Research into ’emotional intelligence’ highlights the importance of empathy – the ability to identify and connect with the feelings and experience of another. This is not quite the same as sympathy, when an individual recognises feelings in another which they also hold. When we are sympathetic, those with whom we sympathise can experience confusion and frustration (“hang on, is it me or you we’re talking about here?!”). When we are able to demonstrate empathy, we are able both to hold another in a safe emotional space no matter what their emotions – a wonderful skill for a parent, manager, coach etc. – and to understand the effect our actions might have or have had on another.
In short, empathy provides the basis for creating a particular kind of environment – followers of non-violent communication might call it a compassionate environment – in which individuals are able to attend to each others’ feelings without judgement. In this environment, it is more likely that everyone’s needs will be understood and respected. This in turn makes it more likely that everyone’s needs will be met.
At the same time, whatever our innate ability, it does seem that many of us lack the skills of empathy or fail to exercise them. Today, I was curious to receive a link to an article about empathy in the New York Times, entitled Empathy is natural, but nurturing it helps. Reading this article raised several questions for me.
My first question is this: to what extent is it possible that an individual might have no innate capacity to develop the skills to empathise with another? The article mentions those people who have autistism or schizophrenia and suggests they may be wholly or partially lacking in this innate ability. As I write I wonder if a key challenge for the majority of people with limited innate ability is not so much the total inability to empathise as the failure to learn the skills of empathy. For whilst well-meaning parents, teachers and other adults may well invoke the need to show consideration, not all of them demonstrate empathy (‘lead by example’) and fewer still are able to break empathy down into its component parts.
As I second question, I wonder: to what extent are there people who, lacking skills in empathy, do not have the capacity to acquire them later in life? In truth, I am more optimistic than not that for many – the majority? – of adults it is possible to acquire them. For some, this will involve undoing the damage caused by growing up in an environment in which emotions were discouraged or dismissed. For many, it will involve becoming aware of abilities they already have and of which they were not aware. Approaches ranging from therapy through neurolinguistic programming and nonviolent communication right through to business approaches such as Roger Schwarz’s skilled facilitator approach all help individuals to develop self empathy and empathy towards others – skills that go hand in hand.
And what of those people who, on the surface, ‘can’t’ develop empathy skills? I would hazard a guess that, for the vast majority of these people the ‘impossible’ is perfectly possible and begins with a very simply step: believing they can. For once this belief is present, it is a matter of exploration to discover new ways of doing things and to develop new skills.