Empathy | INFJ Forum

Empathy

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Dec 16, 2011
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Im sincerely sorry if there is another thread about this topic. Had a quick but not thorough look.

How do you view empathy?

1) Do you see it at as trying to imagine how you would feel in the situation if you were them?
How would I feel about this situation that they are in?
What would I do in this situation that they are in?

or

2) Do you see it as imagining how they would feel personally given their individual idiosyncratic personality and circumstances.
How would they feel about this situation?
What would they do in this situation?

I relate to the second one because if I try to imagine how I would feel in the person's situation it would probably be quite different to how they would feel.
Most of my friends and family relate more to the first option.
The only person that I have spoken to that relates to the second option is my one and only real life INFJ friend. I dont know if this is type related but I was just curious.
I think maybe the NI Fe combination forces me to try and see things from other's perspectives
 
Both, or it depends.

If someone's mother died and they were five years old, alone in the world, poor, sick, etc. it would be very different from my mother dying, so obviously I'd "get them".
But if the conditions aren't really different from mine, then I'd just imagine how I'd feel in the situation if I were them.

Empathy is srs bsns.
 
Asarya said:
Im sincerely sorry if there is another thread about this topic. Had a quick but not thorough look.

How do you view empathy?

1) Do you see it at as trying to imagine how you would feel in the situation if you were them?
How would I feel about this situation that they are in?
What would I do in this situation that they are in?

or

2) Do you see it as imagining how they would feel personally given their individual idiosyncratic personality and circumstances.
How would they feel about this situation?
What would they do in this situation?

I relate to the second one because if I try to imagine how I would feel in the person's situation it would probably be quite different to how they would feel.
Most of my friends and family relate more to the first option.
The only person that I have spoken to that relates to the second option is my one and only real life INFJ friend. I dont know if this is type related but I was just curious.
I think maybe the NI Fe combination forces me to try and see things from other's perspectives
Click to expand...

i would more likely wonder how it was for them. actually i wouldn't have to wonder. if i was around them i would feel it from them.
i can't consider from my own perspective because i don't react to most things the way other people would.
 
It's easy, empathy is knowing how someone feels or being able to relate to them on a non-verbal level. It's in essence, feeling someone's pain or their joy or their sadness etc etc.
 
Seeing as someone has made me cry just from telling me about some events in their life that has been hurting them since before I met them and I have no way of knowing what kind of person they were at the time, empathy for me is probably trying to imagine myself in their situation, without seeing it from their point of view.
 
Empathy is the ability to walk a mile in the moccasins of another. My earliest preschool and primary education years were filled with games designed to explore empathy. I have been a cat, getting feisty with other cats, and grooming myself for comfort. I have been a horse, racing across the planes with the wind in my mane. When you can master becoming simpler animals, you graduate to become other people. I have been Helen Keller's mother, discovering that my baby is deaf as well as blind. It's not always a pleasant gift to develop -- I don't recommend becoming the child rapist in the newspaper and having to live with the guilt of knowing that this evil is within everyone, just waiting to be discovered.
 
I generally put myself into their situation, and simulate how they would react using their past actions. If my simulation does not match them, then I got it wrong. If it is right, then I have the basis towards understanding them.
 
I get in others' heads before applying my understanding of them and their situations. If I'm around someone, chances are I will feel their emotions without needing to be told. When helping someone emotionally, "I" don't exist; I am just a man with a microscope and a mirror from the outside looking in.

Empathy is the ability to relate, sympathy is the ability to connect; they are tree and branch, respectively.
 
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I remember the lack of empathy when I was young too from my sorroundings....it was all that negative energy that comes with it..so..I find it difficult to empathize myself..if that means what I think it means...empathy is a form of weakness.
 
Pretty much what [MENTION=9809]La Sagna[/MENTION] posted. Being there for a friend is enough, trying to imagine what the other is feeling may be part of it, but better not to use too much imagination in my experience. Respect, and hopefully understanding of the person's/creature's feelings or state, is enough.
 
I tend to be aware of others emotions when even they may not be aware of them. I used to feel them as if they were my own and this led to a lot of confusion and angst growing up. I was always told I wore my heart on my sleeve and was entirely too emotional especially for a male. As I grew I began to introspect a lot and learned that most of what I felt was coming from outside of myself. Through this revelation I began to learn how to shield myself from being connected so deeply. Now I am able to be aware but not experience unless I feel it is necessary at that particular moment. When I choose to its as if I am that person in that small moment. No one can fully comprehend what another is going through in any given situation. I believe that I have been as close to it as possible for me though. I try not to do it unless there is a viable reason to do so such as comforting or consoling someone. Also I sometimes do it to try to gain a new perspective in a given situation so I can respond more appropriately.
 
Radiant Shadow said:
I get in others' heads before applying my understanding of them and their situations. If I'm around someone, chances are I will feel their emotions without needing to be told. When helping someone emotionally, "I" don't exist; I am just a man with a microscope and a mirror from the outside looking in.

Empathy is the ability to relate, sympathy is the ability to connect; they are tree and branch, respectively.
Click to expand...

this is spot on. Generally I already know what's coming (as far as others' emotions) before they actually confide or tell me what is going on. Personally I almost feel as if I am stepping out of my body for a minute and just walking around with no bias, no mind, no past, no future, just the present in order to empathize with someone else when I really want to understand what is going on.
Sometimes in my process of experiencing true empathy (true as in unbiased and completely unrelated to any opinions or beliefs I hold on my own) at a very deep level I find it necessary to completely remove myself from the thought process. It is a sort of mental process where I am visually removing my mind from my own body (gotta be careful that I don't actually try to detach myself from reality) and then just observing from a sort of "omniscience seeking" / 3rd person view of whoever I am trying to empathize with. For example, I will find myself empathizing with murderers and terrorists in a sense of seeking an understanding of what fuels their desires and motives. I completely disagree with what they are doing and why they are doing it, but when I want to understand their reasoning and motives, my own beliefs and opinions become completely useless and are counterproductive.
On the note of sympathy, I do not find myself feeling a lot of sympathy for anyone except in extreme cases. I use empathy to make up for my lack of sympathy because I do not want to come across as cold and uncaring.

On a side note, I find it very hard to have people comprehend that simply because I seek an understanding of the inner minds of murderers, rapists, terrorists, suicide bombers (martyrs), psychopaths, and sociopaths that DOES NOT mean I want to be like them or agree with them. It is an intellectual curiosity and people seem to bypass that completely. I find it all very interesting and that is not something I really share with most people.
 
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