What is empathy

There are certain jobs such as the Support Worker Jobs Gloucester jobs that are advertised at https://takefivehealthcare.co.uk/candidates/job-search/support-worker-jobs-gloucestershire/ that require a good level of empathy. But what actually is empathy?

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An understanding of empathy, at its most basic level, is the ability to recognise the feelings and emotions of others. Empathy is a part of Emotional Intelligence which is the link that we have between ourselves and others. It is a way in which we can understand how others are feeling in a variety of different situations.

Psychologists have, however, also defined a number of different types of empathy that can also be classified according to their functions. The three types are cognitive, emotional and compassionate.

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Cognitive empathy is the ability to put ourselves in another’s position and see how they are feeling from their perspective. It is essentially a form of perspective-taking.

Emotional empathy is the ability to feel another person’s emotions when they are experiencing the,. This is most evident in relationships where you are close to the other person. It appears much like a shared emotional experience.

Compassionate empathy is feeling another person’s pain and taking some form of action to help them. This is similar to the feeling of sympathy but goes much deeper and requires taking action to support the person and the issue that they are currently facing.

Each form of empathy can be usually but they will each be appropriate in different settings and in different relationships between people.

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