach, you are not empathizing. Heart; you cannot enter the subjective world of the target, but instead analyze, criticize, and dissect his experience from the outside. You may also alienate him from you, which in turn may make him unwilling to reveal the most personal and intimate details of his subjective life to you. However, if you adopt the former, that is, the understanding of connectivity, you will be able to enter the subjective world of the target, because you will think and feel as if it is your own subjective world. Ultimately, you may not accept your target's idea, but you will successfully explore its details and gain a more enlightened perspective from which you can analyze, criticize, and offer advice or counsel.

What I want to emphasize is that the understanding of separation and connection are both methods of understanding, so they each have their own value in appropriate situations. Separate cognitive techniques include devil's advocate and logical refutation. Its primary medium is logical argument. Therefore, its application in critical thinking is extremely appropriate. On the contrary, awareness of connectedness lends itself to empathy. His primary medium is not debate but storytelling. As Clinche says:

She is not trying to evaluate the angle from which she is looking, but trying to understand it. Instead of asking, "Is this right?" she's asking, "What does it mean?" She's asking, "Why do you think that?" which means, "What did you go through that made you take the action That position?" rather than: "What evidence do you have for this?" She's looking for the story behind the concept. The voice of separation is debate; the voice of connection is narrative.

So, to be empathetic, ask your target questions that will promote storytelling. Use open-ended questions such as: "What do you mean when you say you're a loser?", "You weren't invited to the wedding dance, can you tell her how you feel?", "You told her how you felt. "What did she say?" and will not criticize or challenge what the other person said.