A personal illustration for this psycho cafe Certainly much more than two cups of coffee… 🔗 Photo pxhere ♦ 🔗 Creative Commons CC0 | |
| Title | The declines of empathy |
| Animation | Françoise Mariotti |
| Place | The restaurant “Les Coulondrines” at Saint Gély du Fesc |
| Date and times | Thursday, May 16, 2013 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. |
| Frame | The psycho cafe is a discussion café in the form of a conference-debate, organized by the PSYC & GENRE association, created by Françoise Mariotti. |
| Keywords | psycho cafe, empathy, emotion, compassion, affection, relationship, help, sharing, discussion |
| Information |  I am a member of the PSYC & GENRE association. For more details, see the webpage about the psycho cafés on the official website of the presenter. |
1. The context of the cafe▲
My personal goal: to understand what empathy is in an interpersonal relationship.
My questions before coming:
- What is the link with the identification process? The distance to the other?
- And the emotions? How are they experienced, felt by the two people (the other and the person himself)?
- Can the empath suffer from this relationship with the other?
Le café dans un contexte historique : il s’inscrit selon moi dans une certaine logique, sinon une logique certaine 🙂
The cafe in a historical context: in my opinion it fits into a certain logic, if not a certain logic 🙂
In order of psycho cafes (for the year 2013), it gives:
- How to live after a trauma?
- Psychotherapy, personal development, what’s the difference?
- The variations of empathy.
- What is humor for?
A possible answer (for me): a trauma occurs, the affected person is injured, their well-being disappears, they undergo psychotherapy to heal the injury induced by the trauma, well-being reappears (or a better-being), personal development follows to consolidate the well-being of the person, “empathies” to be well with others and humor as a means of sublimating one’s state to be well?
2. Some definitions▲
From en- “inside” and -pathy “what one experiences”. en- Element, from Latin in- and im-, from in “in”, serving, with the noun stem that it precedes, in the formation of compound verbs which becomes em- before b, m, p. -pathy, -pathic, -pathe Suffixal groups, from the Greek -patheia, -pathês, from pathos “what one experiences”. Then, let’s read the definition itself: “In philosophy, in psychology: ability to identify with someone, to feel what they feel.
A translation of the definition of the empathy word from the French Petit Robert dictionary
Empathy involves grasping, as accurately as possible, the internal references and emotional components of another person and understanding them as if you were that other person. Without ever losing sight of the ‘as if’.
Carl Rogers
Personal note: the “as if” is very important in the definition. That is the difficulty in my opinion: continuing to be oneself in the relationship even if one enters the universe of another person. I find it easier to let oneself be penetrated by the universe of the other. Not always easy. Be in delicacy.
3. What struck me during the cafe▲
- The important distinction to make between empathy and compassion. In empathy there is only the understanding of what the other is experiencing without experiencing it oneself.
- Emotional contagion
- Empathy is a quality for a therapist.
- Empathy is one of the three facilitating conditions of ACP. It is therefore helpful for the development of a person 🙂
- Being endowed with an intellectual capacity for transposition.
- Being able to put oneself “outside of myself”, being in the right proximity (thank you Françoise!). Being able to make room for the other. So be careful of the place of the ego in listening.
- Being distinct without being distant. There must therefore be neither identification nor emotional disconnection.
- “Being able to make the other sit down”: an expression said by a participant in the cafe.
- Beware of manipulation. Empathy can be (sadly) used for bad purposes. Empathy is not inherently kind.
4. My personal view on empathy▲
I find it useful in my daily life. To understand the people around me. To be at peace, in harmony without being troubled by emotions that do not belong to me.
Empathy, what a beautiful gift to give to a person! Being able to make them feel that they are understood. Why a gift? Because we know that understanding another person’s world is difficult (it is unique and can be complex) so when we try with kindness and the right delicacy, the person generally appreciates the approach 🙂
I consider empathy as an important characteristic of human beings, perhaps necessary for their survival, their evolution. A prerequisite for cooperation between people?
5. On becoming a person▲
To learn more about empathy, read my article on Carl Rogers’ book: