You don't need an expert to practice empathy

Every parent, teacher, doctor, social worker, salesperson, person with customers, first responder, consultant, neighbour, or taxi driver already knows a lot about empathy. They would not be successful, much less survive, if they did not practice empathy. You may need a license to be a barber and cut hair. However, outside a totalitarian state, no one can require that you have a license to do what comes spontaneously to the vast majority of human beings—be empathic.

I hasten to add that while an expert is not required, an expert can be useful in clarifying distinctions, concepts, practices, and providing candid feedback on what works and doesn't work. An expert can be useful in making explicit hidden and undeclared commitments or obstacles to empathy and how to expand empathy.

Parents are naturally empathic towards their children; teachers, towards their students; medical doctors, towards their patients; business people, towards their customers, consultants towards their clients, and so on.

Even if a person is clumsy and does not get empathy quite right, people can’t stop doing it. Yes, that’s right—people can’t stop being empathic; but then fear stops them—fear of experiencing vicariously another person’s pain, struggle, conflict, or suffering—and a breakdown occurs in their empathy.

There must be something wrong here! Blame starts flying around. They blame themselves. They blame the other person. They blame empathy. Even if doctors are trained to “tune down” their spontaneous empathy until it becomes “detached concern”—and good reasons exist for doing that at times—empathy naturally breaks through, and they often relate authentically to their patients as one human being to another despite themselves.

The really useful thing is that in learning to contract one’s empathy, one is also learning to expand it, because one is learning to regulate and manage empathy. Contracting one’s empathy also means being able to expand it.

“Dialing down” empathy also means being able to “dial-up” empathy. “Dialing down” empathy does not mean “stop listening,” “be unkind,” “blame,” “make wrong,” “reject,” “be hostile,” “use devaluing speech,” or “feign thoughtlessness.” Such a response would be absurd.

There is a sense in which a feeling may be socially appropriate or inappropriate—for example, to laugh at a funeral when nothing is funny—feelings are valid in themselves in that they always are what they are. A feeling may be an inarticulate judgment—fear being the judgment that one should run from danger—especially if a mountain lion comes around the bend. The fear is an absolute given in the moment.

One may wish that one felt differently than one does, in fact, feel in the moment; but that one feels a certain way is an absolute given. The best way to turn fear into an out-and-out panic attack is to say to oneself: “This (fear) should not be!” But of course, it is, so that means what? One has lost control. Panic!

The recommendation? Accepting the feelings as what’s so does not make an unpleasant feeling any easier to bear, but it takes away its power, drains the upset out of it, and gives one space to be in equilibrium with oneself again. Thus, radical acceptance of the feeling is an effective method of “dialling down” one’s empathy.

Most people are naturally empathic, but they lack practice. They set about practising empathy, but are clumsy. Or they had a bad experience in relation to their own empathy or someone else’s (lack of) empathy. They develop a “flinch reflex” when it comes to practising empathy. For such individuals, resistance to empathy replaces their spontaneous empathy.

Most people use empathy every day, and they do not need an expert to tell them what it is. Olympic athletes get a coach, but it is not because they are not good at what they do. They are good at what they do; and strive to get to the next level of excellence. Few people claim to be really good at empathizing.

Those persons who are practised in empathy can be useful coaches in helping one to clarify definitions, engage the hard cases, and distinguish how to transform breakdowns of empathy into breakthroughs that make a difference. Using empathy—practising empathy—sometimes means being used by empathy. Yes, empathy uses us. “Being used by empathy” means that the person has trained in being empathic so that the person has a level of mastery that allows the person to be empathic (or not) without thinking too much about it. Empathy has become practised, habitual, and automatic.

There’s what we know we know about empathy. There’s what we know we do not know about empathy and hope to find out. Where did the word come from? What are mirror neurons anyway? How does one expand one’s empathy? Finally, there is what we do not even know we do not know about empathy.

The third area is where the author of this post and his practice operates—what we do not even know we do not know: our blind spots about empathy; our vulnerability, shame, and cynicism in relating to others; and our resistance to empathy.

Empathy requires that one get “up close and personal” with other people. Other people can be notoriously difficult, irritable, dishonest, manipulative, apathetic, too pushy, or contrary. Other people resist being on the receiving end of empathy, because being understood makes them feel vulnerable. If someone understands me, really understands me, then he can use what he understands about me to take advantage of me. Now an authentically empathic person would not do that, but the world is not known for being filled with authentically empathic people.

Well-intentioned persons sometimes simply misunderstand what empathy is and are resisting something else that they happen to call “empathy.” They mistake the breakdown of empathy in emotional contagion, conformity, projection, distortion, mind-reading, or lack of responsiveness, for empathy proper, and throw out the baby with the proverbial bathwater. The empathy lesson in confronting resistance to empathy is direct: remove the resistance to empathy, and empathy comes forth, develops, and blossoms. Empathy expands.

Resources

Wikipedia - Explains empathy as the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It covers types of empathy, its role in human interaction, and related concepts like emotional intelligence.

Psychology Today - Defines empathy, its psychological foundation, and its importance in relationships. It explores how empathy can be nurtured and its role in emotional connection.
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WebMD - Offers practical tips to develop empathy, like active listening, open-mindedness, and engaging with diverse perspectives.