What is the point of Empathy?

Question

Sometimes I wonder, if empaths are meant to feel (live) the emotions of other people. What benefit could this bring to the empath and the other person?

From my experience, when you are absorbing people's emotions (especially the negative ones), the person feel relieved at the beginning, but with time, his reaction will change into anger/frustration. What is happening is that you are actually draining them and denying their right to live their own emotional experience. People have experiences (good and bad) for reasons.

For the empathy, they are loaded with emotions that are not their own. You are living through the experience of others which could be very traumatic (negative ones) at times and dillusions (positive/happy ones) at other times.

Gifts are all meant for a reason. So what is the point of Empathy really? (please keep an open mind).

Answer 1

I have never seen a case of an empath absorbing the emotions of another except on a star trek episode. You can sympathise with someone and feel your own emotions react, but never feel theirs. The mind is not structured to tune in on anothers feelings, or thoughts.

Answer 2

it help to mellow us and change us to be a better person.

Answer 3

I used to assist in various healing modalities--crystal, vibrational, Reiki, etc. My ability to be empathic was a definite plus to allow the "patient" to overcome their obsession with pain and be open to receive healing energy. Their focus could be turned from "I can't get over the pain" to "I can handle this". I can shield if I choose, but see little point in it. My ability causes me no lasting harm, and if I can help someone find their own strength, I see that as a plus. As for "needing" to go through the pain, we all have limits as to what we perceive that we can handle ourselves. Perhaps the "lesson" was that if they opened themselves to help, they could find support and manageability, where they had previously only found despair. No man is an island.

Answer 4

A empathetic person tunes into the entire inner world of another person whereas a sympathetic person tunes into only those aspects with which he agrees.  One of humankind's tragedies is the loss of countless opportunities for healthy relationships and emotional intimacy because the ability to be emphathic is being lost. Those who lack empathy are not likely to have a sense of conscience. They may feel no remorse, no guilt for causing harm to others.   They do not experience their own pain, so they have no compassion for the pain of another.

There is a positive relationship between empathy and emotional intelligence. Even though it is possible to sometimes feel too much empathy(to the point where you let someone else's moods affect you in an unhealthy way), I think empathy is something we could use more of in society. I suspect that our ability to empathize is one of the main ways our emotions contribute to the survival of the species.

Research supports the provision of empathy education enhances empathetic feelings and understanding and increases prosocial behavior.  Therefore, one point of empathy is to nurture compassion and prosocial behavior (e.g., sharing, helping, comfortin) and cross-racial, -ethnic, or -nationality acceptance and respect. Researchers have identified relationships between the use of certain parental childrearing practices and the development of empathetic feelings, understanding, and social behavior in children:

MOTHERS whose behavior toward their preschool children is RESPONSIVE, NONPUNITIVE, AND NONAUTHORITARIAN have children who have higher levels of affective and cognitive empathy and prosocial behavior.  REASONING WITH CHILDREN, even quite small ones, about the effects of their behavior on others and the importance of sharing and being kind is effective in promoting empathy and prosocial behavior.  PARENTAL MODELING OF EMPATHETIC, CARING BEHAVIOR toward children--and toward others in the children's presence--is strongly related to children's development of prosocial attitudes and behavior.  PARENTS ENCOURAGING SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN TO DISCUSS THEIR FEELINGS AND PROBLEMS is positively related to the development of empathy in those children.

...an empathic response is one which contains both a cognitive and an affective dimension....the term empathy [is] used in at least two ways; to mean a predominantly cognitive response, understanding how another feels, or to mean an affective communion with the other. (Gallo, 1989)

Moral imagination is the capacity to empathize with others, i.e., not just to feel for oneself, but to feel with and for others. This is something that education ought to cultivate. . . (T.E. McCollough 1992)

For more information see:  Developing Empathy in Children and Youth by Kathleen Cotton at http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/7/cu13.ht...

EDIT:  I feel that my original answer ruffled your feathers.  Perhaps this will clarify and provide understanding of my original answer:  As a 47 year old empath and a teacher with over 20 years of experience. . . I maintain that the point of empathy is to enable human beings to be compassionate people.  Empathy and compassion allow us to be understanding and accepting.  The world would be a better place if more people were empathetic.  As a teacher, I see first hand the negativity, pain and chaos that results when a person has little or no empathy.   As a teacher of at-risk and emotionally disabled students at a residential treatment center, I assure you that those who are completely void of all empathy are sociopathic.  Empathy education is a tool which offers us an opportunity to help bring out empathy in others.  Even if a person was not born an empath, they still have the ability to become an empathetic person.

Answer 5

Maybe empaths are stronger beings and placed here to help others along that need a little help.  Possibly, non-empaths can not handle all of their energy- whether positive or negative- so empaths are scattered across earth as well to help 'balance' things out, as nature has a tendancy to do.

Answer 6

I feel your pain