empathy reflection essay

Essays About Empathy: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

If you’re writing essays about empathy, check out our essay examples and prompts to get started. 

Empathy is the ability to understand and share other people’s emotions. It is the very notion which To Kill a Mockingbird character Atticus Finch was driving at when he advised his daughter Scout to “climb inside [other people’s] skin and walk around in it.” 

Being able to feel the joy and sorrow of others and see the world from their perspective are extraordinary human capabilities that shape our social landscape. But beyond its effect on personal and professional relationships, empathy motivates kind actions that can trickle positive change across society. 

If you are writing an article about empathy, here are five insightful essay examples to inspire you: 

1. Do Art and Literature Cultivate Empathy? by Nick Haslam

2. empathy: overrated by spencer kornhaber, 3. in our pandemic era, why we must teach our children compassion by rebecca roland, 4. why empathy is a must-have business strategy by belinda parmar, 5. the evolution of empathy by frans de waal, 1. teaching empathy in the classroom., 2. how can companies nurture empathy in the workplace, 3. how can we develop empathy, 4. how do you know if someone is empathetic, 5. does empathy spark helpful behavior , 6. empathy vs. sympathy., 7. empathy as a winning strategy in sports. , 8. is there a decline in human empathy, 9. is digital media affecting human empathy, 10. your personal story of empathy..

“Exposure to literature and the sorts of movies that do not involve car chases might nurture our capacity to get inside the skins of other people. Alternatively, people who already have well-developed empathic abilities might simply find the arts more engaging…”

Haslam, a psychology professor, laid down several studies to present his thoughts and analysis on the connection between empathy and art. While one study has shown that literary fiction can help develop empathy, there’s still lacking evidence to show that more exposure to art and literature can help one be more empathetic. You can also check out these essays about character .

“Empathy doesn’t even necessarily make day-to-day life more pleasant, they contend, citing research that shows a person’s empathy level has little or no correlation with kindness or giving to charity.”

This article takes off from a talk of psychology experts on a crusade against empathy. The experts argue that empathy could be “innumerate, parochial, bigoted” as it zooms one to focus on an individual’s emotions and fail to see the larger picture. This problem with empathy can motivate aggression and wars and, as such, must be replaced with a much more innate trait among humans: compassion.

“Showing empathy can be especially hard for kids… Especially in times of stress and upset, they may retreat to focusing more on themselves — as do we adults.”

Roland encourages fellow parents to teach their kids empathy, especially amid the pandemic, where kindness is needed the most. She advises parents to seize everyday opportunities by ensuring “quality conversations” and reinforcing their kids to view situations through other people’s lenses. 

“Mental health, stress and burnout are now perceived as responsibilities of the organization. The failure to deploy empathy means less innovation, lower engagement and reduced loyalty, as well as diluting your diversity agenda.”

The spike in anxiety disorders and mental health illnesses brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has given organizations a more considerable responsibility: to listen to employees’ needs sincerely. Parmar underscores how crucial it is for a leader to take empathy as a fundamental business strategy and provides tips on how businesses can adjust to the new norm. 

“The evolution of empathy runs from shared emotions and intentions between individuals to a greater self/other distinction—that is, an “unblurring” of the lines between individuals.”

The author traces the evolutionary roots of empathy back to our primate heritage — ultimately stemming from the parental instinct common to mammals. Ultimately, the author encourages readers to conquer “tribal differences” and continue turning to their emotions and empathy when making moral decisions.

10 Interesting Writing prompts on Essays About Empathy

Check out below our list of exciting prompts to help you buckle down to your writing:

This essay discuss teaching empathy in the classroom. Is this an essential skill that we should learn in school? Research how schools cultivate children’s innate empathy and compassion. Then, based on these schools’ experiences, provide tips on how other schools can follow suit. 

An empathetic leader is said to help boost positive communication with employees, retain indispensable talent and create positive long-term outcomes. This is an interesting topic to research, and there are plenty of studies on this topic online with data that you can use in your essay. So, pick these best practices to promote workplace empathy and discuss their effectiveness.

Write down a list of deeds and activities people can take as their first steps to developing empathy. These activities can range from volunteering in their communities to reaching out to a friend in need simply. Then, explain how each of these acts can foster empathy and kindness. 

Based on studies, list the most common traits, preferences, and behaviour of an empathetic person. For example, one study has shown that empathetic people prefer non-violent movies. Expound on this list with the support of existing studies. You can support or challenge these findings in this essay for a compelling argumentative essay. Make sure to conduct your research and cite all the sources used. 

Empathy is a buzzword closely associated with being kind and helpful. However, many experts in recent years have been opining that it takes more than empathy to propel an act of kindness and that misplaced empathy can even lead to apathy. Gather what psychologists and emotional experts have been saying on this debate and input your analysis. 

Empathy and sympathy have been used synonymously, even as these words differ in meaning. Enlighten your readers on the differences and provide situations that clearly show the contrast between empathy and sympathy. You may also add your take on which trait is better to cultivate.

Empathy has been deemed vital in building cooperation. A member who empathizes with the team can be better in tune with the team’s goals, cooperate effectively and help drive success. You may research how athletic teams foster a culture of empathy beyond the sports fields. Write about how coaches are integrating empathy into their coaching strategy. 

Several studies have warned that empathy has been on a downward trend over the years. Dive deep into studies that investigate this decline. Summarize each and find common points. Then, cite the significant causes and recommendations in this study. You can also provide insights on whether this should cause alarm and how societies should address the problem. 

There is a broad sentiment that social media has been driving people to live in a bubble and be less empathetic — more narcissistic. However, some point out that intensifying competition and increasing economic pressures are more to blame for reducing our empathetic feelings. Research and write about what experts have to say and provide a personal touch by adding your experience. 

Acts of kindness abound every day. But sometimes, we fail to capture or take them for granted. Write about your unforgettable encounters with empathetic people. Then, create a storytelling essay to convey your personal view on empathy. This activity can help you appreciate better the little good things in life. 

Check out our general resource of essay writing topics and stimulate your creative mind! 

See our round-up of the best essay checkers to ensure your writing is error-free.

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Emotions & Feelings — Empathy

Empathy Essays

Hook examples for empathy essays, anecdotal hook.

"As I witnessed a stranger's act of kindness towards a struggling neighbor, I couldn't help but reflect on the profound impact of empathy—the ability to connect with others on a deeply human level."

Rhetorical Question Hook

"What does it mean to truly understand and share in the feelings of another person? The concept of empathy prompts us to explore the complexities of human connection."

Startling Statistic Hook

"Studies show that empathy plays a crucial role in building strong relationships, fostering teamwork, and reducing conflicts. How does empathy contribute to personal and societal well-being?"

"'Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.' This profound quote encapsulates the essence of empathy and its significance in human interactions."

Historical Hook

"From ancient philosophies to modern psychology, empathy has been a recurring theme in human thought. Exploring the historical roots of empathy provides deeper insights into its importance."

Narrative Hook

"Join me on a journey through personal stories of empathy, where individuals bridge cultural, social, and emotional divides. This narrative captures the essence of empathy in action."

Psychological Impact Hook

"How does empathy impact mental health, emotional well-being, and interpersonal relationships? Analyzing the psychological aspects of empathy adds depth to our understanding."

Social Empathy Hook

"In a world marked by diversity and societal challenges, empathy plays a crucial role in promoting understanding and social cohesion. Delving into the role of empathy in society offers important insights."

Empathy in Literature and Arts Hook

"How has empathy been depicted in literature, art, and media throughout history? Exploring its representation in the creative arts reveals its enduring significance in culture."

Teaching Empathy Hook

"What are effective ways to teach empathy to individuals of all ages? Examining strategies for nurturing empathy offers valuable insights for education and personal growth."

"To Kill a Mockingbird": Empathy Quotes

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Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position.

Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

Empathy-based socialization differs from inhibition of egoistic impulses through shaping, modeling, and internalized guilt. Empathetic feelings might enable individuals to develop more satisfactory interpersonal relations, especially in the long-term. Empathy-induced altruism can improve attitudes toward stigmatized groups, and to improve racial attitudes, and actions toward people with AIDS, the homeless, and convicts. It also increases cooperation in competitive situations.

Empathetic people are quick to help others. Painkillers reduce one’s capacity for empathy. Anxiety levels influence empathy. Meditation and reading may heighten empathy.

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Understanding others’ feelings: what is empathy and why do we need it?

Senior Lecturer in Social Neuroscience, Monash University

Disclosure statement

Pascal Molenberghs receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award: DE130100120) and Heart Foundation (Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship: 1000458).

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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This is the introductory essay in our series on understanding others’ feelings. In it we will examine empathy, including what it is, whether our doctors need more of it, and when too much may not be a good thing.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network . There are three ways of looking at empathy.

First there is affective empathy. This is the ability to share the emotions of others. People who score high on affective empathy are those who, for example, show a strong visceral reaction when watching a scary movie.

They feel scared or feel others’ pain strongly within themselves when seeing others scared or in pain.

Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand the emotions of others. A good example is the psychologist who understands the emotions of the client in a rational way, but does not necessarily share the emotions of the client in a visceral sense.

Finally, there’s emotional regulation. This refers to the ability to regulate one’s emotions. For example, surgeons need to control their emotions when operating on a patient.

Another way to understand empathy is to distinguish it from other related constructs. For example, empathy involves self-awareness , as well as distinction between the self and the other. In that sense it is different from mimicry, or imitation.

Many animals might show signs of mimicry or emotional contagion to another animal in pain. But without some level of self-awareness, and distinction between the self and the other, it is not empathy in a strict sense. Empathy is also different from sympathy, which involves feeling concern for the suffering of another person and a desire to help.

That said, empathy is not a unique human experience. It has been observed in many non-human primates and even rats .

People often say psychopaths lack empathy but this is not always the case. In fact, psychopathy is enabled by good cognitive empathic abilities - you need to understand what your victim is feeling when you are torturing them. What psychopaths typically lack is sympathy. They know the other person is suffering but they just don’t care.

Research has also shown those with psychopathic traits are often very good at regulating their emotions .

Why do we need it?

Empathy is important because it helps us understand how others are feeling so we can respond appropriately to the situation. It is typically associated with social behaviour and there is lots of research showing that greater empathy leads to more helping behaviour.

However, this is not always the case. Empathy can also inhibit social actions, or even lead to amoral behaviour . For example, someone who sees a car accident and is overwhelmed by emotions witnessing the victim in severe pain might be less likely to help that person.

Similarly, strong empathetic feelings for members of our own family or our own social or racial group might lead to hate or aggression towards those we perceive as a threat. Think about a mother or father protecting their baby or a nationalist protecting their country.

People who are good at reading others’ emotions, such as manipulators, fortune-tellers or psychics, might also use their excellent empathetic skills for their own benefit by deceiving others.

Interestingly, people with higher psychopathic traits typically show more utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas such as the footbridge problem. In this thought experiment, people have to decide whether to push a person off a bridge to stop a train about to kill five others laying on the track.

The psychopath would more often than not choose to push the person off the bridge. This is following the utilitarian philosophy that holds saving the life of five people by killing one person is a good thing. So one could argue those with psychopathic tendencies are more moral than normal people – who probably wouldn’t push the person off the bridge – as they are less influenced by emotions when making moral decisions.

How is empathy measured?

Empathy is often measured with self-report questionnaires such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) or Questionnaire for Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE).

These typically ask people to indicate how much they agree with statements that measure different types of empathy.

The QCAE, for instance, has statements such as, “It affects me very much when one of my friends is upset”, which is a measure of affective empathy.

Cognitive empathy is determined by the QCAE by putting value on a statement such as, “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.”

Using the QCAE, we recently found people who score higher on affective empathy have more grey matter, which is a collection of different types of nerve cells, in an area of the brain called the anterior insula.

This area is often involved in regulating positive and negative emotions by integrating environmental stimulants – such as seeing a car accident - with visceral and automatic bodily sensations.

We also found people who score higher on cognitive empathy had more grey matter in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.

This area is typically activated during more cognitive processes, such as Theory of Mind, which is the ability to attribute mental beliefs to yourself and another person. It also involves understanding that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives different from one’s own.

Can empathy be selective?

Research shows we typically feel more empathy for members of our own group , such as those from our ethnic group. For example, one study scanned the brains of Chinese and Caucasian participants while they watched videos of members of their own ethnic group in pain. They also observed people from a different ethnic group in pain.

The researchers found that a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is often active when we see others in pain, was less active when participants saw members of ethnic groups different from their own in pain.

Other studies have found brain areas involved in empathy are less active when watching people in pain who act unfairly . We even see activation in brain areas involved in subjective pleasure , such as the ventral striatum, when watching a rival sport team fail.

Yet, we do not always feel less empathy for those who aren’t members of our own group. In our recent study , students had to give monetary rewards or painful electrical shocks to students from the same or a different university. We scanned their brain responses when this happened.

Brain areas involved in rewarding others were more active when people rewarded members of their own group, but areas involved in harming others were equally active for both groups.

These results correspond to observations in daily life. We generally feel happier if our own group members win something, but we’re unlikely to harm others just because they belong to a different group, culture or race. In general, ingroup bias is more about ingroup love rather than outgroup hate.

Yet in some situations, it could be helpful to feel less empathy for a particular group of people. For example, in war it might be beneficial to feel less empathy for people you are trying to kill, especially if they are also trying to harm you.

To investigate, we conducted another brain imaging study . We asked people to watch videos from a violent video game in which a person was shooting innocent civilians (unjustified violence) or enemy soldiers (justified violence).

While watching the videos, people had to pretend they were killing real people. We found the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, typically active when people harm others, was active when people shot innocent civilians. The more guilt participants felt about shooting civilians, the greater the response in this region.

However, the same area was not activated when people shot the soldier that was trying to kill them.

The results provide insight into how people regulate their emotions. They also show the brain mechanisms typically implicated when harming others become less active when the violence against a particular group is seen as justified.

This might provide future insights into how people become desensitised to violence or why some people feel more or less guilty about harming others.

Our empathetic brain has evolved to be highly adaptive to different types of situations. Having empathy is very useful as it often helps to understand others so we can help or deceive them, but sometimes we need to be able to switch off our empathetic feelings to protect our own lives, and those of others.

Tomorrow’s article will look at whether art can cultivate empathy.

• Theory of mind
• Emotional contagion
• Understanding others' feelings

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Reflections on Empathy

• by Mayte Picco-Kline
• on September 1, 2020

The word “empathy” came to me through diverse situations and sparked my enthusiasm to share a few thoughts on the topic in the context of a “Life Lived Forward.”

Empathy is a broad concept that refers to the cognitive and emotional reactions of an individual to the observed, wide range of experiences of another.  Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.  It is usually associated with being able to “put ourselves in another person’s shoes” – understanding the other person’s perspective and appreciation of reality so we can better respond to the situation and the potential to develop compassion and offer a helping hand.

Becoming empathetic requires thinking beyond ourselves and our personal concerns, in the understanding that others concerns and points of view are as valuable as our own.  We enhance our ability to do so by opening to the varied ways in which others approach life. Empathy has abundant benefits.  It is a key ingredient of successful relationships as it facilitates understanding the perspectives, needs, and intentions of others.  It creates a sense of well-being.  It reduces stress and fosters resilience. Empathy expands the potential for personal and social growth, and for creative thinking and action.

Communications are impacted by the degree of our empathy.  When we understand the feelings of another person in a given situation and understand why their actions make sense to them, we are better equipped to communicate our own ideas in a way that may make sense to them.  Enhancing communication requires intent listening without preconceived assumptions.    Understanding the individual uniqueness of our personal experience facilitates this process.

Some ways to cultivate empathy involve challenging ourselves, exploring  feelings in addition to thoughts, and finding ways to ask questions that are conducive to deeper communication and understanding.

Some affirmations I have found valuable in highlighting the potential for becoming more empathetic include:

•         I constantly rejoice in the good that comes to others.
•         My heart is receptive to new understanding from every source.
•          Everyday I enter every experience with the whole of myself.
•          My heart re-echoes peace from every heart.
•          I acknowledge the infinity of resource.

By Mayte Picco-Kline

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The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy

Ingmar persson.

1 Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, and the Theory of Science, Göteborgs universitet, Gothenburg, Sweden

2 Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, 16/17 St Ebbe’s St, Oxford, OX1 1PT UK

Julian Savulescu

This is a reply to Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom’s skepticism about the moral importance of empathy. It concedes that empathy is spontaneously biased to individuals who are spatio-temporally close, as well as discriminatory in other ways, and incapable of accommodating large numbers of individuals. But it is argued that we could partly correct these shortcomings of empathy by a guidance of reason because empathy for others consists in imagining what they feel, and, importantly, such acts of imagination can be voluntary – and, thus, under the influence of reflection – as well as automatic . Since empathizing with others motivates concern for their welfare, a reflectively justified empathy will lead to a likewise justified altruistic concern. In addition, we argue that such concern supports another central moral attitude, namely a sense of justice or fairness.

What Empathy Is and the Case Against its Moral Importance

It has generally been taken for granted that empathy is important for morality, so it was to be expected that this assumption would eventually be challenged. Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy [ 1 ] is a full-scale challenge; Jesse Prinz makes a similar, smaller scale challenge in Is Empathy Necessary for Morality [ 2 ] and Against Empathy [ 3 ]. We will argue that empathy can have an essential role to play in moral motivation, but then it needs to be harshly disciplined by other factors – in particular, reasoning – to play its role properly.

To begin with, what is empathy? Bloom understands it to be ‘the act of feeling what you believe other people feel – experiencing what they experience’ [ 1 , p.3]. Prinz’ conception is similar: ‘it’s feeling what one takes another person to be feeling’ [ 2 , p.212]. Bloom distinguishes empathy from cognitive empathy [ 1 , p.17], sympathy and pity [ 1 , p.40], and compassion and concern [ 1 , pp.40–1]. For instance, ‘if I understand that you are feeling pain without feeling it myself’ [ 1 , p.17], this is cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is ‘morally neutral’ [ 1 , p.38]: people who are morally good share it with ‘successful con men, seducers, and torturers’ [ 1 , p.37]. So, Bloom seems to think – correctly, to our minds – that cognitive empathy is not enough to motivate moral behaviour, whereas empathy in the proper sense – ‘emotional empathy’ – can be. Indeed, what he sees as defects of empathy implies that it is a motivator. He objects that:

it is a spotlight focusing on certain people in the here and now. This makes us care more about them, but it leaves us insensitive to the long-term consequences of our acts and blind as well to the suffering of those we do not or cannot empathize with. Empathy is biased, pushing us in the direction of parochialism and racism. It is shortsighted, motivating actions that might make things better in the short term but lead to tragic results in the future. It is innumerate, favoring the one over the many. It can spark violence; our empathy for those close to us is a powerful force for war and atrocity toward others. [ 1 , p.9].

These critical remarks imply that empathy motivates; Bloom’s point is that empathy often motivates us in ways that are morally objectionable. Thus, ‘empathy is not sufficient to guide moral action’ [ 1 , p.191], but it is not disputed that it is a motivating factor, that it could make us ‘care’ about others.

Empathy, then, is not a reliable guide to moral action because it is directed first and foremost at people (bracketing other sentient beings for present purposes) we know well or who are present before our eyes – those who are ‘spatially near’ – at the expense of those who are strangers to us, or beyond the reach of our senses. With respect to people who are spatially near – including ourselves – it is especially focussed on how they will fare in the more immediate future. That is, its focus is on what is temporally near as well as spatially near. Furthermore, even among people who are present to our senses, some may not easily be the target of our empathy because they are different from us in some conspicuous ways: their skin colour is different, they are deformed, dirty, etc. – that is, empathy is discriminatory. Finally, empathy is ‘innumerate’: we cannot empathize with groups of people in proportion to their number. The larger the group, the more of a drawback this limitation is.

Prinz voices similar objections to empathy: it ‘may lead to preferential treatment’, ‘may be subject to unfortunate biases, including the cuteness effects’, ‘is prone to in-group biases’,‘is subject to proximity effects’, and so on [ 2 , p.226]; cf. [ 3 , pp.227–30]. Yet he adds to the list of accusations that ‘empathy is not very motivating’ [ 2 , p.225]. But this is hard to square with what he says to support his other accusations. As regards preferential treatment, he reports that when subjects had been presented with a vignette about a woman awaiting medical treatment, ‘they overwhelmingly elected to move her up at the expense of those in greater need’ [ 2 , p.226]; cf. [ 3 , p.228] who were anonymous to them. And as regards in-group biases, he refers to some studies that have ‘found that empathy leads to helping only when the person in need is a member of the in-group’ [ 2 , p.226]. But then empathy does after all motivate us to favour or help some. Thus, the more plausible moral objection to empathy is not that it is not motivating, but that it often leads us morally astray because it is motivating.

Bloom does not have that much to say much about the attitudes of sympathy, pity, compassion and concern to which he is more favourably disposed than empathy (as Prinz is to concern, [ 3 , pp.230–1]). He writes that ‘ sympathy and pity are about your reaction to the feelings of others, not the mirroring of them… If you feel bad for someone in pain, that’s sympathy, but if you feel their pain, that’s empathy’ [ 1 , p.40]. We believe the same holds for compassion: it is the emotion of feeling sad or unhappy because you believe that someone else is suffering or is having a hard time. By contrast, we regard being concerned about others, or their welfare, as a desire that things go well for them for their own sake. To be concerned about someone in this sense is to adopt an attitude of benevolence or altruism towards them. If you have the power to see to it that things go well for those towards whom you have adopted this attitude, you need not be put in a position in which it is proper to feel sympathy, pity or compassion for them, that is, to feel bad or sad because things are not going well for them.

Bloom insists that concern and compassion do not require empathy [ 1 , p.41]. This allegedly makes them ‘more diffuse than empathy’; as a result, it is ‘weird to talk about having empathy for the millions of victims of malaria, say, but perfectly normal to say that you are concerned about them or feel compassion for them’ [ 1 , pp.40–1]. Thus, on his view, concern and compassion are not innumerate as is empathy, and exposed to criticism on this score. Due to the fact that compassion, like pity and sympathy, are in place only if the subjects they target are faring badly in some way, we will concentrate on the attitude of benevolent or altruistic concern and ask what motivational role empathy does or could play in relation to this attitude, that is, for a desire that others fare well for their own sake – though we may in fact empathize more frequently with others when in fact they do not fare well. 1

But more needs to be said about what empathy is – or rather what it will here be taken to be. It is not actually feeling what you believe others to be feeling, as Bloom and Prinz would have it. For instance, when you empathize with somebody whom you believe to be feeling physical pain, e.g. because they have hit their thumb with a hammer, you do not feel physical pain; instead, you more or less vividly imagine feeling a pain like the one you believe they are feeling. You imagine what it is like to be them, feeling what they do. Notice that it is not imagining that you yourself are feeling what you believe they are feeling (which is what e.g. Smith usually takes sympathy to involve); it is imagining being them , feeling as they are believed to be feeling. 2 However, it would be too strict to demand that empathizing with someone requires succeeding in imagining feeling something which is quite similar to what this individual is in fact feeling. You may be said to empathize with someone when you imagine feeling as you believe they do, though your belief is only very roughly right. Nonetheless, empathizing requires imagining having the right kind of feeling: for instance, you cannot be said to be empathizing with somebody if you imagine being glad when that individual is in fact sad.

According to this conception of empathy, it is a mistake to talk about feeling empathy, emotional empathy, or empathic feelings , as Bloom and Prinz do. This is a respect in which empathizing with someone’s feelings differs from what is often called emotional contagion : for example, if you are surrounded by sad people, this is likely to make you sad, while if you are met with smiles, this liable to put you in a good mood. In these cases, you are actually feeling the emotions that others are having, not imagining feeling them. Bloom notes that emotional contagion is ‘not quite the same as’ empathy [ 1 , p.40], but he fails to see this salient difference. Prinz’s claim is more explicitly inconsistent with the present understanding of ‘empathy: ‘empathy in its simplest form is just emotional contagion’ [ 2 , p.212].

Anyway, empathizing with somebody, as we conceive it, is imagining feeling how this individual is feeling, especially in ways that are good or bad for him or her. 3 Admittedly, the term ‘empathy’ is often used in other ways, and this accounts for the fact that it may seem odd to say, e.g. that Schadenfreude or malice involves empathy. But to our minds, there are other terms, like ‘sympathy’, which are better suited to designate what is at issue here (or a technical term like ‘emotional empathy’ may be introduced).

Some of Bloom’s arguments against empathy trade on the failure to separate it clearly from emotional contagion. He correctly points out that we might find ourselves sad without realizing that this is the result of the sadness of others having infected us. Then we will not be motivated to do anything to relieve their sadness: ‘Without an appreciation of the source of one’s suffering, the shared feeling is inert’ [ 1 , p.173]. But we cannot intelligibly empathize with someone’s sadness without realizing that the sadness we imagine feeling is the sort of sadness that we believe this individual to be feeling because it is imagining feeling a sort of sadness precisely for the reason that it is the sort we believe this individual to be feeling. Thus, empathy cannot be motivationally inert because it lacks a target in the sense described by Bloom.

At some points, Bloom’s misconception of empathy as comprising actual feelings appears to mislead him to overlook the involvement of empathy in concern. He writes: ‘you see the victim’s face contorted in anguish, but you don’t see anguish in the consolers, just concern’ [ 1 , p.175]. However, in so far as the consolers empathize they do not feel anguish, but imagine feeling it, and it should not be expected that imagined anguish needs to show up in the face in the same fashion as genuine anguish does. If this imagined feeling motivates concern, it is precisely concern that we should expect to see in the face of an empathizer, not anguish.

Spontaneous Empathy and Voluntary, Reflective Empathy

We have seen that cognitive empathy is not sufficient to make us concerned: if we acquire a belief that somebody is suffering on the basis of a verbal report, we might not be the least motivated to relieve the suffering. On the other hand, empathy with sufferers does motivate us to relieve the suffering. It has already been observed that if that were not so, Prinz and Bloom’s case against empathy to the effect that it is a poor guide to moral action, since it is biased and innumerate, would be undercut. So, let us proceed on the plausible assumption that it does motivate. 4

It is true that, as Bloom maintains, we ‘cannot empathize with more than one or two people at the same time’ [ 1 , p.33]; cf. [ 2 , p.229]. It also true that we find it harder to empathize with people who are different from us in conspicuous ways, such as having a different skin colour, or who repel us by being deformed, dirty, etc., and that this is likely to lead to discrimination, or exclusion of individuals from concern on morally unjustifiable grounds. Empathy is also biased towards the near future in the sense that we empathize more readily with the suffering that individuals – ourselves included – will feel in the near than in the more distant future. These are reasons why Bloom – rightly – thinks that ‘empathy is a terrible guide to moral judgment’ [ 1 , p.45].

On the other hand, he admits that ‘it can be strategically used to motivate people to do good things’ [ 1 , p.45]. (In this respect, he appears more conciliatory than Prinz, as will be seen below.) The question then arises whether it is not a better strategy to try to discipline empathy than try to do without it. The latter seems to be what Bloom recommends when he claims that ‘on balance, we are better off without it’ [ 1 , p.39]; similarly, Prinz hopes for ‘the extirpation of empathy’ [ 3 , p.228]. This is primarily where we part company. The risk is that without empathy we would not be concerned with anyone’s well-being, not even our own beyond the present moment. As has been seen, Bloom believes that such concern does not require empathy, but he concedes that cognitive empathy is not sufficient for concern when he writes that people who lack concern can have it, e.g. con men, torturers, and psychopaths. What, then, could fill the slack left by cognitive empathy? Bloom does not seem to answer this question.

His appeal to compassion and concern are unhelpful because they are biased and innumerate just like empathy: we feel more compassion and concern for suffering that is close in time, for people who we know well and who have been friendly towards us, and for single identifiable individuals than for masses of anonymous people. A readily available explanation of this fact is that empathy is the motivational source of these attitudes.

Empathy with someone is capable of motivating because it is imagining what it is like for this individual to have a (positive or negative) sensory or affective experience, and this consists in having an ‘image’ or, better, a sensuous representation of the experience which is similar or isomorphic to the experience and derived from having this kind of experience oneself. Thus, as Bloom notes [ 1 , pp.147–9], in order to be able to empathize adequately with somebody who is feeling pain, say, it is necessary to have felt a similar pain yourself – so, those rare individuals who are congenitally insensitive to pain cannot empathize with those who are exposed to pain. Since having pain motivates you to try to rid yourself of it, it would not be surprising if imagining somebody having the pain that you believe this individual to have could motivate you to try to rid them of it, given that the imagined pain is similar to an actually felt pain. The evolutionary explanation of why we so readily imagine feeling a pain we think we will ourselves suffer if we do not take action is surely that this will motivate us to take action to avoid the pain. Then, provided it could serve our reproductive fitness, we should expect that the same device is put to use in the case of others, so that imagining someone else having a pain could also motivate action to save them from the pain, as both commonsensical experience and experimental evidence indicate. But since the imagined pain is not as vivid or forceful as a felt pain (unless it is hallucinatory), it will not motivate to the same degree (cf. [ 4 , p.764]).

If you had been hooked up to someone else’s nervous system by something functioning like afferent pathways, so you actually felt the pain this individual feels in his or her body, you would be more strongly motivated to eliminate it, probably as strongly motivated as this individual. But then you could not empathize with the pain this individual is feeling for the same reason that you cannot empathize with the pain that you are now feeling in your own body. The reason is that you cannot imagine feeling a pain that you are actually feeling; the actual feeling so to speak overshadows any imagined feeling. It follows from this that Prinz is right when he points out [ 2 , p.214]; [ 3 , p.219] that empathy cannot be necessary for each and every moral attitude that we could adopt, e.g. the indignation that we may feel because of the pain we are now suffering unjustly.

When you attribute the pain you imagine to someone else, it is their pain you will seek to relieve in the first instance. At a pre-linguistic stage, the belief that another is in pain would have to be expressed in a medium of sensuous representation; so there would then be no distinction between so-called cognitive empathy and empathy in our terminology. You would be moved to some extent to relieve the pain you imagine the other to be having. But if you cannot relieve the pain of the other, you may resort to relieving only the pain you imagine and, thereby, the pity you feel. As Bloom mentions [ 1 , pp.74–5], if you empathize with the pain of somebody writhing in front of your eyes, and find that you can do nothing to remove the pain of this individual, you may resort to changing your location so that this individual is no longer within sight. For if you can no longer see this individual, your empathy is liable to subside and, thereby, your desire that the victim’s pain be relieved, alongside the pity and frustration that you will feel because this desire cannot be satisfied.

If the account of empathy given here is correct, is it possible to ‘exploit people’s empathy for good causes’ [ 1 , p.49], by trying to give it better direction? Such a strategy would seem preferable to the strategy of removing empathy that would risk leaving us motivationally dry and unconcerned about the weal and woe of our future selves and others. According to the account given here, we are capable of modifying the direction of empathy because it is not only true that we spontaneously or automatically imagine having sensory experiences we believe that others undergo or that we might undergo in the future; we can also do this voluntarily or at will . 5

To take a simple case involving only yourself: if you are told that you will probably feel acute pain later today, you will immediately be seriously concerned, think desperately about ways of escaping this pain, and feel fear it cannot be avoided. This is because you automatically empathize with yourself later today, i.e. you automatically imagine feeling the pain you believe that you might feel shortly. 6 By contrast, your automatically imagining the acute pain you hear that you might suffer next year will be much more fleeting and perfunctory, if it occurs at all. But your reason could inform you that your pain next year will one day be just as real and unbearable as your pain later today, and this may induce you to imagine voluntarily feeling next year’s pain if this could help motivate you to find ways of avoiding it. If this imagining is done with some persistence, it will most likely increase your concern about feeling this pain, though it is unlikely to become as great as your concern about the pain later today, since the outcome of your act of voluntary imagination will probably be less vivid or detailed. True, a voluntary act of imagination presupposes that you are motivated to perform it, but the deliverance of your reason along with your automatic empathy, though perfunctory, may be enough to supply this amount of motivation which could inflate itself by means of a voluntary act of imagination.

Thus, we can counteract our bias towards the near future in matters concerning ourselves, though we are unlikely to overcome it completely. More often than we would like, it will continue to make us act in ways that we recognize as weak-willed and irrational. But although it would now often be better for us to be able to rise above this bias, it has probably served us well in the past before the rational powers of our species developed to anything like the present extent because the situations that it is most pressing to deal with are as a rule those in the nearer future.

Similarly, from an evolutionary point of view it is not hard understand why our empathy with others is spontaneously selective. Spontaneously, we empathize with individuals who we know well and with whom we have cooperated advantageously, like our kin and people in our community, and not with strangers who might be treacherous or hostile for all we know. This makes evolutionary sense if benevolent or altruistic concern rides on the back of empathy because then we shall be concerned about people in our own tribe and unconcerned about outsiders, and this is likely to make our own tribe successful in the struggle for resources with these outsiders.

But although we do not spontaneously empathize with some individuals for such reasons and, therefore, have little or no concern for them, our intellect can tell us that some or all of the indicated exclusionary reasons are not sound reasons to think that the suffering of these individuals is morally less bad. Suppose that we are repelled by some people because they are deformed or dirty and therefore do not take time to empathize with their suffering. Then, on reflection, we could realize that these features are not anything for which they are responsible and which makes their suffering morally less important. This gives us reason to make a voluntary effort to imagine vividly the suffering of these individuals, despite their unappealing features. As a result, we will be more concerned about their suffering, though probably not as much concerned as we are about the suffering of those whom we find congenial, and with whom we automatically empathize.

Consequently, by means of our power of reasoning, we can expand the range of our empathy, and thereby our benevolent concern, to other individuals and further into the future, and make these attitudes less discriminatory. We can also extend our empathy to a greater number of people, by voluntarily imagining the suffering of a single, arbitrary individual from a large group and telling ourselves that the suffering of each individual of the group is as real and morally bad as is the suffering of this individual and, thus, that our concern for the sufferings of the entire group should be proportionally greater. This is likely to make our concern for the collective suffering significantly greater than our concern for a single individual’s suffering, though hardly as great as it ideally should be.

In sum, by means of our reason we can counteract the fact that our empathy is spatio-temporally biased, unjustifiably discriminatory, and innumerate, and develop a more reflective empathy, though we would be hard put to overcome completely these shortcomings of our spontaneous empathy. Such a reflective empathy would motivate a correspondingly more reflective and justifiable altruistic concern, as well as greater, more rational prudential concern for our future selves. In other words, we are capable of a sort of motivational bootstrapping: we find ourselves concerned about others because we automatically empathize with them to some degree, and this concern could motivate us to reflect on the unjustifiability of the grounds that tend to eclipse our automatic empathy for these individuals, and modify our concern for them in ways we see as rationally justified by voluntarily imagining more vividly what it is like to be them. By this procedure we could surmount obstacles that evolutionary programming has put in the path of our empathy and benevolent concern. This is clearly a superior strategy to trying to divest ourselves of empathy because it is misdirected or restrictive, and thereby risk divesting ourselves of concern for others.

As already indicated, the point can also be made in terms of prudential concern for our own more distant future. It would be a poor strategy to give up empathizing with our possible suffering in the distant future, say from lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. Rather, we should develop a more reflective empathy which extends further into our future, by heeding our reason’s advice to imagine more distant suffering as vividly as we spontaneously imagine suffering that is closer in time. This strategy is more likely to generate motivation to give up smoking now than refraining from such a voluntary direction of imagination.

Empathy, Justice and Anger

Some grounds for excluding individuals from, or pushing them to the periphery of, empathy and concern are however warranted. Bloom notes that ‘you feel more empathy for someone who treats you fairly than for someone who cheats you’ [ 1 , p.68]. We put this down to our being equipped with a sense of justice or fairness . This sense expresses itself not only in our making judgments about what is (un)just or (un)fair, but also in our being motivated to some extent to rectify what we judge to be unjust or unfair.

Like many other animals, we practice the tit-for-tat strategy which consists in responding in the same coin: being angry at and inclined to punish those who harm us, or those close to us, and being grateful and inclined to reward those who benefit us, or those close to us. From an evolutionary point of view, it is not hard to comprehend why we abide by this strategy. But in contrast to (most) other animals, we have the power to contemplate whether our spontaneous angry or grateful reactions are justifiable. The upshot of this contemplation may be that after all an angry and punitive response would not be just or justifiable because, say, the harm inflicted on us was accidental or unavoidable, or that it was inflicted in order to protect somebody else from much greater harm. So, reason may command us to hold back our spontaneous angry and punitive responses.

We may however fail to comply with this command if we empathize strongly with the victims of the harmful act but not at all with its perpetrator. Indeed, such biased empathy might even get in the way of our making reasonable judgments about what is justifiable. We might be so incensed by the fact that we have been harmed that we overlook that the infliction of the harm was unavoidable or justifiable, just as we might be unable to control our temper and retaliate, though we realize that it is unjustifiable. This is of course less likely to happen if we empathize not only with the victims of a harmful act but also with its agent.

Although Bloom concedes that ‘empathy can serve as the brakes’ on aggression and violence for such reasons, he argues that ‘it’s just as often the gas ’ [ 1 , p.188]: ‘the empathy one feels toward an individual can fuel anger toward those who are cruel to that individual’ [ 1 , p.208]. But it is not empathy with the cruelly treated victim that triggers the aggression toward the offender; it is our adherence to the tit-for-tat strategy that drives us to punish agents who are cruel to those we care about. Certainly, if we empathize with victims – but not with the aggressors – this will amplify our aggression, but it is not empathy, or its absence, that makes us angry at aggressors. If it is claimed that it is such an amplification of anger beyond reason that is what makes empathy undesirable in this connection, it should be retorted that it offers the compensating good of serving as a brake on our anger if we direct it at the aggressors. Surely, this is not what you expect of something that is properly characterized as ‘a powerful force for war and atrocity’ [ 1 , p.9].

In any case, it is doubtful that the removal of empathy is a recommendable remedy (were it feasible). Although our sense of justice by itself motivates us to do what we judge to be just, the risk is that this motivation will be so weak in many of us that we will do little to rectify instances of injustice. For when we attempt to punish offenders, or extract compensation from them, we usually have to stick our necks out, and we are disinclined to do so for people we do not care about. Likewise, we are also likely to incur costs should we reward those who have acted justly. Benefiting people who are unfairly worse off or in greater need than others when this is simply the result of bad luck and not the wrong-doing of any moral agents is of course also costly. A better strategy than removal of empathy would seem to be to involve empathizing with those at the receiving end of unfair acts and misfortunes, but balancing it with a reasonable amount of empathy for possible offenders.

The importance of empathy as a brake on unjustified aggression and violence may be even clearer in the case of psychopaths. Bloom’s conclusion about them is: ‘They do tend to be low in empathy. But there is no evidence that this lack of empathy is responsible for their bad behavior’ [ 1 , p.201]. Here it is important to bear in mind that empathy has a function to fill not only with respect to others, but with respect to our own future as well. Psychopaths are characteristically unconcerned not only about other individuals, but about their own long-term future (and past), too. Hence, their ‘lack of realistic long-term goals’, their ‘impulsivity’ and ‘irresponsibility’ [ 1 , p.198]; their being ‘relatively indifferent to punishment’ and ‘unmoved by love withdrawal’, as mentioned by Prinz [ 1 , p.218]; cf. [ 3 , p.222]. Now suppose – as seems true – that psychopaths are also prone to aggression and excessive vanity. It is obvious that such people could easily be driven to crime and other immoral behaviour to gain short-term profits because neither concern for others nor fear of punishment and social condemnation of themselves will hold them back.

Like the instinctive grounds for excluding people from empathy and altruistic concern, the instinctive grounds for how justice requires people to be treated are then subject to revision in light of reason. These grounds seem partly to overlap. For instance, earlier on in human history the fact that some people were deformed or disabled appears to have been regarded not only as a ground for excluding them from empathy and concern but, even more absurdly, as grounds making it just (deserving, fitting etc.) that they be worse off than others.

Prinz considers the possibility ‘to overcome the selective nature of empathy by devising a way to make us empathize with a broader range of people’ [ 2 , p.228], but rejects it because he thinks that empathy is ‘intrinsically biased’ [ 3 , p.229]. Instead, he favours a ‘less demanding’ alternative which dispenses with empathy. This alternative appeals, in the negative case, only to feelings of disapprobation like anger and guilt, and types of action that evoke them:

If we focus our moral judgments on types of actions (stealing, torture, rape, etc.) and make an effort not to reflect on the specific victims, we may be able to achieve a kind of impartiality… any focus on the victim of a transgression should be avoided, because of a potential bias. [ 2 , p.228]; [ 3 , p.220]

The emotions of disapprobation are more powerful motivators of moral action than empathy, according to him. And ‘anger can be conditioned through imitation. If we express our outrage at injustice, our children will feel outrage at injustice’ [ 2 , p.229]. Sure, but children can be taught to feel outrage at types of actions that many of us would not nowadays regard as morally wrong, such as working on Sundays or consensual homosexual acts between adults. To explain why such acts are not morally wrong while others are, it seems that we would have to refer to the fact that they do not harm or make anyone unjustly worse off, whereas morally wrongful acts do. But then it can be objected, again, that it seems that the realization that some individuals have been unjustly harmed will elicit little, if any, anger or indignation if we are unconcerned about those harmed and that we are likely to be unconcerned about them if we have never empathized with them. Prinz recognizes that we need ‘a keen sense that human suffering is outrageous’ [ 2 , p.229], but can we develop such a sense if we strive for an impartiality that ‘involves bracketing off thoughts about victims’ [ 2 , p.229]? And what about cases in which human suffering is due to bad luck which does not involve any moral wrongdoing, like instances of congenital disabilities and natural disasters? In such cases, emotions like anger, indignation and outrage are out of place or irrational.

Additionally, anger can be as at least biased and immoral as empathy, say, the anger you feel at your opponent because you have lost a game, though you realize that the game was perfectly fair, and you entered into it voluntarily. Prinz is on firmer ground when he speaks about outrage and indignation, since these emotions seem to be anger which you believe to be morally justified. But because of the excessiveness of your self-concern, these emotions can still be overblown when you yourself are the victim of immoral behaviour.

Whether Empathy Is Necessary for Moral Concern, or could Block it

So much about exploiting empathy for good purposes. It might be objected, however, that in order to act out of concern, we evidently do not need to empathize. For instance, we might grab a pedestrian to prevent him or her from stepping out in front of a bus, without having had time to do any empathizing. True, but this may be because we have acquired a habit of acting in such ways because we have often in the past empathized with people in similar circumstances and, thereby, acquired a standing motivation to help them out. Thus, empathy may be necessary to make us concerned about others to start with, without subsequently being necessary for action out of concern on each and every occasion. 7

In the case of the pedestrian, there are no competing interests. But when there is such competition, one party often claims our spontaneous concern at the expense of others. Then our voluntarily directed, reflective empathy should step in to rectify matters. Consequently, the fact that we have developed standing desires that enable us to do the right thing on many occasions does not mean that engaging in empathy has been rendered redundant. Sooner or later spontaneous, selective empathy will assert itself, and the combat against its distortions must be resumed.

Prinz relates studies that show that people who found a dime in a phone booth are much more likely to help a passerby who has dropped some papers than people who did not find a dime. He concludes that a ‘small dose of happiness seems to promote considerable altruism’ [ 2 , p.220]. Certainly, a standing disposition to be of assistance is more likely to manifest itself if we are happy. When we feel that things are going well for ourselves, we are more bent on making efforts to assist those who are less fortunate and imaginatively to put ourselves in their shoes. Prinz thinks that this imaginative act could reduce the inclination to help because the ‘vicarious distress’ he sees empathy as involving ‘presumably has a negative correlation with positive happiness’ [ 2 , p.220]. But here it should be remembered, first, that empathy with the distressed does not involve actually feeling distress, but imagining feeling the distress others are believed to be feeling, which is less of a negative experience. Secondly, if we can do something to help the distressed, we may end up actually feeling satisfied.

Prinz also affirms that guilt ‘is a great motivator’ on the ground that subjects were much more disposed ‘to make some fund-raising calls for a charity organization after they administered shocks to an innocent person’ [ 2 , p.221]. But the fact that we are inclined to make up for an immoral act we believe we have committed by doing good is an expression of our sense of justice, and has been seen this does not rule out being motivated by empathy as well.

There is however something backward about Prinz’ conception of guilt as a motivator. He claims: ‘If we anticipate that an action will make us feel guilty, we will thereby be inclined to avoid the action’ [ 2 , p.219]. However, if an act makes us feel guilty, we must take it to be wrong. Now he also maintains: ‘A person who judges that stealing is wrong, for example, will be motivated to resist the urge to steal’ [ 2 , p.219]. It follows that if we anticipate that an act will make us feel guilty once we have committed it, we already conceive of it as wrong – since our committing it does not make it wrong – and, hence, we will already ‘be motivated to resist the urge’ to commit it, independently of the guilt we would feel were we to commit it.

It should be stressed, however, that empathy is not an end in itself; it is emphatically not the case that the more we empathize, the better. Voluntarily empathizing is a means to boost motivation to assist those in need, to enhance concern for them. But, as Bloom points out [ 1 , pp.133–46], people can empathize too much, so much that it can be harmful both to themselves and to those in need of their help. It can ‘burn out’ empathizers, make them depressed and emotionally exhausted. This is not surprising: after all, imagining feeling suffering is an unpleasant experience in itself, though not as unpleasant as actually feeling the suffering imagined. And it is not hard to understand how, say, doctors who are absorbed by acts of imagining the suffering of their patients might be overwhelmed and paralyzed by what they imagine and unable to help their patients effectively.

But conceding that empathy can be excessive, that there can be too much of it, is not conceding that it is redundant, that there cannot be too little of it. In moderate measures it may be an efficient means of enhancing flagging concern. A Buddhist scholar quoted by Bloom states the appropriate recipe thus: ‘meditation-based training enables practitioners to move quickly from feeling the distress of others to acting with compassion to alleviate it’ ([ 1 , p.141], emphasis added). 8 Bloom himself says essentially the same: ‘we know that feeling empathy for another makes you more likely to help them’, though ‘too much empathy can be paralyzing’ [ 1 , pp.155–6]. However, even if we do not get caught up in excessive empathy, but use it wisely to quicken our benevolent concern, it should be observed that we run the risk of being burnt out: for those who are greatly concerned to relieve the suffering in a world so full of misery as this one, awareness of the fact that, even if they were to comply with a very demanding morality, they could at best only relieve a tiny fraction of it could well be crushing. But the fact that a state of mind is crushing does not count against it being the state of a morally enlightened person, at least not as long as this is not allowed to prevent complying with moral demands. In itself, the contentment of a moral agent is not an objective of morality.

It could be desirable to enhance our capacity for empathy and concern by drugs, like oxytocin etc. if the discomfort this would cause us would be outweighed by the greater amount of good we would thereby accomplish. It might be asked whether these drugs work by making us more disposed to empathize, or be more motivated by the outcome of our empathizing. But these aspects are not easily separable, since if we become more disposed to engage in acts of imagination, these acts will be more protracted, and their content more vivid or detailed and, thus, it will have greater motivational impact. However that may be, such enhancement cannot render a reflective direction of imagination superfluous.

Conclusion: Better to Reform Empathy than Remove it

All in all, the picture that emerges is this. We have beliefs about how other individuals feel and how we can help them to feel better. There is both a set of properties such that: (1) if we believe individuals have any of these properties, this facilitates spontaneous empathy with these individuals, i.e. disposes us to imagine spontaneously how they feel, and (2) a set of properties such that if we believe that individuals have any of them, this hinders spontaneous empathy with them. In the former case, we will be spontaneously concerned about the well-being of these individuals; in the latter case, it will take voluntary reflection to empathize and be concerned about the individuals in question. We are also in possession of a sense of justice or fairness which not only animates us to benefit those whom justice requires to be benefited, but also to harm those whom justice requires be harmed. If, however, we do not empathize with individuals who should be benefited, or have been harmed, we will often not be sufficiently motivated to rectify injustices inflicted on them. Similarly, the incentive to punish is reduced if we empathize with those who have unjustly harmed.

Because we are equipped with a power to scrutinize the rationality of our responses, we might realize that some of the properties that we unthinkingly use to exclude individuals from our spontaneous concern do not in fact justify such exclusion. This would provide us with reason voluntarily to imagine more vividly the feelings of these individuals who have previously received little empathy from us and, as a result, be more concerned about their welfare, though presumably not as much as we are concerned about those with whom we spontaneously emphasize. Still, we should be wary not to employ voluntary empathy excessively, so that it gets in the way of acting out of concern.

This is basically in agreement with a picture we have earlier put forward [ 5 ]. We then suggested that there are two ‘core moral dispositions’ [ 5 , p.108], altruism and a sense of justice. They seem to be biologically based in part and, therefore, in principle open to enhancement by biomedical means. But we pointed out that such enhancement is not sufficient because our spontaneous altruistic concern is subject to various distortions, like the bias towards the near future [ 5 , pp.27–8], innumerateness or insensitivity to numbers [ 5 , p.30]), and in-group bias [ 5 , pp.119–20]. None of these considerations stands up to rational scrutiny. This realization is liable to change the pattern of our spontaneous concern, but our sense of justice is in even greater need of reflective refinement. It comprises a disposition to do what we think is just or fair. But what is just or fair is a topic of heated philosophical controversy, whether it is a matter of getting what we deserve, or something more egalitarian, etc. 9

Bloom writes that he has ‘been arguing throughout this book that fair and moral and ultimately beneficial policies are best devised without empathy’ [ 1 , p.207]. It might indeed be true that such policies are best devised without empathy, but it is doubtful whether we can be best motivated to act in accordance with them without empathy. Consider again a simpler situation in the realm of prudence. If we have to devise a general policy for possible future circumstances in which we have to choose between a smaller, but still acute, pain the same day and a significantly bigger pain a week later, it is easy to tell what the best policy is: to opt for the smaller pain the same day. The hard bit is to stick to this policy when the smaller pain will occur later today. To avoid backsliding we then have to counteract our spontaneous empathy with ourselves in the imminent future by voluntarily imagining what it will be like for us to suffer the greater pain a week later. We shall most probably never succeed in voluntarily directing our empathy to the extent that we become temporally neutral and care as much about the more remote as the closer future. But it is still better to have such an imperfectly reformed empathy than being without all empathy, spontaneous as well as reflective.

Bloom seems to concede something like this when, in speculating about how he would genetically engineer a child, he writes that he would be wary of removing empathy, but ‘would ensure that it could be modified, shaped, directed, and overriden by rational deliberation’ [ 1 , p.212]. This would be what we have called reflective empathy. Since he thinks that this child should be equipped with empathy, he must think it can do some good. His case against empathy must then rest on it being impossible in fact to modify it to the extent that its existence is better than its non-existence. Granted, empathy cannot be modified to the extent that it perfectly concords with the deliverances of rational deliberation, but it can be sufficiently reshaped that we are better off with it than without it, since in the latter case it seems that we would risk being totally unmotivated by any mental states beyond those of ourselves in the present.

Bloom concludes about empathy: ‘its negatives outweigh its positives – and there are better alternatives [ 1 , p.241]. The present conclusion is to the contrary that it is the positives that outweigh the negatives, and that there is no better alternative to empathy. Bloom seems to have reason in mind, but reason is not an alternative to empathy: it needs empathy as a motivator, and empathy needs reason for its motivational force to be properly directed and encompassing. Compassion and concern on which he places higher value than empathy are no more reliable as moral compasses. They, too, are biased and parochial, underpinned as they are by empathy, and in need of supervision by reason. 10

1 Concurring with Adam Smith that, in contrast to ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’, ‘sympathy’ may ‘without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever’ p765 [ 4 ], we have earlier employed the term ‘sympathetic concern’ (e.g. p109 [ 5 ]).

2 Cf. Coplan’s distinction between self-oriented and other-oriented perspective-taking pp9–15 [ 6 ].

3 Thus, empathizing is not imagining having any experience, as Bloom’s claim that it is ‘experiencing what they experience’ p3 [ 1 ] could suggest. If, say, we imagine seeing what others are seeing from their points of view, this does not qualify as empathy because it is not any feeling that is imagined. Additionally, it is odd to talk about empathizing with somebody who is feeling warm or surprised when these feelings are neither positive nor negative.

4 Experimental evidence for this hypothesis is summarized e.g. in Batson [ 7 ].

5 This is a reason why it is important not to confuse empathy with emotional contagion: we cannot directly infect ourselves with emotions at will.

6 Prinz claims: ‘Imagination sounds like a kind of mental act that requires effort on the part of the imaginer’ p212 [ 2 ]. But, as for instance Hume stressed, if we have regularly experienced one type of event being succeeded by another type of event, experiencing the first is likely to make us automatically imagine experiencing the other, especially if it is pleasant or unpleasant.

7 Here surfaces a difference between concern, on the one hand, and sympathy, pity and compassion, on the other, for although we might say that your act expressed concern for the well-being of the pedestrian, we would scarcely say that you felt sympathy, pity or compassion for the pedestrian. These emotions do seem to involve empathy on each and every occasion.

8 For a survey of the ancient Buddhist tradition of cultivating empathy, see McRae [ 8 ]. In this tradition, ‘empathy as imaginative projection’ ‘is assumed to be highly trainable’, ‘vastly under-utilitized’ p124 [ 8 ], and also that it ‘will stimulate compassion’ p125 [ 8 ]. That is to say, virtually what we argue.

9 Followers of Hume and Smith, like e.g. Kaupinnen [ 9 ], who believe that empathy is involved in moral judgment also contend that it can be regulated, but their view is different, and more contentious, than ours in at least two respects. First, we explore the role of empathy in one species of moral motivation , not its role in the making of moral judgments , let alone all kinds of moral judgments. In addition, Kaupinnen thinks that for his purpose empathy as regards reactive attitudes like resentment and gratitude is more central than empathy as regards concern for the well-being of others. Secondly, these theorists propose regulation by reference to an ideal perspective , which goes beyond the regulation we have here considered.

10 Many thanks to the reviewers and editor for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Self-Empathy Is Required to Empathize With Others

Creating a receptive space to help you empathize without projecting..

Posted March 5, 2021 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

In our previous post, " The Light and Dark Side of Empathy, " we wrote about how your motivations and intentions determine whether you use empathy to help or to harm. Self-empathy, as a practice, guides you to tune in to your inner world and to understand, or even modify, motivations and intentions.

By choosing to practice self-empathy, as a deeply personal exploration, you observe and integrate your own experiences. You bring awareness to your inner experiential, emotional and mental state. A part of yourself observes the aspect of yourself that experiences in an empathic manner. You create a space within yourself by bringing your mind into the inner world of your own experiences of thought and feeling and by suspending judgments you may have about yourself (Jordan, 1994). This inner space is open, expansive, and receptive.

Your inner life may be noisy with random fragments of thought and feeling. The practice of self-empathy orders these fragments.

After going through the process of noticing, centering, sensing, suspending judgment, intention setting, and attending to self, you will have the tools to reopen yourself to the situation at hand with conscious equanimity. You created a receptive space to the experiences of others which prepares you to empathize without the often unconscious habit of projecting yourself onto them.

This is what the practice is about. You need to deal with tensions at work, you need to get your job done, and you are hardly ever independent of the people around you. Although you might be willing and inclined to empathize with others, you will not successfully do so if you are not aware of your own influence on the situation as it evolves. Coming back to your own inner experiences and understanding that they are intrinsically yours to work with, will help you to create space for the experience and action of others.

Is empathizing with others different from empathizing with yourself?

Yes and no. Yes, because empathizing with others is empathizing with the inherently unknowable experience of other people. Their experiences, thoughts, and feelings are not yours. And more importantly, they are not meant to be either. Empathizing with others does not mean experiencing what others are going through. It is meant to attentively tune into their expressions of those experiences. To open up to their perspectives on a given situation, to broaden your own views on it, and to hold a space for others to be as they are.

But empathizing with others is also not different from empathizing with yourself.

Although the practices are different, they require a similar reflective presence: noticing, taking ethical responsibility, suspending judgment, setting intentions, and attending to others.

Self-empathy helps you to develop agency, the awareness of yourself as being the initiator of actions, desires, thoughts, and feelings (Decety & Jackson, 2004). With self-empathy you become aware of your own experiential state in the moment, enabling you to differentiate your own emotional experience from the experience of someone else. This differentiation prepares you to face professional and interpersonal challenges ahead.

We consider empathy to be useful as a means to an end. You may choose to practice empathy quietly in your own life, in interaction with the people close to you. But it becomes truly powerful when people acting together to fulfill a cause, engage in mutual empathic interaction. This has led us to develop an empathic method of structured interaction for people working together: Empathic Intervision.

Empathic Intervision: Practicing empathy with others

Empathic Intervision (Niezink & Train, 2020) is an organised peer-support method for people working together to identify opportunities and co-create solutions to challenges. It includes exercises in integrative empathy, to help you to engage beyond cultural differences, to listen and hear each other's experiences, thoughts, and feelings about a topic and to identify and take the perspective of others. The process can either be guided by an external facilitator or it can be self-organized. It requires you to maintain the reflective presence attained during the self-empathy exercise. However, the presence of noticing, taking ethical responsibility, suspending judgment, setting intentions, and attending is focussed on others.

In the Empathic Intervision too, each person engages a self-empathy exercise. Yet prior to self-empathy, participants set a collective intention. Since empathy is applied here as a means to an end, the intention guides the process towards an identified outcome. It ensures that participants are able to identify a shared goal for the group.

This introduction and setting of the scene are followed by three layers of empathy practice, all directed towards the collective intention set at the start of the meeting. They are kinesthetic, reflective, and imaginative empathy.

Kinesthetic empathy, the capacity to participate in somebody’s movement, or their sensory experience of movement (Niezink & Train, 2020) . This helps you to connect with others through coordination and synchronization. With kinesthetic empathy, you explore and become more aware of how you influence each other’s physical space. Kinesthetic empathy practices support the role of coordination and synchronization in empathy and enable people to hold physical space for others, hence experience the effects of being "seen" and "followed" in action.

Reflective empathy enables you to deepen your connection with others through literal reflection and advanced reflective empathy dialogue. Reflective empathy helps you to explore difficult or stressful situations without losing sight of your own self. Problems are clarified, and listening is intensified, through reflective empathic dialogue.

Imaginative empathy uses imagination and "as-if" acting to enable you to understand the perspectives of others you are working with and to experience the effects of having a problem explored from multiple perspectives. It is used as a means to explore difficult or stressful situations or to diversify perspectives and enable creativity .

The fifth and last aspect of Empathic Intervision is empathic creativity (Niezink & Train, 2020). During the full intervision process, the empathic practices described above guide and stimulate actions and reactions. The act of empathizing awakens creative insights. People become aroused in a particular way. These moments highlight significant change events and are ripe to be harvested and preserved. The consequences of empathic interactions can be quickly forgotten or get lost if not brought to attention . Empathic creativity is the practice of preserving that which is created and brings possible solutions to the issue at hand. As the final step in the intervision process, the gathered insights are transformed into actionable outcomes.

Self-empathy provides a foundation and is a prerequisite for each of the other four integrative empathy practices. As a deeply personal and transformative practice, it guides you to create a receptive space to empathize with others.

If you enjoyed the stunning artwork we have used throughout this series of posts, we encourage you to have a look at the fantastic work of our friend Candace Charlton . The human form, in particular the portrait, is the main focus of Charlton’s work. She strives to discover and reveal the mystery and depth of the human psyche in her intensively studied portraits and figurative compositions.

Decety J, Jackson PL. The functional architecture of human empathy. Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev. 2004 Jun;3(2):71-100. doi: 10.1177/1534582304267187.

Jordan, Judith. (1997). Relational development through mutual empathy. doi:10.1037/10226-015

Niezink, L.W. & Train, K.J. (2020). Empathic Intervision: A Peer-to-Peer Practice. France & South Africa: Empathic Intervision. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339484113_Empathic_Intervision… [accessed Mar 2, 2021].

Lidewij Niezink, Ph.D., and Katherine Train, Ph.D., are the co-founders of Empathic Intervision.

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Empathy in Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Connect with Your Readers

By   Joshua Turner

September 7, 2023

Writing is a powerful tool that allows us to connect with others, share our experiences, and convey our thoughts and emotions. However, it is not always easy to express empathy through writing.

Effective communication requires the ability to empathize with others and comprehend their emotions. In this article, we will explore the role of empathy in writing and discuss techniques that can help you show compassion in your writing.

Understanding empathy is crucial for effective communication. Empathy lets us put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and understand their perspective. When we are empathetic, we can better connect with others and build stronger relationships.

In writing , empathy can help us create more engaging and relatable content that resonates with our readers. As writers, we have the power to influence and inspire others, and empathy is a vital tool in achieving this goal.

Key Takeaways

• Empathy is essential for effective communication .
• Empathy allows us to connect with others and build stronger relationships.
• Empathy is a powerful tool for writers to create engaging and relatable content.

Understanding Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It is an essential quality that helps us build strong relationships with others. Empathy is not about feeling sorry for someone; it’s about understanding their emotions and showing compassion towards them.

Cognitive Empathy

Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand someone’s emotions intellectually. It involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and understanding their perspective. You can show cognitive empathy by actively listening to someone and asking questions to clarify their feelings.

Emotional Empathy

Emotional empathy  is the capability to feel what someone else is feeling. It involves experiencing the same emotions as someone else, such as joy, sadness, or anger. You can show empathy by expressing your emotions and validating someone else’s.

Compassionate Empathy

Compassionate empathy is the capacity to understand and feel someone else’s emotions and take action to help them. It involves showing kindness and compassion towards others.

You can show compassionate empathy by offering support , providing encouragement, and taking action to help someone in need.

Building great relationships with people requires having a solid understanding of empathy. You can connect with people more deeply and build lasting connections by displaying cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy.

The Role of Empathy in Writing

Empathy is crucial in writing, especially fiction. You can create an engaging, emotional, and memorable story by creating empathy for your characters and readers. As a writer, putting yourself in the shoes of your characters and readers is indispensable to creating a story that resonates with them.

Empathy for Characters

Empathy is an essential element in writing, especially when it comes to creating characters . As a writer, you need to be able to put yourself in your protagonist’s shoes, understand their motivations, and feel their emotions.

You can create a relatable, likable, and believable character. When readers empathize with a character, they become invested in their story and are more likely to continue reading.

To create empathy for your characters, you should focus on  their backstory, personality, and struggles . Give them a history explaining their actions and motivations , making them flawed and vulnerable. Readers may connect with the character this way and get emotionally immersed in their path.

Empathy for Readers

Empathy is not only important for creating characters but also for  connecting with readers . As a writer, you need to understand your audience  and what they want from your story. By empathizing with your readers, you can create a story that resonates with them and leaves a lasting impression.

To create empathy for your readers, you should focus on  the emotions and experiences that your story evokes. Write relatable and authentically, and use descriptive language to create vivid images in the reader’s mind. This way, your readers can connect with the story and feel like they are a part of it.

Techniques to Show Empathy in Writing

Using emotions.

A compelling approach to conveying empathy in writing is through the skillful utilization of emotions. As you engage in the process of writing, strive to imagine the reader’s perspective, considering the range of emotions they might be experiencing. By empathetically connecting with their feelings, you can craft a narrative that resonates deeply and authentically.

Use words that convey your understanding of their emotions, such as “ I can imagine how frustrating that must be ” or “ I understand how overwhelming that can feel .” Acknowledging their feelings shows that you care and are empathetic toward their situation.

Sharing Stories

Sharing stories is another effective way to show empathy in writing. If you’ve been through a similar experience as your reader, share your story with them. This can help them feel understood and less alone.

Even if you haven’t been through the same situation, you can still share the stories of others who have. This can help your reader feel like they’re not the only ones going through what they’re experiencing.

Body Language

Body language is not only important in face-to-face interactions but also in writing. When you write, use body language  cues  to convey empathy. For example , use phrases like “I’m here for you” or “I’m listening” to show that you’re present and engaged.

You can also use physical descriptions, such as “ I can picture you feeling overwhelmed ” or “ I can imagine the weight of that burden .” These cues can help your reader feel heard and understood.

By using these techniques, you can show empathy in your writing and connect with your reader on a deeper level. Place yourself in their perspective, share stories, and use body language cues to convey your understanding and support.

The Importance of Active Listening

Active listening is the key to showing empathy in writing. It is a crucial skill that involves hearing what someone is saying and understanding their perspective. When we listen actively, we are showing the other person that we value their thoughts and feelings.

Listening Techniques

There are several techniques we can use to improve our active listening skills.

• It is important to give the speaker our full attention. This means putting aside distractions and focusing on what they are saying.
• We should try to understand the speaker’s perspective by putting ourselves in their shoes. This requires empathy and an open mind.

• Another important technique is to ask clarifying questions. This shows the speaker that we are interested in what they have to say and want to ensure we fully understand their message.
• We can also use non-verbal cues, such as nodding or maintaining eye contact, to show that we are engaged in the conversation.

Active listening is crucial for showing empathy in writing. By giving our full attention, understanding the speaker’s perspective, and asking clarifying questions, we can improve our ability to connect with others and convey empathy through our writing.

Building Connections through Empathy

Empathy is the key to building connections, bonds, relationships, and love in your writing. By understanding your readers’ feelings and perspectives, you can create a deeper connection with them. Use personal stories, anecdotes, and language that conveys love and compassion to show your readers that you care about their experiences.

Creating Bonds

Building connections with others is crucial in any form of communication. Empathy is the key to creating bonds with your readers. By understanding their feelings and perspectives, you can better connect with them on a personal level. Use phrases like “ I understand how you feel ” or “ I can relate to your situation ” to show your readers that you care about their experiences.

Building Relationships

Empathy is also essential in building long-lasting relationships  with your readers. You can establish trust and credibility by showing that you understand their needs and concerns. Use personal stories and anecdotes  to connect with your readers on a deeper level. Building relationships takes time and effort, but it’s ultimately worth it.

Love and Empathy

Love is the ultimate form of empathy . When you love someone, you are willing to understand their emotions and feelings without judgment. The same is true in writing. When you love your readers, you are willing to go the extra mile to connect with them and understand their needs. Use language that conveys love and compassion, such as “I care about you” or “I want the best for you.”

Empathy and Emotional Growth

Understanding emotions.

Empathy is essential to understand the emotions of others to be able to connect with them and communicate effectively . To show empathy, you need to be aware of your own emotions and be able to recognize and understand the emotions of others. Understanding emotions helps you to connect with others and build stronger relationships.

Fostering Compassion

Compassion is the ability to feel empathy and take action to alleviate the suffering of others. To nurture compassion, you need to practice empathy regularly. You can achieve this by engaging in active listening, empathetically placing yourself in the other person’s position, and responding with genuine kindness and understanding. Showing compassion can bring happiness to others and yourself.

Empathy and compassion are skills that can be developed and improved over time . Practicing empathy and compassion regularly can improve your emotional intelligence and build stronger relationships with others. Understanding emotions and fostering compassion is essential for emotional growth and well-being.

Practical Applications of Empathy in Writing

Empathy in action.

When writing with empathy, it’s critical to understand your audience’s perspective. Consider their experiences, emotions, and backgrounds when crafting your message . Use inclusive language and avoid assumptions or stereotypes that could alienate readers. Doing so demonstrates that you understand and respect their point of view.

Supporting Characters

Empathy is about understanding your readers and the characters in your writing. Develop your supporting characters with depth and complexity, giving them their own unique perspectives and experiences. This will make your writing more engaging and help readers relate to the characters and empathize with their struggles.

Appreciating Readers

Showing empathy also means acknowledging and appreciating your readers. Thank them for their time and attention, and show genuine interest in their feedback. Respond to comments and questions with kindness and understanding, even if you disagree with their perspective. By doing so, you build a relationship of trust and respect with your readers.

In practical terms, empathy in writing means using language and tone that resonates with your audience, creating characters that readers can relate to, and valuing your readers’ perspectives. Incorporating empathy into your writing can create a more meaningful and impactful message.

The presence of empathy in writing is not merely a superficial attribute but a transformative force that enables us to forge a genuine and lasting connection with our readers. When we embrace empathy, we transcend the limitations of words on a page, delving into the realm of emotions and shared experiences.

By empathetically understanding our readers’ needs, desires, and challenges, we can craft narratives that touch their hearts, inspire change, and leave a lasting impact.

Empathy in writing prompts us to step into our readers’ shoes, see the world through their eyes, and communicate with a deep sense of understanding and compassion. Through this empathetic lens, we can effectively address their concerns, evoke emotions, and provide solace or guidance.

The ultimate guide to connecting with readers lies in our ability to empathize. It requires us to engage in active listening, immerse ourselves in their perspectives, and respond authentically and sincerely. Doing so creates an environment of trust, vulnerability, and shared understanding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. what are some effective ways to convey empathy in writing.

One effective way to convey empathy in writing is to use language that acknowledges the other person’s feelings. This can be done by using phrases such as “I understand how you feel” or “I can imagine how difficult this must be for you.” Another way is to actively listen to the other person’s perspective and respond in a way that shows you understand their point of view.

Q. How can I make my characters more empathetic in my writing?

Giving your characters a backstory explaining their motivations and experiences is vital to make them more empathetic. This can help readers understand why the character behaves in a certain way and can make them more relatable. It’s also necessary to show the character actively listening to others and responding in a way that shows they understand their feelings.

Q. Why is it important to show empathy in writing?

Showing empathy in writing can help build stronger relationships and improve communication. It can also help people feel heard and understood, which can lead to more positive outcomes in personal and professional relationships.

Q. What are some examples of empathetic writing?

Empathetic writing can take many forms, such as a heartfelt letter to a friend, a blog post about a difficult experience, or a news article highlighting a marginalized group’s struggles. The key is to use language that acknowledges the feelings of others and shows a willingness to understand their perspective.

Q. How can I write an essay that demonstrates empathy?

To write an essay that demonstrates empathy, it’s necessary first to understand the topic from multiple perspectives. This can be done by researching different viewpoints and actively listening to others. It’s also significant to use language that acknowledges the feelings of others and shows a willingness to understand their perspective.

Q. What are some techniques for showing concern in writing?

Some techniques for showing concern in writing include using language that acknowledges the other person’s feelings, actively listening to their perspective, and responding to show you understand their point of view. Be genuine and authentic in your communication and avoid making assumptions or judgments about the other person’s experience.

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5 Empathic Reflection

• Published: July 2023
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Empathic reflections are used to communicate understanding of client communications and experiences. This chapter first presents definitions and subtypes of empathic reflections. It distinguishes between the response mode empathic reflection and the relational quality of empathy. The chapter discusses how empathic reflections are assessed and presents examples of successful and unsuccessful empathic reflections. The chapter presents a meta-analysis of 43 samples, which found virtually no relation between empathic reflection and effectiveness, both overall and separately for each of six effectiveness criteria. Weak support for reflections of change talk and summary reflections was found. Good and poor reflections may cancel each other, indicating the need to examine more carefully the quality of empathy sequences in response to empathic opportunities offered by clients and sensitively adjusted in response to client confirmation/disconfirmation. The chapter concludes with diversity considerations and implications for research, training, and practice.

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Home » Blog » General » Building Empathy through Practice: A Reflective Worksheet for Personal Growth

Building Empathy through Practice: A Reflective Worksheet for Personal Growth

Empathy is a crucial skill that plays a significant role in personal growth. It allows us to understand and connect with others on a deeper level, fostering stronger relationships and enhancing our problem-solving abilities. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of empathy and introduce a reflective worksheet that can help you build and strengthen your empathy skills.

Understanding Empathy

Before we delve into the reflective worksheet, let’s first understand what empathy truly means. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It goes beyond sympathy, which is merely feeling sorry for someone. Empathy requires us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and truly comprehend their emotions and experiences.

Developing empathy skills has numerous benefits. It allows us to build stronger connections with others, improves our communication skills, and enhances our problem-solving abilities. Empathy also promotes a sense of understanding and compassion, creating a more inclusive and supportive environment.

The Reflective Worksheet

The reflective worksheet is a powerful tool designed to help you develop and practice empathy. It provides a structured framework for self-reflection, allowing you to analyze your thoughts, emotions, and responses in various situations. By using this worksheet regularly, you can enhance your empathy skills and foster personal growth.

The purpose of the reflective worksheet is to guide you through a step-by-step process of building empathy. Let’s explore each step in detail:

1. Self-reflection on personal experiences

The first step of the worksheet involves reflecting on your personal experiences. Take some time to think about situations where you have encountered different emotions and perspectives. Consider both positive and negative experiences, as they can provide valuable insights into your own emotional landscape.

2. Identifying emotions and perspectives

Once you have identified specific experiences, focus on identifying the emotions and perspectives involved. Try to understand how you felt in those situations and what the other person might have been feeling. This step helps you develop a deeper understanding of emotions and perspectives, laying the foundation for empathy.

3. Practicing active listening

Active listening is a crucial component of empathy. It involves fully engaging with the speaker, paying attention to their words, body language, and emotions. Practice active listening by imagining yourself in the shoes of the person you are interacting with. This step helps you develop the ability to truly understand and connect with others.

4. Analyzing and evaluating responses

After practicing active listening, it’s important to analyze and evaluate your responses. Reflect on how you reacted in different situations and consider whether your responses were empathetic or not. This step helps you identify areas for improvement and develop strategies to respond more empathetically in the future.

5. Setting goals for improvement

The final step of the reflective worksheet involves setting goals for improvement. Based on your self-reflection and analysis, identify specific areas where you would like to enhance your empathy skills. Set realistic and achievable goals that align with your personal growth journey.

Benefits of Using the Empathy Worksheet

Using the empathy worksheet can have several positive impacts on your personal growth. Here are some of the key benefits:

Increased self-awareness

The reflective nature of the worksheet allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your own emotions and perspectives. This increased self-awareness can lead to personal growth and a better understanding of others.

Improved communication skills

By practicing active listening and analyzing your responses, you can improve your communication skills. Empathy is closely linked to effective communication, and using the worksheet can help you become a better listener and communicator.

Strengthened relationships

Empathy is the foundation of strong and meaningful relationships. By developing your empathy skills through the reflective worksheet, you can foster deeper connections with others and strengthen your relationships.

Enhanced problem-solving abilities

Empathy plays a crucial role in problem-solving. By understanding and considering the emotions and perspectives of others, you can approach problem-solving with a more holistic and inclusive mindset.

Tips for Effective Use of the Worksheet

To make the most out of the reflective worksheet, consider the following tips:

Find a quiet and comfortable space

Choose a quiet and comfortable space where you can focus and reflect without distractions. This will allow you to fully engage with the worksheet and your thoughts.

Set aside dedicated time for reflection

Allocate dedicated time for reflection using the worksheet. Consistency is key when it comes to personal growth, so make it a habit to regularly engage with the worksheet.

Be honest and open with yourself

When using the worksheet, be honest and open with yourself. Embrace vulnerability and allow yourself to explore your emotions and perspectives without judgment.

Seek feedback from trusted individuals

Consider seeking feedback from trusted individuals, such as friends, family members, or mentors. Their insights can provide valuable perspectives and help you further develop your empathy skills.

Additional Resources for Building Empathy

Building empathy is an ongoing journey, and there are several additional resources that can support your growth. Here are some recommendations:

Recommended books on empathy and emotional intelligence

– “Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It” by Roman Krznaric

– “The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill” by Karla McLaren

– “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” by Daniel Goleman

Online courses and workshops

Explore online courses and workshops that focus on building empathy and emotional intelligence. Platforms like EverydaySpeech offer comprehensive programs designed to enhance social-emotional learning skills.

Support groups and communities

Join support groups or communities that prioritize empathy and personal growth. These spaces provide opportunities for connection, learning, and sharing experiences with like-minded individuals.

Empathy is a powerful skill that can significantly contribute to personal growth. By using the reflective worksheet and practicing empathy regularly, you can enhance your self-awareness, improve your communication skills, strengthen your relationships, and enhance your problem-solving abilities. Start your journey towards building empathy today by using the reflective worksheet and embracing continuous improvement.

Start your EverydaySpeech Free trial and begin building empathy through practice: https://everydayspeech.com/start-free-trial/

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Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values Essay

It is a general human tendency to discover certain principles by which to govern one’s actions in dealing with other people. Over the course of their lives, people infer those general principles, either consciously or unconsciously, based on the outcomes of particular actions that they take. It is undoubtedly the case that people are greatly influenced by their culture in establishing a set of governing values.

However, I believe that one has to be critical towards the conventional values of one’s culture and try to go beyond the cultural norms in search of deals that can have deeper foundations. Over the course of my life, I have concluded that it is beneficial to consider three central notions as a frame of reference in determining the morality of each particular action. In my opinion, those values are empathy, equality, and justice.

I have always seen the ability to take the other’s perspective or empathize with him or her as the foundation of moral behavior. If we were not able to see others as beings similar to ourselves, we would not have any reason to consider their interests on a par with our own. It would be perfectly natural to use the other as a means to our own ends if we were not able to think about his or her needs as well. Therefore, I always try to view every situation in which I am involved from the perspective of all the other participants in order to grasp the accurate picture of that situation. This maneuver assures that everyone’s needs are addressed to the extent that it is possible. It also ensures that no one is hurt emotionally or in any other way.

Related to the principle of empathy is the notion of equality, which is extremely important as an addition to the ability to empathize. As it has been said, people have an impulse towards empathizing with others; however, the mere ability to feel the other’s pain and consider his or her desires is not enough if every person’s wants, needs, and emotions are not treated equally. For instance, many people were moved by the pain of the slaves they held, and yet, they simply did not see the slaves’ pain as equal to their own. The principle of equality compels us to have each individual as similar to everyone else and avoid making any sort of discrimination based on race, religion, nation, or class.

Finally, the third principle that I always consider when judging the moral character of my actions or the actions of others is justice. Given the two principles I have outlined above, justice can sometimes be a concept that is often in conflict with empathy and equality. For instance, when helping to resolve personal disputes between two people, if one empathizes with both sides and holds the interests of both sides as equal, no resolution can be reached.

The impulse towards justice means that a person who consciously disregards the interests and needs of others automatically reduces the need for consideration of their own interests in the eyes of others. I would claim, however, that one cannot wholly disregard empathy in order to serve justice because doing so can easily result in vengefulness, which I view as irrational and dehumanizing.

There are many examples where adherence to the values outlined above helped me to make a moral decision. For instance, empathy for those who suffer, or are in a position not favored by society, incited me to join and volunteer at several humanitarian organizations. I spent an entire summer volunteering at the Red Cross, where we prepared food for the homeless and helped in organizing many charities. I think that everyone should be involved in humanitarian activities to the extent that they can because helping others is not just our choice but a moral obligation.

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IvyPanda. (2021, April 4). Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empathy-equality-and-justice-as-reflective-values/

"Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values." IvyPanda , 4 Apr. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/empathy-equality-and-justice-as-reflective-values/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values'. 4 April.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values." April 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empathy-equality-and-justice-as-reflective-values/.

1. IvyPanda . "Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values." April 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empathy-equality-and-justice-as-reflective-values/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values." April 4, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empathy-equality-and-justice-as-reflective-values/.

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Charon R. Narrative Medicine : A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust . JAMA. 2001;286(15):1897–1902. doi:10.1001/jama.286.15.1897

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Narrative Medicine : A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust

Author Affiliation: Division of General Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York, NY.

The Patient-Physician Relationship Section Editor: Richard M. Glass, MD, Deputy Editor.

The effective practice of medicine requires narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence, called narrative medicine , is proposed as a model for humane and effective medical practice. Adopting methods such as close reading of literature and reflective writing allows narrative medicine to examine and illuminate 4 of medicine's central narrative situations: physician and patient, physician and self, physician and colleagues, and physicians and society. With narrative competence, physicians can reach and join their patients in illness, recognize their own personal journeys through medicine, acknowledge kinship with and duties toward other health care professionals, and inaugurate consequential discourse with the public about health care. By bridging the divides that separate physicians from patients, themselves, colleagues, and society, narrative medicine offers fresh opportunities for respectful, empathic, and nourishing medical care.

Ms Lambert (not her real name) is a 33-year-old woman with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Her grandmother, mother, 2 aunts, and 3 of her 4 siblings have the disabling disease as well. Her 2 nieces showed signs of the disease by the age of 2 years. Despite being wheelchair bound with declining use of her arms and hands, the patient lives a life filled with passion and responsibility.

"How's Phillip?" the physician asks on a routine medical follow-up visit. At the age of 7 years, Ms Lambert's son is vivacious, smart, and the center—and source of meaning—of the patient's world. The patient answers. Phillip has developed weakness in both feet and legs, causing his feet to flop when he runs. The patient knows what this signifies, even before neurologic tests confirm the diagnosis. Her vigil tinged with fear, she had been watching her son every day for 7 years, daring to believe that her child had escaped her family's fate. Now she is engulfed by sadness for her little boy. "It's harder having been healthy for 7 years," she says. "How's he going to take it?"

The physician, too, is engulfed by sadness as she listens to her patient, measuring the magnitude of her loss. She, too, had dared to hope for health for Phillip. The physician grieves along with the patient, aware anew of how disease changes everything, what it means, what it claims, how random is its unfairness, and how much courage it takes to look it full in the face.

Sick people need physicians who can understand their diseases, treat their medical problems, and accompany them through their illnesses. Despite medicine's recent dazzling technological progress in diagnosing and treating illnesses, physicians sometimes lack the capacities to recognize the plights of their patients, to extend empathy toward those who suffer, and to join honestly and courageously with patients in their illnesses. 1 , 2 A scientifically competent medicine alone cannot help a patient grapple with the loss of health or find meaning in suffering. Along with scientific ability, physicians need the ability to listen to the narratives of the patient, grasp and honor their meanings, and be moved to act on the patient's behalf. This is narrative competence, that is, the competence that human beings use to absorb, interpret, and respond to stories. This essay describes narrative competence and suggests that it enables the physician to practice medicine with empathy, reflection, professionalism, and trustworthiness. 3 Such a medicine can be called narrative medicine . 4

As a model for medical practice, narrative medicine proposes an ideal of care and provides the conceptual and practical means to strive toward that ideal. Informed by such models as biopsychosocial medicine and patient-centered medicine to look broadly at the patient and the illness, narrative medicine provides the means to understand the personal connections between patient and physician, the meaning of medical practice for the individual physician, physicians' collective profession of their ideals, and medicine's discourse with the society it serves. 5 , 6 Narrative medicine simultaneously offers physicians the means to improve the effectiveness of their work with patients, themselves, their colleagues, and the public.

To adopt the model of narrative medicine provides access to a large body of theory and practice that examines and illuminates narrative acts. 7 From the humanities, and especially literary studies, physicians can learn how to perform the narrative aspects of their practice with new effectiveness. Not so much a new specialty as a new frame for clinical work, narrative medicine can give physicians and surgeons the skills, methods, and texts to learn how to imbue the facts and objects of health and illness with their consequences and meanings for individual patients and physicians. 8 , 9

Not only medicine but also nursing, law, history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and government have recently realized the importance of narrative knowledge. 10 - 13 Narrative knowledge is what one uses to understand the meaning and significance of stories through cognitive, symbolic, and affective means. This kind of knowledge provides a rich, resonant comprehension of a singular person's situation as it unfolds in time, whether in such texts as novels, newspaper stories, movies, and scripture or in such life settings as courtrooms, battlefields, marriages, and illnesses. 14 - 16 As literary critic R. W. B. Lewis 17 writes, "Narrative deals with experiences, not with propositions." Unlike its complement, logicoscientific knowledge, through which a detached and replaceable observer generates or comprehends replicable and generalizable notices, narrative knowledge leads to local and particular understandings about one situation by one participant or observer. 18 , 19 Logicoscientific knowledge attempts to illuminate the universally true by transcending the particular; narrative knowledge attempts to illuminate the universally true by revealing the particular.

Narrative considerations probe the intersubjective domains of human knowledge and activity, that is to say, those aspects of life that are enacted in the relation between 2 persons. Literary scholar Barbara Herrnstein Smith 20 defines narrative discourse as "someone telling someone else that something happened," emphasizing narrative's requirement for a teller and a listener, a writer and a reader, a communion of some sort.

The narratively competent reader or listener realizes that the meaning of any narrative—a novel, a textbook, a joke—must be judged in the light of its narrative situation: Who tells it? Who hears it? Why and how is it told? 21 - 23 The narratively skilled reader further understands that the meaning of a text arises from the ground between the writer and the reader, 24 , 25 and that "the reader," as Henry James writes in an essay on George Eliot, "does quite half the labour." 26 With narrative competence, multiple sources of local—and possibly contradicting—authority replace master authorities; instead of being monolithic and hierarchically given, meaning is apprehended collaboratively, by the reader and the writer, the observer and the observed, the physician and the patient.

Medicine has never been without narrative concerns, because, as an enterprise in which one human being extends help to another, it has always been grounded in life's intersubjective domain. 27 , 28 Like narrative, medical practice requires the engagement of one person with another and realizes that authentic engagement is transformative for all participants.

As a legacy of the developments in primary care in the 1960s and 1970s, patient-physician communication, and medical humanities, medicine has become increasingly schooled in narrative knowledge in general and the narratives of patients and physicians in particular. 29 - 31 This growing narrative sophistication has provided medicine with new and useful ways in which to consider patient-physician relationships, diagnostic reasoning, medical ethics, and professional training. 32 - 35 Medicine can, as a result, better understand the experiences of sick people, the journeys of individual physicians, and the duties incurred by physicians toward individual patients and by the profession of medicine toward its wider culture. 36 - 38

Medical practice unfolds in a series of complex narrative situations, including the situations between the physician and the patient, the physician and himself or herself, the physician and colleagues, and physicians and society. The following sections will summarize the contributions of narrative medicine to each of these 4 situations. Other important narrative situations exist in medicine as well, although they will not be discussed in this essay, such as between the physician and his or her family, between patients and their family members, and among patients.

As patient meets physician, a conversation ensues. A story—a state of affairs or a set of events—is recounted by the patient in his or her acts of narrating, resulting in a complicated narrative of illness told in words, gestures, physical findings, and silences and burdened not only with the objective information about the illness but also with the fears, hopes, and implications associated with it. 39 As in psychoanalysis, in all of medical practice the narrating of the patient's story is a therapeutically central act, because to find the words to contain the disorder and its attendant worries gives shape to and control over the chaos of illness. 40 - 43

As the physician listens to the patient, he or she follows the narrative thread of the story, imagines the situation of the teller (the biological, familial, cultural, and existential situation), recognizes the multiple and often contradictory meanings of the words used and the events described, and in some way enters into and is moved by the narrative world of the patient. 44 , 45 Not unlike acts of reading literature, acts of diagnostic listening enlist the listener's interior resources—memories, associations, curiosities, creativity, interpretive powers, allusions to other stories told by this teller and others—to identify meaning. 46 Only then can the physician hear—and then attempt to face, if not to answer fully—the patient's narrative questions: "What is wrong with me?" "Why did this happen to me?" and "What will become of me?"

Listening to stories of illness and recognizing that there are often no clear answers to patients' narrative questions demand the courage and generosity to tolerate and to bear witness to unfair losses and random tragedies. 47 Accomplishing such acts of witnessing allows the physician to proceed to his or her more recognizably clinical narrative tasks: to establish a therapeutic alliance, to generate and proceed through a differential diagnosis, 48 to interpret physical findings and laboratory reports correctly, to experience and convey empathy for the patient's experience, 49 and, as a result of all these, to engage the patient in obtaining effective care.

If the physician cannot perform these narrative tasks, the patient might not tell the whole story, might not ask the most frightening questions, and might not feel heard. 50 The resultant diagnostic workup might be unfocused and therefore more expensive than need be, the correct diagnosis might be missed, the clinical care might be marked by noncompliance and the search for another opinion, and the therapeutic relationship might be shallow and ineffective.

Despite—or, more radically, because of—economic forces that shrink the time available for conversation and that limit the continuity of clinical relationships, medicine has begun to affirm the importance of telling and listening to the stories of illness. As practice speeds up, physicians need all the more powerful methods for achieving empathic and effective therapeutic relationships. Narrative skills can provide such methods to help physicians join with their patients, honoring all they tell them.

Altruism, compassion, respectfulness, loyalty, humility, courage, and trustworthiness become etched into the physician's skeleton by the authentic care of the sick. Physicians absorb and display the inevitable results of being submerged in pain, unfairness, and suffering while being buoyed by the extraordinary courage, resourcefulness, faith, and love they behold every day in practice.

Through authentic engagement with their patients, physicians can cultivate affirmation of human strength, acceptance of human weakness, familiarity with suffering, and a capacity to forgive and be forgiven. Diagnosis and treatment of disease require schooled and practiced use of these narrative capacities of the physician. Indeed, it may be that the physician's most potent therapeutic instrument is the self, which is attuned to the patient through engagement, on the side of the patient through compassion, and available to the patient through reflection. 51

Reflective practitioners can identify and interpret their own emotional responses to patients, can make sense of their own life journeys, and so can grant what is called for—and called forth—in facing sick and dying patients. 52 , 53 When sociologists studied medicine in the 1960s, they observed physicians to practice medicine with "detached concern." 54 Somehow, this field observation became a normative prescription, and physicians for decades seemed to consider detachment a goal. Today, relying on newly emerging knowledge from narrative disciplines, physicians are learning to practice medicine with not detached but engaged concern, an approach that requires disciplined and steady reflection on one's practice. 55 - 57

As reflective practitioners, physicians have turned to a study of the humanities, especially literature, to grow in their personal understanding of illness. 58 Literature seminars and reading groups have become commonplace in medical schools and hospitals, both for physicians to read well-written stories about illness and to deepen their skills as readers, interpreters, and conjurers of the worlds of others. 59 - 61 Having learned that acts of reflective narrating illuminate aspects of the patient's story—and of their own—that are unavailable without the telling, physicians are writing about their patients in special columns in professional journals and in books and essays published in the lay press. 62 - 65 Increasingly, physicians allow patients to read what they have written about them, adding a therapeutic dimension to a practice born of the need for reflection. 66 Through the narrative processes of reflection and self-examination, both physicians and patients can achieve more accurate understandings of all the sequelae of illness, equipping them to better weather its tides.

The ordinary, day-to-day professional actions of physicians in research, teaching, and collegial life are saturated with narrative work and can be made more effective once recognized as such. It is only with narrative competence that research proceeds, teaching succeeds, clinical colleagueship achieves its goals, and the profession of medicine remains grounded in its timeless, selfless commitment to health.

Scientific research results from the muscular narrative thrust of first imagining and then testing scientific hypotheses, and it relies on narrative inventiveness and imagination as well as scientific training. 67 Like medicine's theoretical knowledge, its practical knowledge is issued in narrative and mastered through time. The student becomes the physician by functioning as a medium for medicine's continuity of knowledge, learning about diseases in the process of living through their passages. 68 No physician mobilizes his or her practical knowledge about a disease without having mastered the sequential stories imagined, over time, to explain its symptoms, from dropsy to the downward limb of the Starling curve to diastolic dysfunction.

In professional life, physicians rely on one another—as audience, witness, reader—for honesty, criticism, forgiveness, and the gutsy blend of uncertainty and authority contained in the phrase, "We see this." 69 From interns up all night together to the surgeon and the internist moving through the dark of a patient's illness, physicians grow to know one another with the intimacy and the contention of siblings, affirming one another's triumphs, hearing one another's errors, and comforting one another's grief. 70

Medicine is considered a profession because of, in part, the strength of these bonds among physicians. Certified to educate and to police one another, physicians accrue responsibility for one another's competence and conscience. Recent urgent calls for professionalism signal physicians' widening failures to accept and enact their commitment to individually and collectively uphold their profession's ideals. 71 , 72 Instead, physicians seem isolated from one another and from their colleagues in nursing, social work, and other health professions and divided from their ideals and disconnected from their broad professional goals in the face of narrow, competitive drives toward individual distinction or reward. 73

To profess is a narrative act. Perhaps the most effective methods to strengthen professionalism in medicine are to endow physicians with the competence required to fulfill their narrative duties toward one another: to envision the stories of science, to teach individual students responsibly, to give and accept collegial oversight, and to kindle and enforce the intersubjective kinship bonds among health care professionals. Only when physicians have the narrative skills to recognize medicine's ideals, swear to one another to be governed by them, and hold one another accountable to them can they live up to the profession to serve as physicians.

Physicians are conspicuous members of their cultures, anointed as agents of social control who deploy special powers to rescue, heal, and take command. Granting tonic authority to its physicians while regarding them with chronic suspicion, the public commands physicians to understand and treat disease while doing no harm. While holding physicians accountable to these public expectations, patients also yearn for such private benevolence from their physicians as tenderness in the face of pain, courage in the face of danger, and comfort in the face of death.

Of late, medicine in the United States has experienced highly publicized reversals in public trust with accusations of overbilling for services, withholding from patients the potential risks of research, and deriving financial benefit from professional knowledge. 74 , 75 Medicine's—if not individual physicians'—trustworthiness has been called into question. 76 , 77 Yet, patients realize that they cannot explicitly tell physicians how to practice medicine. They must have implicit trust in the virtue and wisdom of those who care for the sick.

The contradictions between a medical system that must be governed from outside and a medical system that has earned the public trust have achieved great urgency. The US culture is now actively and contentiously restructuring its health care system. Having experienced the early phases of a marketplace-driven health care system and having failed in its first attempt at health care system reform, the nation is attempting to open collective discourse in politics and the media about the value to be placed on health and health care. 78 , 79

Only sophisticated narrative powers will lead to the conversations that society needs to have about its medical system. Physicians have to find ways to talk simply, honestly, and deeply with patients, families, other health care professionals, and citizens. Together, they must make responsible choices about pain, suffering, justice, and mercy. Not scientific or rational debates, these are grave and daring conversations about meaning, values, and courage. They require sophisticated narrative understanding on all conversationalists' parts of the multiple sources of meaning and the collaborative nature of authority called on to resolve issues of health and illness. With the narrative competence necessary for serious and consequential discourse, patients and physicians together can describe and work toward a medical system undivided in effectiveness, compassion, and care.

Narrative medicine suggests that many dimensions of medical research, teaching, and practice are imbued with narrative considerations and can be made more effective with narrative competence. Already, a spontaneous interest in narrative medicine has germinated from many centers in the United States and abroad, confirming the usefulness and fit of these frameworks and practices for medicine and other health care professions. 80 - 82 As the conceptual vision of narrative medicine becomes coherent, research agendas and action plans unfold.

The hypotheses to be tested are provocative and wide ranging. It may be that the physician equipped with the narrative capacities to recognize the plight of the patient fully and to respond with reflective engagement can achieve more effective treatment than can the physician unequipped to do so. Medical educators may find that applicants already gifted with narrative skills are better able to develop into effective physicians than are students deficient in them.

Programs have been under way for some time in incorporating narrative work into many aspects of medical education and practice. The teaching of literature in medical schools has become widely accepted as a primary means to teach about the patient's experience and the physician's interior development. 83 Narrative writing by students and physicians has become a staple in many medical schools and hospitals to strengthen reflection, self-awareness, and the adoption of patients' perspectives. 84 - 87 The practice of bioethics has adopted narrative theory and methods to reach beyond a rule-based, legalistic enterprise toward an individualized and meaning-based practice. 88 , 89 Certainly, more and more patients have insisted on achieving a narrative mastery over the events of illness, not only to unburden themselves of painful thoughts and feelings but, more fundamentally, to claim such events as parts, however unwelcome, of their lives. 90 , 91

Adding to early evidence of the usefulness of narrative practices, rigorous ethnographic and outcomes studies using samples of adequate size and control have been undertaken to ascertain the influences on students, physicians, and patients of narrative practices. 92 , 93 Along with such outcomes research are scholarly efforts to uncover the basic mechanisms, pathways, intermediaries, and consequences of narrative practices, supplying the "basic science" of theoretical foundations and conceptual frameworks for these new undertakings.

The description of Ms Lambert at the beginning of this article was written by her physician (the author) after a recent office visit and shown to her on the subsequent visit. As Ms Lambert read the words, she realized more clearly the anguish she had been enduring. Her sisters had dismissed her concerns, saying she was imagining things about Phillip, and that had added to her own suffering. She felt relieved that her physician seemed to understand her pain, and she told the physician what her sisters had said.

"Can I show this to my sisters?" Ms Lambert asked her physician. "Then maybe they can help me."

This essay has outlined the emergence of narrative medicine, a medicine infused with respect for the narrative dimensions of illness and caregiving. Through systematic and rigorous training in such narrative skills as close reading, reflective writing, and authentic discourse with patients, physicians and medical students can improve their care of individual patients, commitment to their own health and fulfillment, care of their colleagues, and continued fidelity to medicine's ideals. By bridging the divides that separate the physician from the patient, the self, colleagues, and society, narrative medicine can help physicians offer accurate, engaged, authentic, and effective care of the sick.

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Self Reflection: Inner Reflection – Discovering Authenticity Amid Life’s Chaos

This essay about the importance of self-reflection amidst the chaos of modern life emphasizes the profound benefits of turning inward to understand ourselves better. It explores how self-reflection offers a sanctuary of tranquility where we can uncover our authentic selves by peeling away societal expectations and external pressures. Through mindfulness and introspection, we gain clarity, wisdom, and resilience, empowering us to navigate life’s challenges with grace and compassion. The essay underscores the transformative power of self-awareness in fostering empathy, connection, and a deeper understanding of our shared humanity. It encourages readers to embrace self-reflection as a pathway to personal growth, fulfillment, and a more meaningful existence.

How it works

In the dizzying whirlwind of contemporary existence, amid the clamor of daily obligations, it’s all too easy to lose sight of the most vital relationship we’ll ever have—the one we hold with ourselves. In the midst of chasing ambitions and wrestling with responsibilities, self-reflection stands as an oasis of tranquility, a haven where we can pause, turn inward, and reacquaint ourselves with the very essence of who we are.

At its essence, self-reflection is a journey inward—an intentional and conscious effort to plumb the depths of our being.

It’s not a mere recounting of past events or a dwelling on regrets; instead, it’s a nuanced process of introspection that encompasses the full spectrum of our thoughts, emotions, values, and dreams. Through self-reflection, we strip away the layers of societal expectations, external pressures, and self-imposed limitations to unveil the raw authenticity that lies at our core.

In the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, the art of self-reflection often gets drowned out by the incessant clamor for productivity and success. We’re bombarded incessantly by stimuli—social media pings, looming deadlines, constant news updates—leaving little room for serene contemplation. Yet, it’s precisely in these moments of quiet introspection that the most profound revelations occur.

Self-reflection need not entail elaborate rituals or extensive time commitments. It can be as simple as carving out a few precious moments each day to sit in stillness, allowing our thoughts to settle and our inner voice to surface. It’s about cultivating a space for mindfulness, where we can observe our thoughts and emotions with gentle curiosity and unwavering compassion, free from the shackles of judgment or distraction.

Through self-reflection, we attain clarity amidst chaos, wisdom amidst uncertainty. We begin to discern the intricate patterns and tendencies that shape our actions, unraveling the complexities of our beliefs and motivations. By acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses, our triumphs and tribulations, we cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness—a cornerstone of personal evolution and contentment.

Moreover, self-reflection serves as a bulwark against adversity, fostering resilience in the face of life’s inevitable challenges. By confronting our fears and vulnerabilities head-on, we cultivate the inner fortitude to navigate tumultuous waters with grace and tenacity. Rather than succumbing to self-doubt or despair, we leverage the power of self-reflection to transmute setbacks into opportunities for growth and enlightenment.

Furthermore, self-reflection nurtures empathy and compassion, both towards ourselves and others. As we delve into the recesses of our own experiences, we gain a profound appreciation for the intricacies of the human condition. We come to realize that beneath the veneer of outward appearances lie shared struggles, aspirations, and yearnings—a realization that fosters empathy and kindles connection.

In a world marred by division and discord, self-reflection emerges as a potent force for reconciliation and understanding. It reminds us of our shared humanity, of the universal quest for meaning and belonging that unites us all as fellow travelers on this cosmic voyage.

Yet, self-reflection is not without its trials. It demands courage to confront the parts of ourselves we’d rather keep concealed, to embrace our flaws and imperfections without succumbing to self-recrimination or shame. It requires patience and persistence, as insights may not manifest immediately but instead unfold gradually over time.

Nevertheless, the fruits of self-reflection are bountiful. In a world that often lures us outward, tempting us with the allure of external validation and superficial distractions, self-reflection beckons us to journey inward—to rediscover the wellspring of wisdom and resilience that resides within each of us.

As we embark on this odyssey of self-discovery, let us approach it with humility and receptivity, embracing both the light and shadows within ourselves. Let us cultivate a spirit of curiosity and self-compassion, recognizing that the path to authenticity is paved with the stones of self-reflection. And let us remember that in knowing ourselves, we lay the groundwork for living a life of purpose, passion, and profound fulfillment.

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Reflective Essay on Empathy

The virtue I feel I need in my life is empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is caring for another person, and understanding what they are going through. I struggle with empathy. I have a hard time understanding what another is going through, especially if I have not experienced the situation before. 

Empathy is a way to show you care for one another. Without empathy, you can come across as ignorant and rude. I know at times I have come across that way because I did not know how to show empathy for the person. Working on showing empathy can teach me how to express care for what another person is dealing with. Empathy is needed for a person to become their best self. This is because when we interact with others, we come off as friendly and caring. Coming off as rude or ignorant is not what creates a “good person”. I would be considered a “good person”, someone who cares for one another.

If I possessed more empathy in my life, I could help and show care for more people. I could help those who are going through hard times, by showing understanding of what they are going through. I could help care for another person. I feel empathy is needed in everyone's life, especially mine. When I possess more empathy, I show more compassion and make other people feel better. By showing more people you care about them, you are showing love. God shows his love to us, therefore we should show others we love and care for them. By showing I love and care for others this is helping me become a good moral person. 

Empathy would help me to become a better person. By changing bad habits, and teaching myself to understand others situations, I improve my character. BY improving my character, I can also help others improve their character. By showing more people empathy, I not only help myself but also make a positive impact on others around me. 

The second virtue I feel I need in my life is openness. Openness is being accepting of ideas and new changes. Openness allows you to experience new ideas and changes instead of something you already know or understand. Openness is benign, open to trying new activities, listening to new ideas, and even trying new foods. When you are open to the world, you can experience many new things, and experience can improve who you are as a person. 

I struggle with not being open to new ideas or actions. I like experiencing the same, and not trying something new. If I became more open I could expand who I am. I do not like trying new foods. I have a mindset that I feel it's okay to always eat the same food over and over again without trying something else. I am not open to new ideas, and would like to work on that. I am also not always open to other people's ideas. It can be hard for me to feel open about trying someone else's idea because I feel as if I already have the solution to the problem. This can cause me to be closed off to other people's ideas, and I do not want that. This is why I would want to work on being more open with others, and new ideas. 

If I became more open, a lot would change in my character. Being open would lead me to more learning experiences, and learning experiences would help me grow into a better person. Also, if I were more open, I could view solutions to a problem from someone else's point of view. That would help me to learn how others think differently than me. Seeing how others think differently than me would help me to realize the many different ways of dealing with problems. Being more open would also show me other people's thoughts/options. It would lead me to have a different view from my own thoughts/opinions. 

If I were to be more open, I would learn more about the world and people around me. Knowing more about everything around me would help me to improve myself into a more open person. A person who would listen to others ideas. A person who would not mind trying something new. Being open would teach  me lessons, and make myself more awhere.

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Digging Deep into Purpose and Importance of Reflective Essay

Reflection writing is a powerful tool for students and professionals as they offer a unique opportunity for self-exploration, growth, and understanding. This guide on the importance and purpose of  reflective essays  aims to change your perception of writing and shed light on the many benefits of incorporating reflection into your life. With our amazing  paper help  resources and expert guidance, you can master the art of reflective essay writing and unlock your full potential.

Table of Contents

What is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay is a type of writing that allows the author to explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a structured and analytical manner. This form of writing encourages critical thinking and personal growth by examining the author’s experiences, thoughts, actions, and reactions. 

Reflective essays often focus on personal development, learning experiences, or the impact of specific events on the author’s life. However, reflection writing is also used for  college essays  or other forms of academic writing.

Types of Reflection Writing

Reflection essays come in various forms, each with its unique focus and purpose. In this note, we will delve into five types of reflective writing;

Personal Reflective Writing

Professional reflection, academic reflective essay, creative reflection.

• Social or Cultural Reflection Writing

Understanding these different approaches will enable you to choose the most suitable reflection essay type for your needs and make your writing more coherent, insightful and trustworthy.

Journaling, manifestation dairies, and written meditations are common ideas. But would you believe these are all forms and branches of personal reflection writing?

Personal reflection essays explore what you’re going through, emotionally, mentally, and provide insights. These could be about their learning, inner conflicts, resolutions and growth.

This type of reflective writing allows individuals to examine their values, beliefs, and actions, fostering self-awareness and personal development. 

Personal reflection essays may focus on topics such as significant life events, personal challenges, or the impact of relationships on one’s identity and growth.

Professional reflection writing is common in academic or workplace settings. They involve analyzing personal and professional skills and challenges and identifying areas for improvement. 

This reflection essay encourages individuals to examine their professional experiences, decisions, and outcomes, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills. 

Professional reflection essays may focus on workplace conflicts, leadership experiences, or developing specific professional competencies.

As a  college paper writing service  platform, we know that most students are intimidated by reflective essay writing. In an academic setting, the reflection essay blurs the lines between informal and formal writing. 

You might be assigned an essay account of your experience with an event, but you’ll still need to follow strict rules of academic writing, i.e., formatting or  organizing a paper . 

Academic reflective writing involves analyzing and evaluating academic materials, such as readings, lectures, or research projects, and connecting them to personal experiences or broader concepts. 

It encourages students to engage with course content on a deeper level, fostering a better understanding of the material and its relevance to their lives and future careers.

For example:

You can be assigned to write a reflection essay on  modernism in literature . You’d have to write your thoughts and observations about this era. Still, you must follow the rules like citation, proper referencing, and contextual analysis of the ideas presented in that era. 

Creative reflection essays are often utilized in artistic or creative fields, allowing individuals to examine their creative process, inspirations, and outcomes. 

This reflective writing fosters self-awareness, critical thinking, and artistic growth, enabling individuals to explore their creative motivations, challenges, and successes. 

Creative reflection essays may focus on topics such as the development of a specific artistic project, the influence of personal experiences on one’s creative work, or the role of collaboration in the creative process.

Social or Cultural Reflection

These reflection essays focus on exploring and understanding social or cultural phenomena. It involves analyzing personal experiences, observations, or interactions with others and reflecting on their significance and broader societal implications. 

Social or cultural reflection essays encourage individuals to engage with the world around them, fostering empathy, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of social and cultural issues. 

These essays may focus on topics such as the impact of social media on interpersonal relationships, the role of cultural identity in shaping one’s worldview, or the challenges of navigating diverse social environments.

Students must grasp all of these forms of reflective essay writing. Understanding the different types of reflective writing and their unique purposes is required for crafting effective reflection essays.

By selecting the most appropriate reflection essay type for your needs, you can create a coherent, understandable, and persuasive piece of writing that fosters personal and professional growth.

Reflective writing offers a valuable opportunity for self-exploration, critical thinking, and meaningful learning, whether you are exploring your personal experiences, professional challenges, academic materials, creative endeavors, or social and cultural phenomena.

 What is the Purpose of Reflective Essay Writing?

The amazing thing about reflective essay writing is that, although we have discussed its few meaningful purposes, there’s still a long list to cover. 

These numerous goals are particularly for students dealing with academic stress and professionals experiencing work-related challenges. Here are 8 key purposes of reflective paper writing. 

• Self-awareness : Reflective essays help individuals develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their values, beliefs, and emotions.
• Critical thinking : It encourages the examination of one’s thoughts and experiences, fostering the development of critical thinking skills.
• Personal growth : Reflection writing enables individuals to learn from their experiences, identify areas for improvement, and set goals for personal development.
• Problem-solving : Reflection essay writing can help identify the root causes of problems and generate potential solutions.
• Emotional processing : Writing about emotional experiences can help individuals process and cope with their feelings.
• Learning from mistakes : Reflection writing encourages individuals to examine their failures, learn from them, and develop resilience.
• Enhancing communication skills : Reflective writing helps improve written communication skills and promotes effective self-expression.
• Empathy development:  The reflective essays can foster empathy by encouraging individuals to consider the perspectives and experiences of others.

Why Is Reflection Essay Important for Students?

Reflection writing is a crucial aspect of a student’s academic journey. Here are several reasons why reflection writing is essential for students:

Promotes Self-Awareness

Self-awareness in a student involves recognizing their academic learning style, studying habits, strengths, and weaknesses. Reflective Writing plays a crucial role in building self-awareness in students. 

Most students struggle with consulting adults or peers with issues like processing information, retaining knowledge, and solving problems effectively. They have a hard time coming to terms with certain values, beliefs, goals, and emotions. 

And an even harder time in exploring and creating their identities. Practicing reflective thought writing enables students to make informed decisions, set realistic goals, and develop healthy relationships. 

Self-aware students take ownership of their learning and personal development, seeking feedback, reflecting on experiences, and adapting their approaches. Thus, reflective essay writing contributes to effective communication, collaboration, and navigating challenges.

Develops Critical Thinking Skills

Reflective writing develops critical thinking skills in students by prompting them to analyze and evaluate their thoughts, experiences, and perspectives. 

It encourages questioning assumptions, considering alternative viewpoints, and making informed judgments. Students practice higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation through reflection. 

They learn to articulate their ideas clearly and support them with evidence. Overall, reflective writing plays a crucial role in fostering critical thinking by promoting deep thinking, evaluation of evidence, and effective communication of thoughts.

Practical Academic Stress Dealing

Reflective writing induces practical academic stress dealing in students by improving self-expression, facilitating self-composition, promoting goal-setting and problem-solving, enhancing writing skills, and fulfilling academic requirements. These benefits empower students to navigate their academic challenges more effectively and succeed in their studies.

• Improves self-expression : Reflection writing helps students enhance their written communication skills and promotes effective self-expression, which is vital for academic success and personal growth.
• Self-composition:  Reflective writing allows students to compose their thoughts and ideas in a structured and coherent manner. It encourages them to organize their reflections, leading to clearer and more articulate writing.
• Setting better goals:  Engaging in reflective writing prompts students to set better academic goals. It helps them assess their strengths and weaknesses, identify areas for improvement, and establish realistic objectives for their studies.
• Problem-solving : Reflective writing encourages students to analyze academic challenges and develop strategies to overcome them. It fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills, enabling students to tackle obstacles and find effective solutions.
• Organized and better-polished writing skills : Regular practice of reflective writing hones students’ writing skills. It enhances their ability to structure their thoughts, use appropriate language, and present coherent arguments, leading to more organized and polished writing.
• Fulfills academic requirements : Reflective essays are often assigned as part of the coursework, and students need to write them to meet academic requirements. Developing reflection writing skills ensures students can effectively complete these assignments while meeting the expectations of their instructors.

Navigating Life Transitions 

Students often face significant life transitions, such as moving away from home or choosing a career path. Reflection essay writing can help them process these changes, identify their goals, and make informed decisions. 

By engaging in reflective writing, students can explore their thoughts, emotions, and experiences related to the transitions they are facing. This process allows them to gain clarity, understand their values and aspirations, and evaluate different options. 

Reflective writing is a valuable tool for self-reflection and self-discovery, empowering students to navigate life’s transitions with a deeper understanding of themselves and their desired path forward.

Addresses Emotional and Mental Conflicts 

Students may experience emotional or  mental conflicts  due to various factors, such as relationships, academic pressure, or personal issues. Reflection writing provides an opportunity to explore and resolve these conflicts, promoting mental well-being. 

By engaging in reflective writing, students can express and process their emotions, gain insights into their turmoil’s underlying causes, and develop coping and problem-solving strategies. It offers a safe and therapeutic outlet for self-expression, self-reflection, and self-care. 

Reflective essay writing empowers students to navigate their emotional and mental challenges, fostering resilience, self-awareness, and overall psychological well-being.

Balancing Work and Studies 

Many students juggle work and studies simultaneously. Reflection writing can help them assess their time management and prioritization skills, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies to maintain a healthy work-study balance.

Encourages Empathy Development

Reflective essays can foster empathy by encouraging students to consider the perspectives and experiences of others, an essential skill for building strong relationships and navigating diverse social environments.

Reflection Essay Writing Format

Reflection essays require a structured approach to ensure coherence and clarity in presenting one’s thoughts, emotions, and experiences. This detailed tutorial will provide an overview of the reflection essay writing format and offer instructions on how to apply APA and  MLA formatting to your reflection essay.

A well-structured reflection essay typically includes the following elements:

• Introduction : Provide an overview of the topic or experience you will be reflecting on and briefly explain its significance.
• Description : Describe the experience or event in detail, including relevant facts, feelings, and observations.
• Analysis : Examine your thoughts, emotions, and reactions to the experience, and consider the factors that influenced your response.
• Evaluation : Assess the impact of the experience on your personal growth, learning, or development and discuss any lessons learned.
• Conclusion : Summarize your reflections, reiterate the significance of the experience, and discuss any future implications or goals.

APA Formatting for Reflection Essays

The American Psychological Association ( APA ) formatting style is commonly used in social sciences and education. Here are the key formatting instructions for a reflection essay in  APA  style:

• Title Page : Include a title page with the title of your essay, your name, and the name of your institution, all centered and double-spaced.
• Running Head : Include a running head on the top-left corner of each page, consisting of a shortened version of your essay title (in capital letters) and the page number.
• Font and Spacing : Use a 12-point, Times New Roman font with double-spacing throughout the essay.
• Margins : Set 1-inch margins on all sides of the page.
• Headings : Use headings to organize your essay, with level one headings centered and bold, level two headings flush left and bold, and level three headings flush left, bold, and italicized.
• Citations :  If you refer to any external sources, use in-text citations with the author’s last name and the publication year in parentheses.
• Reference List : Include a reference list at the end of your essay, with a centered and bold “References” heading, and list all cited sources in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

MLA Formatting for Reflection Essays

The Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting style is commonly used in humanities and liberal arts. Here are the key formatting instructions for a reflection essay in MLA style:

• Header :  Include a header on the top-right corner of each page, consisting of your last name and the page number.
• Title :  Center the title of your essay at the top of the first page, using standard capitalization. Do not underline, italicize, or place the title in quotation marks.
• Indentation : Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches.
• Citations :  If you refer to any external sources, use in-text citations with the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses.
• Works Cited : Include a Works Cited page at the end of your essay, with a centered “Works Cited” heading, and list all cited sources in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

Topics for Reflection Essays

Reflective essay topics can vary widely, depending on the individual’s experiences, interests, and goals. Some examples of reflective essay topics include:

• A significant personal experience and its impact on your life.
• A challenging academic or professional situation and the lessons learned.
• A personal or professional failure and how it has shaped your development.
• A meaningful relationship or encounter with someone who has influenced your perspective.
• A volunteer or community service experience and its effect on your values or beliefs.
• A time when you faced a moral or ethical dilemma and how you resolved it.
• A personal or professional goal and the steps taken to achieve it.
• A cultural or travel experience that broadened your understanding of the world.

Examples of Reflective Essay

Our writers have written numerous examples of reflective essays here are some of them. 

Reflection Essay Example 1

A Poetic Turnaround: How an Online Assignment Platform Reshaped My Perception

Reflection Paper Example 2 

A Day Among Colors and Canvas: Art Exhibition at School 

Reflection Writing Example 3 

Spinning the Semester Around: Witnessing a Friend Succeeding in Their Academic Battles 

Reflective essay writing can polish your being in many ways. By understanding the purpose and importance of reflective essays, as well as mastering the format and selecting meaningful topics, you can transform your writing and unlock the full potential of self-reflection. For additional help, you can avail of our top-of-the-line writing service and confidently pursue your goals, knowing you have the best support for securing impressive grades.

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Home Essay Examples Life Empathy

Empathy and Understanding: Critical Reflection of Incident

• Category Life
• Subcategory Emotions & Feelings , Life Experiences
• Topic Empathy

Introduction

This essay aims to give a critical reflection of an incident that occurred while working on placement at a mental health care setting. The Gibbs’ Reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1988) will be used as this is a popular model of reflection. Reflective practice is widely used by healthcare practioner’s and is the process of learning through and from an experience or activity to gain new understandings of self-and/or practice (Jasper, 2013). The Gibbs reflective cycle which dates back to 1988 and encompasses six stages of reflection. This essay reflects on the insights I gained while assisting the medical staff at a mental health hospital and concludes with future actions to enhance my professional skills as a paramedic in the future. During my time on placement I used concepts of care skills as recognised by (NHS England, 2015) which are the 6C’S, these are, care, compassion, communication, competence, courage and commitment. As a healthcare professional gaining consent was on a voluntary basis with all relevant information given to the patient and that they have capacity. All patients individual choice and empowerment were respected in accordance to guidelines ( NHS, 2016). With an increase in the numbers of mental health cases within paramedic’s caseload College of Paramedics (2014), I chose this reflective case as would be invaluable to myself as a student paramedic.

Description

What I will be reflecting on was an incident whilst on placement at an acute mental health ward for adult males. During the course of one of the dayshifts I was present, one of the male residents in care became violent and abusive to staff. This particular person was at this unit due to mental health issues and was being retained under the Mental Health Capacity Act 2005. This patient had only been admitted recently and according to nurses had just started a course of anti-psychotic medications for the first time, one of which was Clozapine. Clozapine according to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has side effects some of which are agitation and insomnia (NICE, 2019).

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It had become clear that the medication was wearing off and this combined with other factors such as lack of sleep had caused the patient to become distressed, shrieking and striking their fists on the exit door. Seeing as this person was in distress, I felt empathy for them so went across to see if there was anything I could do to help. One of the areas covered by this essay is Communication and during this incident I used communication and compassion skills to try and calm the patient and attend to their needs. Communication is a vital skill required by Paramedics as it is the most effective way to understand the needs of a patient (Nixon, 2013). Using a soothing manner and soft tone of voice I tried to speak to the patient to try and understand what was causing them so much anguish. Standing far enough away not to be endangered but close enough to be able to communicate I prioritised the patients’ needs but unfortunately was unable to calm the situation down. After the patient became more aggressive and started to damage the office window help was called for by one of the nurses who in turn with others restrained the patient to reduce any further harm or distress caused.

Prior to carrying out this placement my only experience of dealing with patients with mental health issues was while working for the ambulance service. There we attended many patients with Mental Health issues but never to the same degree as what is delivered on an acute ward. At the time of this incident I had no experience dealing with a case such as this but felt confident in my abilities to adapt to most situations. The ability to communicate with such diverse needs of patients experiencing mental health needs is varied and challenging. To engage with such complex needs a person must use a ‘person-centred care’ that puts patients’ needs first delivering a holistic and humanistic approach (The Health policy Partnership, 2019). During this incident I became anxious and acutely aware I was not confident or experienced enough to deal with such situations as this. When the nurse who is trained for such dealings and has many years’ experience could not manage to calm the patient down my anxiety was only increased and awareness of my limited skills in such situations was evident. I was very surprised on how quickly things escalated and once the incident had passed, I started to look at numerous things I could take both positive and negative from this which I will discuss further in my action plan.

At first, I could not see any good points as to how I had managed to help this situation from not escalating. I felt that I had been unable to calm the patient and my lack of immediate assistance had caused the escalating situation that occurred. The nurses compassion skills seemed to be very much lacking as no emotion was seen during the course of this incident by staff. Looking back on the situation I do see the positive side, in as much as allowing me to examine my short fallings in relation to this incident. This incident also allowed me to speak to nurses and staff and to understand all perspectives. What was positive was that once the patient once restrained and given medication no harm was caused to themselves or others, also the swift response once the alarms had been heard from other members of staff in assisting. Once the incident had been deescalated, I was invited in to a debrief where both mine and other staff were able to give input. This was very helpful in understanding the situation.

When trying to calm a person it takes lots of patience, empathy, understanding and above all communication but not always can someone be calmed, and restraint sometimes is unavoidable to reduce the chance of harm to themselves or others according to Medical Journal (BMJ, 2004). Understanding prior to this incident what patient medication is on, past medical history and any previous incidents could have enabled better preparation prior to incident. To understand best what occurred and what could have been done better the medical team had a ‘hot debrief’ or ‘AAR’. After Action Review (2016), NHS England. One aspect of this debrief that was brought to my attention was that this patient had previous episodes of violent behaviour and the medical staff regretted that I had not been made aware of this, and in future any new personal must be made aware of such incidences.

Action Plan

This reflection has made me understand the vast array of mental health conditions that affect people from all diversities from young and old to rich and poor and many more. During AAR I was present in speaking to the families of the person involved in this incident and was acutely aware of how mental health can affect not only individuals but their family’s and loved one. The importance of empathy to not only the individuals affected by health conditions directly but those indirectly affected has been known for a long time (Health.org, 2019) studies also suggest that being treated with respect and dignity matters more to the patient than even pain control. When also in new environments I will also take a full history of patient attending so as to make sure have all relevant medical information to best treat patient.

From this incident I learned many new things, to learn and research more about what effects mental health has on both individuals, families and loved ones, being able to understand more what they are feeling both emotionally and physically. To look at history of patient to see what best approach in such situations is best, especially if the patient has a history of such events, then after AAR notes can be read and learned for future. Having previously worked in the Ambulance service this may have contributed to the perception of mental health prior to working directly in such areas and influencing what my thoughts and feelings were. Having had this opportunity to see first-hand what is awareness of mental health will give me the ability to communicate and assess patients better in the future. Strong working relationships and communication between healthcare staff should also be given greater emphasis within mental health facilities so to increase level of group cohesiveness. Overall, through this reflection I have learnt that history taking, and communication is an essential skill that needs as much practice as any other part of being a paramedic, and that empathy and understanding are skills required to deliver best holistic needs of patient.

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The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 15 December 2017
• Volume 11 , pages 183–193, ( 2018 )

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• Ingmar Persson 1 , 2 &
• Julian Savulescu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1691-6403 2  

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This is a reply to Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom’s skepticism about the moral importance of empathy. It concedes that empathy is spontaneously biased to individuals who are spatio-temporally close, as well as discriminatory in other ways, and incapable of accommodating large numbers of individuals. But it is argued that we could partly correct these shortcomings of empathy by a guidance of reason because empathy for others consists in imagining what they feel, and, importantly, such acts of imagination can be voluntary – and, thus, under the influence of reflection – as well as automatic . Since empathizing with others motivates concern for their welfare, a reflectively justified empathy will lead to a likewise justified altruistic concern. In addition, we argue that such concern supports another central moral attitude, namely a sense of justice or fairness.

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What Empathy Is and the Case Against its Moral Importance

It has generally been taken for granted that empathy is important for morality, so it was to be expected that this assumption would eventually be challenged. Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy [ 1 ] is a full-scale challenge; Jesse Prinz makes a similar, smaller scale challenge in Is Empathy Necessary for Morality [ 2 ] and Against Empathy [ 3 ]. We will argue that empathy can have an essential role to play in moral motivation, but then it needs to be harshly disciplined by other factors – in particular, reasoning – to play its role properly.

To begin with, what is empathy? Bloom understands it to be ‘the act of feeling what you believe other people feel – experiencing what they experience’ [ 1 , p.3]. Prinz’ conception is similar: ‘it’s feeling what one takes another person to be feeling’ [ 2 , p.212]. Bloom distinguishes empathy from cognitive empathy [ 1 , p.17], sympathy and pity [ 1 , p.40], and compassion and concern [ 1 , pp.40–1]. For instance, ‘if I understand that you are feeling pain without feeling it myself’ [ 1 , p.17], this is cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is ‘morally neutral’ [ 1 , p.38]: people who are morally good share it with ‘successful con men, seducers, and torturers’ [ 1 , p.37]. So, Bloom seems to think – correctly, to our minds – that cognitive empathy is not enough to motivate moral behaviour, whereas empathy in the proper sense – ‘emotional empathy’ – can be. Indeed, what he sees as defects of empathy implies that it is a motivator. He objects that:

it is a spotlight focusing on certain people in the here and now. This makes us care more about them, but it leaves us insensitive to the long-term consequences of our acts and blind as well to the suffering of those we do not or cannot empathize with. Empathy is biased, pushing us in the direction of parochialism and racism. It is shortsighted, motivating actions that might make things better in the short term but lead to tragic results in the future. It is innumerate, favoring the one over the many. It can spark violence; our empathy for those close to us is a powerful force for war and atrocity toward others. [ 1 , p.9].

These critical remarks imply that empathy motivates; Bloom’s point is that empathy often motivates us in ways that are morally objectionable. Thus, ‘empathy is not sufficient to guide moral action’ [ 1 , p.191], but it is not disputed that it is a motivating factor, that it could make us ‘care’ about others.

Empathy, then, is not a reliable guide to moral action because it is directed first and foremost at people (bracketing other sentient beings for present purposes) we know well or who are present before our eyes – those who are ‘spatially near’ – at the expense of those who are strangers to us, or beyond the reach of our senses. With respect to people who are spatially near – including ourselves – it is especially focussed on how they will fare in the more immediate future. That is, its focus is on what is temporally near as well as spatially near. Furthermore, even among people who are present to our senses, some may not easily be the target of our empathy because they are different from us in some conspicuous ways: their skin colour is different, they are deformed, dirty, etc. – that is, empathy is discriminatory. Finally, empathy is ‘innumerate’: we cannot empathize with groups of people in proportion to their number. The larger the group, the more of a drawback this limitation is.

Prinz voices similar objections to empathy: it ‘may lead to preferential treatment’, ‘may be subject to unfortunate biases, including the cuteness effects’, ‘is prone to in-group biases’,‘is subject to proximity effects’, and so on [ 2 , p.226]; cf. [ 3 , pp.227–30]. Yet he adds to the list of accusations that ‘empathy is not very motivating’ [ 2 , p.225]. But this is hard to square with what he says to support his other accusations. As regards preferential treatment, he reports that when subjects had been presented with a vignette about a woman awaiting medical treatment, ‘they overwhelmingly elected to move her up at the expense of those in greater need’ [ 2 , p.226]; cf. [ 3 , p.228] who were anonymous to them. And as regards in-group biases, he refers to some studies that have ‘found that empathy leads to helping only when the person in need is a member of the in-group’ [ 2 , p.226]. But then empathy does after all motivate us to favour or help some. Thus, the more plausible moral objection to empathy is not that it is not motivating, but that it often leads us morally astray because it is motivating.

Bloom does not have that much to say much about the attitudes of sympathy, pity, compassion and concern to which he is more favourably disposed than empathy (as Prinz is to concern, [ 3 , pp.230–1]). He writes that ‘ sympathy and pity are about your reaction to the feelings of others, not the mirroring of them… If you feel bad for someone in pain, that’s sympathy, but if you feel their pain, that’s empathy’ [ 1 , p.40]. We believe the same holds for compassion: it is the emotion of feeling sad or unhappy because you believe that someone else is suffering or is having a hard time. By contrast, we regard being concerned about others, or their welfare, as a desire that things go well for them for their own sake. To be concerned about someone in this sense is to adopt an attitude of benevolence or altruism towards them. If you have the power to see to it that things go well for those towards whom you have adopted this attitude, you need not be put in a position in which it is proper to feel sympathy, pity or compassion for them, that is, to feel bad or sad because things are not going well for them.

Bloom insists that concern and compassion do not require empathy [ 1 , p.41]. This allegedly makes them ‘more diffuse than empathy’; as a result, it is ‘weird to talk about having empathy for the millions of victims of malaria, say, but perfectly normal to say that you are concerned about them or feel compassion for them’ [ 1 , pp.40–1]. Thus, on his view, concern and compassion are not innumerate as is empathy, and exposed to criticism on this score. Due to the fact that compassion, like pity and sympathy, are in place only if the subjects they target are faring badly in some way, we will concentrate on the attitude of benevolent or altruistic concern and ask what motivational role empathy does or could play in relation to this attitude, that is, for a desire that others fare well for their own sake – though we may in fact empathize more frequently with others when in fact they do not fare well. Footnote 1

But more needs to be said about what empathy is – or rather what it will here be taken to be. It is not actually feeling what you believe others to be feeling, as Bloom and Prinz would have it. For instance, when you empathize with somebody whom you believe to be feeling physical pain, e.g. because they have hit their thumb with a hammer, you do not feel physical pain; instead, you more or less vividly imagine feeling a pain like the one you believe they are feeling. You imagine what it is like to be them, feeling what they do. Notice that it is not imagining that you yourself are feeling what you believe they are feeling (which is what e.g. Smith usually takes sympathy to involve); it is imagining being them , feeling as they are believed to be feeling. Footnote 2 However, it would be too strict to demand that empathizing with someone requires succeeding in imagining feeling something which is quite similar to what this individual is in fact feeling. You may be said to empathize with someone when you imagine feeling as you believe they do, though your belief is only very roughly right. Nonetheless, empathizing requires imagining having the right kind of feeling: for instance, you cannot be said to be empathizing with somebody if you imagine being glad when that individual is in fact sad.

According to this conception of empathy, it is a mistake to talk about feeling empathy, emotional empathy, or empathic feelings , as Bloom and Prinz do. This is a respect in which empathizing with someone’s feelings differs from what is often called emotional contagion : for example, if you are surrounded by sad people, this is likely to make you sad, while if you are met with smiles, this liable to put you in a good mood. In these cases, you are actually feeling the emotions that others are having, not imagining feeling them. Bloom notes that emotional contagion is ‘not quite the same as’ empathy [ 1 , p.40], but he fails to see this salient difference. Prinz’s claim is more explicitly inconsistent with the present understanding of ‘empathy: ‘empathy in its simplest form is just emotional contagion’ [ 2 , p.212].

Anyway, empathizing with somebody, as we conceive it, is imagining feeling how this individual is feeling, especially in ways that are good or bad for him or her. Footnote 3 Admittedly, the term ‘empathy’ is often used in other ways, and this accounts for the fact that it may seem odd to say, e.g. that Schadenfreude or malice involves empathy. But to our minds, there are other terms, like ‘sympathy’, which are better suited to designate what is at issue here (or a technical term like ‘emotional empathy’ may be introduced).

Some of Bloom’s arguments against empathy trade on the failure to separate it clearly from emotional contagion. He correctly points out that we might find ourselves sad without realizing that this is the result of the sadness of others having infected us. Then we will not be motivated to do anything to relieve their sadness: ‘Without an appreciation of the source of one’s suffering, the shared feeling is inert’ [ 1 , p.173]. But we cannot intelligibly empathize with someone’s sadness without realizing that the sadness we imagine feeling is the sort of sadness that we believe this individual to be feeling because it is imagining feeling a sort of sadness precisely for the reason that it is the sort we believe this individual to be feeling. Thus, empathy cannot be motivationally inert because it lacks a target in the sense described by Bloom.

At some points, Bloom’s misconception of empathy as comprising actual feelings appears to mislead him to overlook the involvement of empathy in concern. He writes: ‘you see the victim’s face contorted in anguish, but you don’t see anguish in the consolers, just concern’ [ 1 , p.175]. However, in so far as the consolers empathize they do not feel anguish, but imagine feeling it, and it should not be expected that imagined anguish needs to show up in the face in the same fashion as genuine anguish does. If this imagined feeling motivates concern, it is precisely concern that we should expect to see in the face of an empathizer, not anguish.

Spontaneous Empathy and Voluntary, Reflective Empathy

We have seen that cognitive empathy is not sufficient to make us concerned: if we acquire a belief that somebody is suffering on the basis of a verbal report, we might not be the least motivated to relieve the suffering. On the other hand, empathy with sufferers does motivate us to relieve the suffering. It has already been observed that if that were not so, Prinz and Bloom’s case against empathy to the effect that it is a poor guide to moral action, since it is biased and innumerate, would be undercut. So, let us proceed on the plausible assumption that it does motivate. Footnote 4

It is true that, as Bloom maintains, we ‘cannot empathize with more than one or two people at the same time’ [ 1 , p.33]; cf. [ 2 , p.229]. It also true that we find it harder to empathize with people who are different from us in conspicuous ways, such as having a different skin colour, or who repel us by being deformed, dirty, etc., and that this is likely to lead to discrimination, or exclusion of individuals from concern on morally unjustifiable grounds. Empathy is also biased towards the near future in the sense that we empathize more readily with the suffering that individuals – ourselves included – will feel in the near than in the more distant future. These are reasons why Bloom – rightly – thinks that ‘empathy is a terrible guide to moral judgment’ [ 1 , p.45].

On the other hand, he admits that ‘it can be strategically used to motivate people to do good things’ [ 1 , p.45]. (In this respect, he appears more conciliatory than Prinz, as will be seen below.) The question then arises whether it is not a better strategy to try to discipline empathy than try to do without it. The latter seems to be what Bloom recommends when he claims that ‘on balance, we are better off without it’ [ 1 , p.39]; similarly, Prinz hopes for ‘the extirpation of empathy’ [ 3 , p.228]. This is primarily where we part company. The risk is that without empathy we would not be concerned with anyone’s well-being, not even our own beyond the present moment. As has been seen, Bloom believes that such concern does not require empathy, but he concedes that cognitive empathy is not sufficient for concern when he writes that people who lack concern can have it, e.g. con men, torturers, and psychopaths. What, then, could fill the slack left by cognitive empathy? Bloom does not seem to answer this question.

His appeal to compassion and concern are unhelpful because they are biased and innumerate just like empathy: we feel more compassion and concern for suffering that is close in time, for people who we know well and who have been friendly towards us, and for single identifiable individuals than for masses of anonymous people. A readily available explanation of this fact is that empathy is the motivational source of these attitudes.

Empathy with someone is capable of motivating because it is imagining what it is like for this individual to have a (positive or negative) sensory or affective experience, and this consists in having an ‘image’ or, better, a sensuous representation of the experience which is similar or isomorphic to the experience and derived from having this kind of experience oneself. Thus, as Bloom notes [ 1 , pp.147–9], in order to be able to empathize adequately with somebody who is feeling pain, say, it is necessary to have felt a similar pain yourself – so, those rare individuals who are congenitally insensitive to pain cannot empathize with those who are exposed to pain. Since having pain motivates you to try to rid yourself of it, it would not be surprising if imagining somebody having the pain that you believe this individual to have could motivate you to try to rid them of it, given that the imagined pain is similar to an actually felt pain. The evolutionary explanation of why we so readily imagine feeling a pain we think we will ourselves suffer if we do not take action is surely that this will motivate us to take action to avoid the pain. Then, provided it could serve our reproductive fitness, we should expect that the same device is put to use in the case of others, so that imagining someone else having a pain could also motivate action to save them from the pain, as both commonsensical experience and experimental evidence indicate. But since the imagined pain is not as vivid or forceful as a felt pain (unless it is hallucinatory), it will not motivate to the same degree (cf. [ 4 , p.764]).

If you had been hooked up to someone else’s nervous system by something functioning like afferent pathways, so you actually felt the pain this individual feels in his or her body, you would be more strongly motivated to eliminate it, probably as strongly motivated as this individual. But then you could not empathize with the pain this individual is feeling for the same reason that you cannot empathize with the pain that you are now feeling in your own body. The reason is that you cannot imagine feeling a pain that you are actually feeling; the actual feeling so to speak overshadows any imagined feeling. It follows from this that Prinz is right when he points out [ 2 , p.214]; [ 3 , p.219] that empathy cannot be necessary for each and every moral attitude that we could adopt, e.g. the indignation that we may feel because of the pain we are now suffering unjustly.

When you attribute the pain you imagine to someone else, it is their pain you will seek to relieve in the first instance. At a pre-linguistic stage, the belief that another is in pain would have to be expressed in a medium of sensuous representation; so there would then be no distinction between so-called cognitive empathy and empathy in our terminology. You would be moved to some extent to relieve the pain you imagine the other to be having. But if you cannot relieve the pain of the other, you may resort to relieving only the pain you imagine and, thereby, the pity you feel. As Bloom mentions [ 1 , pp.74–5], if you empathize with the pain of somebody writhing in front of your eyes, and find that you can do nothing to remove the pain of this individual, you may resort to changing your location so that this individual is no longer within sight. For if you can no longer see this individual, your empathy is liable to subside and, thereby, your desire that the victim’s pain be relieved, alongside the pity and frustration that you will feel because this desire cannot be satisfied.

If the account of empathy given here is correct, is it possible to ‘exploit people’s empathy for good causes’ [ 1 , p.49], by trying to give it better direction? Such a strategy would seem preferable to the strategy of removing empathy that would risk leaving us motivationally dry and unconcerned about the weal and woe of our future selves and others. According to the account given here, we are capable of modifying the direction of empathy because it is not only true that we spontaneously or automatically imagine having sensory experiences we believe that others undergo or that we might undergo in the future; we can also do this voluntarily or at will . Footnote 5

To take a simple case involving only yourself: if you are told that you will probably feel acute pain later today, you will immediately be seriously concerned, think desperately about ways of escaping this pain, and feel fear it cannot be avoided. This is because you automatically empathize with yourself later today, i.e. you automatically imagine feeling the pain you believe that you might feel shortly. Footnote 6 By contrast, your automatically imagining the acute pain you hear that you might suffer next year will be much more fleeting and perfunctory, if it occurs at all. But your reason could inform you that your pain next year will one day be just as real and unbearable as your pain later today, and this may induce you to imagine voluntarily feeling next year’s pain if this could help motivate you to find ways of avoiding it. If this imagining is done with some persistence, it will most likely increase your concern about feeling this pain, though it is unlikely to become as great as your concern about the pain later today, since the outcome of your act of voluntary imagination will probably be less vivid or detailed. True, a voluntary act of imagination presupposes that you are motivated to perform it, but the deliverance of your reason along with your automatic empathy, though perfunctory, may be enough to supply this amount of motivation which could inflate itself by means of a voluntary act of imagination.

Thus, we can counteract our bias towards the near future in matters concerning ourselves, though we are unlikely to overcome it completely. More often than we would like, it will continue to make us act in ways that we recognize as weak-willed and irrational. But although it would now often be better for us to be able to rise above this bias, it has probably served us well in the past before the rational powers of our species developed to anything like the present extent because the situations that it is most pressing to deal with are as a rule those in the nearer future.

Similarly, from an evolutionary point of view it is not hard understand why our empathy with others is spontaneously selective. Spontaneously, we empathize with individuals who we know well and with whom we have cooperated advantageously, like our kin and people in our community, and not with strangers who might be treacherous or hostile for all we know. This makes evolutionary sense if benevolent or altruistic concern rides on the back of empathy because then we shall be concerned about people in our own tribe and unconcerned about outsiders, and this is likely to make our own tribe successful in the struggle for resources with these outsiders.

But although we do not spontaneously empathize with some individuals for such reasons and, therefore, have little or no concern for them, our intellect can tell us that some or all of the indicated exclusionary reasons are not sound reasons to think that the suffering of these individuals is morally less bad. Suppose that we are repelled by some people because they are deformed or dirty and therefore do not take time to empathize with their suffering. Then, on reflection, we could realize that these features are not anything for which they are responsible and which makes their suffering morally less important. This gives us reason to make a voluntary effort to imagine vividly the suffering of these individuals, despite their unappealing features. As a result, we will be more concerned about their suffering, though probably not as much concerned as we are about the suffering of those whom we find congenial, and with whom we automatically empathize.

Consequently, by means of our power of reasoning, we can expand the range of our empathy, and thereby our benevolent concern, to other individuals and further into the future, and make these attitudes less discriminatory. We can also extend our empathy to a greater number of people, by voluntarily imagining the suffering of a single, arbitrary individual from a large group and telling ourselves that the suffering of each individual of the group is as real and morally bad as is the suffering of this individual and, thus, that our concern for the sufferings of the entire group should be proportionally greater. This is likely to make our concern for the collective suffering significantly greater than our concern for a single individual’s suffering, though hardly as great as it ideally should be.

In sum, by means of our reason we can counteract the fact that our empathy is spatio-temporally biased, unjustifiably discriminatory, and innumerate, and develop a more reflective empathy, though we would be hard put to overcome completely these shortcomings of our spontaneous empathy. Such a reflective empathy would motivate a correspondingly more reflective and justifiable altruistic concern, as well as greater, more rational prudential concern for our future selves. In other words, we are capable of a sort of motivational bootstrapping: we find ourselves concerned about others because we automatically empathize with them to some degree, and this concern could motivate us to reflect on the unjustifiability of the grounds that tend to eclipse our automatic empathy for these individuals, and modify our concern for them in ways we see as rationally justified by voluntarily imagining more vividly what it is like to be them. By this procedure we could surmount obstacles that evolutionary programming has put in the path of our empathy and benevolent concern. This is clearly a superior strategy to trying to divest ourselves of empathy because it is misdirected or restrictive, and thereby risk divesting ourselves of concern for others.

As already indicated, the point can also be made in terms of prudential concern for our own more distant future. It would be a poor strategy to give up empathizing with our possible suffering in the distant future, say from lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. Rather, we should develop a more reflective empathy which extends further into our future, by heeding our reason’s advice to imagine more distant suffering as vividly as we spontaneously imagine suffering that is closer in time. This strategy is more likely to generate motivation to give up smoking now than refraining from such a voluntary direction of imagination.

Empathy, Justice and Anger

Some grounds for excluding individuals from, or pushing them to the periphery of, empathy and concern are however warranted. Bloom notes that ‘you feel more empathy for someone who treats you fairly than for someone who cheats you’ [ 1 , p.68]. We put this down to our being equipped with a sense of justice or fairness . This sense expresses itself not only in our making judgments about what is (un)just or (un)fair, but also in our being motivated to some extent to rectify what we judge to be unjust or unfair.

Like many other animals, we practice the tit-for-tat strategy which consists in responding in the same coin: being angry at and inclined to punish those who harm us, or those close to us, and being grateful and inclined to reward those who benefit us, or those close to us. From an evolutionary point of view, it is not hard to comprehend why we abide by this strategy. But in contrast to (most) other animals, we have the power to contemplate whether our spontaneous angry or grateful reactions are justifiable. The upshot of this contemplation may be that after all an angry and punitive response would not be just or justifiable because, say, the harm inflicted on us was accidental or unavoidable, or that it was inflicted in order to protect somebody else from much greater harm. So, reason may command us to hold back our spontaneous angry and punitive responses.

We may however fail to comply with this command if we empathize strongly with the victims of the harmful act but not at all with its perpetrator. Indeed, such biased empathy might even get in the way of our making reasonable judgments about what is justifiable. We might be so incensed by the fact that we have been harmed that we overlook that the infliction of the harm was unavoidable or justifiable, just as we might be unable to control our temper and retaliate, though we realize that it is unjustifiable. This is of course less likely to happen if we empathize not only with the victims of a harmful act but also with its agent.

Although Bloom concedes that ‘empathy can serve as the brakes’ on aggression and violence for such reasons, he argues that ‘it’s just as often the gas ’ [ 1 , p.188]: ‘the empathy one feels toward an individual can fuel anger toward those who are cruel to that individual’ [ 1 , p.208]. But it is not empathy with the cruelly treated victim that triggers the aggression toward the offender; it is our adherence to the tit-for-tat strategy that drives us to punish agents who are cruel to those we care about. Certainly, if we empathize with victims – but not with the aggressors – this will amplify our aggression, but it is not empathy, or its absence, that makes us angry at aggressors. If it is claimed that it is such an amplification of anger beyond reason that is what makes empathy undesirable in this connection, it should be retorted that it offers the compensating good of serving as a brake on our anger if we direct it at the aggressors. Surely, this is not what you expect of something that is properly characterized as ‘a powerful force for war and atrocity’ [ 1 , p.9].

In any case, it is doubtful that the removal of empathy is a recommendable remedy (were it feasible). Although our sense of justice by itself motivates us to do what we judge to be just, the risk is that this motivation will be so weak in many of us that we will do little to rectify instances of injustice. For when we attempt to punish offenders, or extract compensation from them, we usually have to stick our necks out, and we are disinclined to do so for people we do not care about. Likewise, we are also likely to incur costs should we reward those who have acted justly. Benefiting people who are unfairly worse off or in greater need than others when this is simply the result of bad luck and not the wrong-doing of any moral agents is of course also costly. A better strategy than removal of empathy would seem to be to involve empathizing with those at the receiving end of unfair acts and misfortunes, but balancing it with a reasonable amount of empathy for possible offenders.

The importance of empathy as a brake on unjustified aggression and violence may be even clearer in the case of psychopaths. Bloom’s conclusion about them is: ‘They do tend to be low in empathy. But there is no evidence that this lack of empathy is responsible for their bad behavior’ [ 1 , p.201]. Here it is important to bear in mind that empathy has a function to fill not only with respect to others, but with respect to our own future as well. Psychopaths are characteristically unconcerned not only about other individuals, but about their own long-term future (and past), too. Hence, their ‘lack of realistic long-term goals’, their ‘impulsivity’ and ‘irresponsibility’ [ 1 , p.198]; their being ‘relatively indifferent to punishment’ and ‘unmoved by love withdrawal’, as mentioned by Prinz [ 1 , p.218]; cf. [ 3 , p.222]. Now suppose – as seems true – that psychopaths are also prone to aggression and excessive vanity. It is obvious that such people could easily be driven to crime and other immoral behaviour to gain short-term profits because neither concern for others nor fear of punishment and social condemnation of themselves will hold them back.

Like the instinctive grounds for excluding people from empathy and altruistic concern, the instinctive grounds for how justice requires people to be treated are then subject to revision in light of reason. These grounds seem partly to overlap. For instance, earlier on in human history the fact that some people were deformed or disabled appears to have been regarded not only as a ground for excluding them from empathy and concern but, even more absurdly, as grounds making it just (deserving, fitting etc.) that they be worse off than others.

Prinz considers the possibility ‘to overcome the selective nature of empathy by devising a way to make us empathize with a broader range of people’ [ 2 , p.228], but rejects it because he thinks that empathy is ‘intrinsically biased’ [ 3 , p.229]. Instead, he favours a ‘less demanding’ alternative which dispenses with empathy. This alternative appeals, in the negative case, only to feelings of disapprobation like anger and guilt, and types of action that evoke them:

If we focus our moral judgments on types of actions (stealing, torture, rape, etc.) and make an effort not to reflect on the specific victims, we may be able to achieve a kind of impartiality… any focus on the victim of a transgression should be avoided, because of a potential bias. [ 2 , p.228]; [ 3 , p.220]

The emotions of disapprobation are more powerful motivators of moral action than empathy, according to him. And ‘anger can be conditioned through imitation. If we express our outrage at injustice, our children will feel outrage at injustice’ [ 2 , p.229]. Sure, but children can be taught to feel outrage at types of actions that many of us would not nowadays regard as morally wrong, such as working on Sundays or consensual homosexual acts between adults. To explain why such acts are not morally wrong while others are, it seems that we would have to refer to the fact that they do not harm or make anyone unjustly worse off, whereas morally wrongful acts do. But then it can be objected, again, that it seems that the realization that some individuals have been unjustly harmed will elicit little, if any, anger or indignation if we are unconcerned about those harmed and that we are likely to be unconcerned about them if we have never empathized with them. Prinz recognizes that we need ‘a keen sense that human suffering is outrageous’ [ 2 , p.229], but can we develop such a sense if we strive for an impartiality that ‘involves bracketing off thoughts about victims’ [ 2 , p.229]? And what about cases in which human suffering is due to bad luck which does not involve any moral wrongdoing, like instances of congenital disabilities and natural disasters? In such cases, emotions like anger, indignation and outrage are out of place or irrational.

Additionally, anger can be as at least biased and immoral as empathy, say, the anger you feel at your opponent because you have lost a game, though you realize that the game was perfectly fair, and you entered into it voluntarily. Prinz is on firmer ground when he speaks about outrage and indignation, since these emotions seem to be anger which you believe to be morally justified. But because of the excessiveness of your self-concern, these emotions can still be overblown when you yourself are the victim of immoral behaviour.

Whether Empathy Is Necessary for Moral Concern, or could Block it

So much about exploiting empathy for good purposes. It might be objected, however, that in order to act out of concern, we evidently do not need to empathize. For instance, we might grab a pedestrian to prevent him or her from stepping out in front of a bus, without having had time to do any empathizing. True, but this may be because we have acquired a habit of acting in such ways because we have often in the past empathized with people in similar circumstances and, thereby, acquired a standing motivation to help them out. Thus, empathy may be necessary to make us concerned about others to start with, without subsequently being necessary for action out of concern on each and every occasion. Footnote 7

In the case of the pedestrian, there are no competing interests. But when there is such competition, one party often claims our spontaneous concern at the expense of others. Then our voluntarily directed, reflective empathy should step in to rectify matters. Consequently, the fact that we have developed standing desires that enable us to do the right thing on many occasions does not mean that engaging in empathy has been rendered redundant. Sooner or later spontaneous, selective empathy will assert itself, and the combat against its distortions must be resumed.

Prinz relates studies that show that people who found a dime in a phone booth are much more likely to help a passerby who has dropped some papers than people who did not find a dime. He concludes that a ‘small dose of happiness seems to promote considerable altruism’ [ 2 , p.220]. Certainly, a standing disposition to be of assistance is more likely to manifest itself if we are happy. When we feel that things are going well for ourselves, we are more bent on making efforts to assist those who are less fortunate and imaginatively to put ourselves in their shoes. Prinz thinks that this imaginative act could reduce the inclination to help because the ‘vicarious distress’ he sees empathy as involving ‘presumably has a negative correlation with positive happiness’ [ 2 , p.220]. But here it should be remembered, first, that empathy with the distressed does not involve actually feeling distress, but imagining feeling the distress others are believed to be feeling, which is less of a negative experience. Secondly, if we can do something to help the distressed, we may end up actually feeling satisfied.

Prinz also affirms that guilt ‘is a great motivator’ on the ground that subjects were much more disposed ‘to make some fund-raising calls for a charity organization after they administered shocks to an innocent person’ [ 2 , p.221]. But the fact that we are inclined to make up for an immoral act we believe we have committed by doing good is an expression of our sense of justice, and has been seen this does not rule out being motivated by empathy as well.

There is however something backward about Prinz’ conception of guilt as a motivator. He claims: ‘If we anticipate that an action will make us feel guilty, we will thereby be inclined to avoid the action’ [ 2 , p.219]. However, if an act makes us feel guilty, we must take it to be wrong. Now he also maintains: ‘A person who judges that stealing is wrong, for example, will be motivated to resist the urge to steal’ [ 2 , p.219]. It follows that if we anticipate that an act will make us feel guilty once we have committed it, we already conceive of it as wrong – since our committing it does not make it wrong – and, hence, we will already ‘be motivated to resist the urge’ to commit it, independently of the guilt we would feel were we to commit it.

It should be stressed, however, that empathy is not an end in itself; it is emphatically not the case that the more we empathize, the better. Voluntarily empathizing is a means to boost motivation to assist those in need, to enhance concern for them. But, as Bloom points out [ 1 , pp.133–46], people can empathize too much, so much that it can be harmful both to themselves and to those in need of their help. It can ‘burn out’ empathizers, make them depressed and emotionally exhausted. This is not surprising: after all, imagining feeling suffering is an unpleasant experience in itself, though not as unpleasant as actually feeling the suffering imagined. And it is not hard to understand how, say, doctors who are absorbed by acts of imagining the suffering of their patients might be overwhelmed and paralyzed by what they imagine and unable to help their patients effectively.

But conceding that empathy can be excessive, that there can be too much of it, is not conceding that it is redundant, that there cannot be too little of it. In moderate measures it may be an efficient means of enhancing flagging concern. A Buddhist scholar quoted by Bloom states the appropriate recipe thus: ‘meditation-based training enables practitioners to move quickly from feeling the distress of others to acting with compassion to alleviate it’ ([ 1 , p.141], emphasis added). Footnote 8 Bloom himself says essentially the same: ‘we know that feeling empathy for another makes you more likely to help them’, though ‘too much empathy can be paralyzing’ [ 1 , pp.155–6]. However, even if we do not get caught up in excessive empathy, but use it wisely to quicken our benevolent concern, it should be observed that we run the risk of being burnt out: for those who are greatly concerned to relieve the suffering in a world so full of misery as this one, awareness of the fact that, even if they were to comply with a very demanding morality, they could at best only relieve a tiny fraction of it could well be crushing. But the fact that a state of mind is crushing does not count against it being the state of a morally enlightened person, at least not as long as this is not allowed to prevent complying with moral demands. In itself, the contentment of a moral agent is not an objective of morality.

It could be desirable to enhance our capacity for empathy and concern by drugs, like oxytocin etc. if the discomfort this would cause us would be outweighed by the greater amount of good we would thereby accomplish. It might be asked whether these drugs work by making us more disposed to empathize, or be more motivated by the outcome of our empathizing. But these aspects are not easily separable, since if we become more disposed to engage in acts of imagination, these acts will be more protracted, and their content more vivid or detailed and, thus, it will have greater motivational impact. However that may be, such enhancement cannot render a reflective direction of imagination superfluous.

Conclusion: Better to Reform Empathy than Remove it

All in all, the picture that emerges is this. We have beliefs about how other individuals feel and how we can help them to feel better. There is both a set of properties such that: (1) if we believe individuals have any of these properties, this facilitates spontaneous empathy with these individuals, i.e. disposes us to imagine spontaneously how they feel, and (2) a set of properties such that if we believe that individuals have any of them, this hinders spontaneous empathy with them. In the former case, we will be spontaneously concerned about the well-being of these individuals; in the latter case, it will take voluntary reflection to empathize and be concerned about the individuals in question. We are also in possession of a sense of justice or fairness which not only animates us to benefit those whom justice requires to be benefited, but also to harm those whom justice requires be harmed. If, however, we do not empathize with individuals who should be benefited, or have been harmed, we will often not be sufficiently motivated to rectify injustices inflicted on them. Similarly, the incentive to punish is reduced if we empathize with those who have unjustly harmed.

Because we are equipped with a power to scrutinize the rationality of our responses, we might realize that some of the properties that we unthinkingly use to exclude individuals from our spontaneous concern do not in fact justify such exclusion. This would provide us with reason voluntarily to imagine more vividly the feelings of these individuals who have previously received little empathy from us and, as a result, be more concerned about their welfare, though presumably not as much as we are concerned about those with whom we spontaneously emphasize. Still, we should be wary not to employ voluntary empathy excessively, so that it gets in the way of acting out of concern.

This is basically in agreement with a picture we have earlier put forward [ 5 ]. We then suggested that there are two ‘core moral dispositions’ [ 5 , p.108], altruism and a sense of justice. They seem to be biologically based in part and, therefore, in principle open to enhancement by biomedical means. But we pointed out that such enhancement is not sufficient because our spontaneous altruistic concern is subject to various distortions, like the bias towards the near future [ 5 , pp.27–8], innumerateness or insensitivity to numbers [ 5 , p.30]), and in-group bias [ 5 , pp.119–20]. None of these considerations stands up to rational scrutiny. This realization is liable to change the pattern of our spontaneous concern, but our sense of justice is in even greater need of reflective refinement. It comprises a disposition to do what we think is just or fair. But what is just or fair is a topic of heated philosophical controversy, whether it is a matter of getting what we deserve, or something more egalitarian, etc. Footnote 9

Bloom writes that he has ‘been arguing throughout this book that fair and moral and ultimately beneficial policies are best devised without empathy’ [ 1 , p.207]. It might indeed be true that such policies are best devised without empathy, but it is doubtful whether we can be best motivated to act in accordance with them without empathy. Consider again a simpler situation in the realm of prudence. If we have to devise a general policy for possible future circumstances in which we have to choose between a smaller, but still acute, pain the same day and a significantly bigger pain a week later, it is easy to tell what the best policy is: to opt for the smaller pain the same day. The hard bit is to stick to this policy when the smaller pain will occur later today. To avoid backsliding we then have to counteract our spontaneous empathy with ourselves in the imminent future by voluntarily imagining what it will be like for us to suffer the greater pain a week later. We shall most probably never succeed in voluntarily directing our empathy to the extent that we become temporally neutral and care as much about the more remote as the closer future. But it is still better to have such an imperfectly reformed empathy than being without all empathy, spontaneous as well as reflective.

Bloom seems to concede something like this when, in speculating about how he would genetically engineer a child, he writes that he would be wary of removing empathy, but ‘would ensure that it could be modified, shaped, directed, and overriden by rational deliberation’ [ 1 , p.212]. This would be what we have called reflective empathy. Since he thinks that this child should be equipped with empathy, he must think it can do some good. His case against empathy must then rest on it being impossible in fact to modify it to the extent that its existence is better than its non-existence. Granted, empathy cannot be modified to the extent that it perfectly concords with the deliverances of rational deliberation, but it can be sufficiently reshaped that we are better off with it than without it, since in the latter case it seems that we would risk being totally unmotivated by any mental states beyond those of ourselves in the present.

Bloom concludes about empathy: ‘its negatives outweigh its positives – and there are better alternatives [ 1 , p.241]. The present conclusion is to the contrary that it is the positives that outweigh the negatives, and that there is no better alternative to empathy. Bloom seems to have reason in mind, but reason is not an alternative to empathy: it needs empathy as a motivator, and empathy needs reason for its motivational force to be properly directed and encompassing. Compassion and concern on which he places higher value than empathy are no more reliable as moral compasses. They, too, are biased and parochial, underpinned as they are by empathy, and in need of supervision by reason. Footnote 10

Concurring with Adam Smith that, in contrast to ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’, ‘sympathy’ may ‘without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever’ p765 [ 4 ], we have earlier employed the term ‘sympathetic concern’ (e.g. p109 [ 5 ]).

Cf. Coplan’s distinction between self-oriented and other-oriented perspective-taking pp9–15 [ 6 ].

Thus, empathizing is not imagining having any experience, as Bloom’s claim that it is ‘experiencing what they experience’ p3 [ 1 ] could suggest. If, say, we imagine seeing what others are seeing from their points of view, this does not qualify as empathy because it is not any feeling that is imagined. Additionally, it is odd to talk about empathizing with somebody who is feeling warm or surprised when these feelings are neither positive nor negative.

Experimental evidence for this hypothesis is summarized e.g. in Batson [ 7 ].

This is a reason why it is important not to confuse empathy with emotional contagion: we cannot directly infect ourselves with emotions at will.

Prinz claims: ‘Imagination sounds like a kind of mental act that requires effort on the part of the imaginer’ p212 [ 2 ]. But, as for instance Hume stressed, if we have regularly experienced one type of event being succeeded by another type of event, experiencing the first is likely to make us automatically imagine experiencing the other, especially if it is pleasant or unpleasant.

Here surfaces a difference between concern, on the one hand, and sympathy, pity and compassion, on the other, for although we might say that your act expressed concern for the well-being of the pedestrian, we would scarcely say that you felt sympathy, pity or compassion for the pedestrian. These emotions do seem to involve empathy on each and every occasion.

For a survey of the ancient Buddhist tradition of cultivating empathy, see McRae [ 8 ]. In this tradition, ‘empathy as imaginative projection’ ‘is assumed to be highly trainable’, ‘vastly under-utilitized’ p124 [ 8 ], and also that it ‘will stimulate compassion’ p125 [ 8 ]. That is to say, virtually what we argue.

Followers of Hume and Smith, like e.g. Kaupinnen [ 9 ], who believe that empathy is involved in moral judgment also contend that it can be regulated, but their view is different, and more contentious, than ours in at least two respects. First, we explore the role of empathy in one species of moral motivation , not its role in the making of moral judgments , let alone all kinds of moral judgments. In addition, Kaupinnen thinks that for his purpose empathy as regards reactive attitudes like resentment and gratitude is more central than empathy as regards concern for the well-being of others. Secondly, these theorists propose regulation by reference to an ideal perspective , which goes beyond the regulation we have here considered.

Many thanks to the reviewers and editor for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Ingmar Persson

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Persson, I., Savulescu, J. The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy. Neuroethics 11 , 183–193 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-017-9350-7

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• Solar Eclipse 2024

What the World Has Learned From Past Eclipses

C louds scudded over the small volcanic island of Principe, off the western coast of Africa, on the afternoon of May 29, 1919. Arthur Eddington, director of the Cambridge Observatory in the U.K., waited for the Sun to emerge. The remains of a morning thunderstorm could ruin everything.

The island was about to experience the rare and overwhelming sight of a total solar eclipse. For six minutes, the longest eclipse since 1416, the Moon would completely block the face of the Sun, pulling a curtain of darkness over a thin stripe of Earth. Eddington traveled into the eclipse path to try and prove one of the most consequential ideas of his age: Albert Einstein’s new theory of general relativity.

Eddington, a physicist, was one of the few people at the time who understood the theory, which Einstein proposed in 1915. But many other scientists were stymied by the bizarre idea that gravity is not a mutual attraction, but a warping of spacetime. Light itself would be subject to this warping, too. So an eclipse would be the best way to prove whether the theory was true, because with the Sun’s light blocked by the Moon, astronomers would be able to see whether the Sun’s gravity bent the light of distant stars behind it.

Two teams of astronomers boarded ships steaming from Liverpool, England, in March 1919 to watch the eclipse and take the measure of the stars. Eddington and his team went to Principe, and another team led by Frank Dyson of the Greenwich Observatory went to Sobral, Brazil.

Totality, the complete obscuration of the Sun, would be at 2:13 local time in Principe. Moments before the Moon slid in front of the Sun, the clouds finally began breaking up. For a moment, it was totally clear. Eddington and his group hastily captured images of a star cluster found near the Sun that day, called the Hyades, found in the constellation of Taurus. The astronomers were using the best astronomical technology of the time, photographic plates, which are large exposures taken on glass instead of film. Stars appeared on seven of the plates, and solar “prominences,” filaments of gas streaming from the Sun, appeared on others.

Eddington wanted to stay in Principe to measure the Hyades when there was no eclipse, but a ship workers’ strike made him leave early. Later, Eddington and Dyson both compared the glass plates taken during the eclipse to other glass plates captured of the Hyades in a different part of the sky, when there was no eclipse. On the images from Eddington’s and Dyson’s expeditions, the stars were not aligned. The 40-year-old Einstein was right.

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens,” the New York Times proclaimed when the scientific papers were published. The eclipse was the key to the discovery—as so many solar eclipses before and since have illuminated new findings about our universe.

To understand why Eddington and Dyson traveled such distances to watch the eclipse, we need to talk about gravity.

Since at least the days of Isaac Newton, who wrote in 1687, scientists thought gravity was a simple force of mutual attraction. Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, and that the strength of this attraction is related to the size of the objects and the distances among them. This is mostly true, actually, but it’s a little more nuanced than that.

On much larger scales, like among black holes or galaxy clusters, Newtonian gravity falls short. It also can’t accurately account for the movement of large objects that are close together, such as how the orbit of Mercury is affected by its proximity the Sun.

Albert Einstein’s most consequential breakthrough solved these problems. General relativity holds that gravity is not really an invisible force of mutual attraction, but a distortion. Rather than some kind of mutual tug-of-war, large objects like the Sun and other stars respond relative to each other because the space they are in has been altered. Their mass is so great that they bend the fabric of space and time around themselves.

Read More: 10 Surprising Facts About the 2024 Solar Eclipse

This was a weird concept, and many scientists thought Einstein’s ideas and equations were ridiculous. But others thought it sounded reasonable. Einstein and others knew that if the theory was correct, and the fabric of reality is bending around large objects, then light itself would have to follow that bend. The light of a star in the great distance, for instance, would seem to curve around a large object in front of it, nearer to us—like our Sun. But normally, it’s impossible to study stars behind the Sun to measure this effect. Enter an eclipse.

Einstein’s theory gives an equation for how much the Sun’s gravity would displace the images of background stars. Newton’s theory predicts only half that amount of displacement.

Eddington and Dyson measured the Hyades cluster because it contains many stars; the more stars to distort, the better the comparison. Both teams of scientists encountered strange political and natural obstacles in making the discovery, which are chronicled beautifully in the book No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity , by the physicist Daniel Kennefick. But the confirmation of Einstein’s ideas was worth it. Eddington said as much in a letter to his mother: “The one good plate that I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein,” he wrote , “and I think I have got a little confirmation from a second plate.”

The Eddington-Dyson experiments were hardly the first time scientists used eclipses to make profound new discoveries. The idea dates to the beginnings of human civilization.

Careful records of lunar and solar eclipses are one of the greatest legacies of ancient Babylon. Astronomers—or astrologers, really, but the goal was the same—were able to predict both lunar and solar eclipses with impressive accuracy. They worked out what we now call the Saros Cycle, a repeating period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours in which eclipses appear to repeat. One Saros cycle is equal to 223 synodic months, which is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same phase as seen from Earth. They also figured out, though may not have understood it completely, the geometry that enables eclipses to happen.

The path we trace around the Sun is called the ecliptic. Our planet’s axis is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane, which is why we have seasons, and why the other celestial bodies seem to cross the same general path in our sky.

As the Moon goes around Earth, it, too, crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice in a year. The ascending node is where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic. The descending node is where the Moon enters the southern ecliptic. When the Moon crosses a node, a total solar eclipse can happen. Ancient astronomers were aware of these points in the sky, and by the apex of Babylonian civilization, they were very good at predicting when eclipses would occur.

Two and a half millennia later, in 2016, astronomers used these same ancient records to measure the change in the rate at which Earth’s rotation is slowing—which is to say, the amount by which are days are lengthening, over thousands of years.

By the middle of the 19 th century, scientific discoveries came at a frenetic pace, and eclipses powered many of them. In October 1868, two astronomers, Pierre Jules César Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer, separately measured the colors of sunlight during a total eclipse. Each found evidence of an unknown element, indicating a new discovery: Helium, named for the Greek god of the Sun. In another eclipse in 1869, astronomers found convincing evidence of another new element, which they nicknamed coronium—before learning a few decades later that it was not a new element, but highly ionized iron, indicating that the Sun’s atmosphere is exceptionally, bizarrely hot. This oddity led to the prediction, in the 1950s, of a continual outflow that we now call the solar wind.

And during solar eclipses between 1878 and 1908, astronomers searched in vain for a proposed extra planet within the orbit of Mercury. Provisionally named Vulcan, this planet was thought to exist because Newtonian gravity could not fully describe Mercury’s strange orbit. The matter of the innermost planet’s path was settled, finally, in 1915, when Einstein used general relativity equations to explain it.

Many eclipse expeditions were intended to learn something new, or to prove an idea right—or wrong. But many of these discoveries have major practical effects on us. Understanding the Sun, and why its atmosphere gets so hot, can help us predict solar outbursts that could disrupt the power grid and communications satellites. Understanding gravity, at all scales, allows us to know and to navigate the cosmos.

GPS satellites, for instance, provide accurate measurements down to inches on Earth. Relativity equations account for the effects of the Earth’s gravity and the distances between the satellites and their receivers on the ground. Special relativity holds that the clocks on satellites, which experience weaker gravity, seem to run slower than clocks under the stronger force of gravity on Earth. From the point of view of the satellite, Earth clocks seem to run faster. We can use different satellites in different positions, and different ground stations, to accurately triangulate our positions on Earth down to inches. Without those calculations, GPS satellites would be far less precise.

This year, scientists fanned out across North America and in the skies above it will continue the legacy of eclipse science. Scientists from NASA and several universities and other research institutions will study Earth’s atmosphere; the Sun’s atmosphere; the Sun’s magnetic fields; and the Sun’s atmospheric outbursts, called coronal mass ejections.

When you look up at the Sun and Moon on the eclipse , the Moon’s day — or just observe its shadow darkening the ground beneath the clouds, which seems more likely — think about all the discoveries still yet waiting to happen, just behind the shadow of the Moon.

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What Solar Eclipse-Gazing Has Looked Like for the Past 2 Centuries

Millions of people on Monday will continue the tradition of experiencing and capturing solar eclipses, a pursuit that has spawned a lot of unusual gear.

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By Sarah Eckinger

• April 8, 2024

For centuries, people have been clamoring to glimpse solar eclipses. From astronomers with custom-built photographic equipment to groups huddled together with special glasses, this spectacle has captivated the human imagination.

Creating a Permanent Record

In 1860, Warren de la Rue captured what many sources describe as the first photograph of a total solar eclipse . He took it in Rivabellosa, Spain, with an instrument known as the Kew Photoheliograph . This combination of a telescope and camera was specifically built to photograph the sun.

Forty years later, Nevil Maskelyne, a magician and an astronomy enthusiast, filmed a total solar eclipse in North Carolina. The footage was lost, however, and only released in 2019 after it was rediscovered in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives.

Telescopic Vision

For scientists and astronomers, eclipses provide an opportunity not only to view the moon’s umbra and gaze at the sun’s corona, but also to make observations that further their studies. Many observatories, or friendly neighbors with a telescope, also make their instruments available to the public during eclipses.

Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen, Fridtjof Nansen and Sigurd Scott Hansen observing a solar eclipse while on a polar expedition in 1894 .

Women from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and their professor tested out equipment ahead of their eclipse trip (to “catch old Sol in the act,” as the original New York Times article phrased it) to New London, Conn., in 1922.

A group from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania traveled to Yerbaniz, Mexico, in 1923, with telescopes and a 65-foot camera to observe the sun’s corona .

Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, prepared to head to Douglas Hill, Maine, to study an eclipse in 1932. An entire freight car was required to transport the institution’s equipment.

Visitors viewed a solar eclipse at an observatory in Berlin in the mid-1930s.

A family set up two telescopes in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1963. The two children placed stones on the base to help steady them.

An astronomer examined equipment for an eclipse in a desert in Mauritania in June 1973. We credit the hot climate for his choice in outfit.

Indirect Light

If you see people on Monday sprinting to your local park clutching pieces of paper, or with a cardboard box of their head, they are probably planning to reflect or project images of the solar eclipse onto a surface.

Cynthia Goulakos demonstrated a safe way to view a solar eclipse , with two pieces of cardboard to create a reflection of the shadowed sun, in Lowell, Mass., in 1970.

Another popular option is to create a pinhole camera. This woman did so in Central Park in 1963 by using a paper cup with a small hole in the bottom and a twin-lens reflex camera.

Amateur astronomers viewed a partial eclipse, projected from a telescope onto a screen, from atop the Empire State Building in 1967 .

Back in Central Park, in 1970, Irving Schwartz and his wife reflected an eclipse onto a piece of paper by holding binoculars on the edge of a garbage basket.

Children in Denver in 1979 used cardboard viewing boxes and pieces of paper with small pinholes to view projections of a partial eclipse.

A crowd gathered around a basin of water dyed with dark ink, waiting for the reflection of a solar eclipse to appear, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

Staring at the Sun (or, How Not to Burn Your Retinas)

Eclipse-gazers have used different methods to protect their eyes throughout the years, some safer than others .

In 1927, women gathered at a window in a building in London to watch a total eclipse through smoked glass. This was popularized in France in the 1700s , but fell out of favor when physicians began writing papers on children whose vision was damaged.

Another trend was to use a strip of exposed photographic film, as seen below in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 and in Turkana, Kenya, in 1963. This method, which was even suggested by The Times in 1979 , has since been declared unsafe.

Solar eclipse glasses are a popular and safe way to view the event ( if you use models compliant with international safety standards ). Over the years there have been various styles, including these large hand-held options found in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1979.

Parents and children watched a partial eclipse through their eclipse glasses in Tokyo in 1981.

Slimmer, more colorful options were used in Nabusimake, Colombia, in 1998.

In France in 1999.

And in Iran and England in 1999.

And the best way to see the eclipse? With family and friends at a watch party, like this one in Isalo National Park in Madagascar in 2001.