In this article, we are going to learn about empathic communication.

Many of us know about sympathy but the word Empathy might be new for some of you so for you let us first describe what is the difference between sympathy and empathy in easy words.

Sympathy means that you have feelings of pity or sorrow when you see someone is passing through a tough situation. While empathy is when you understand the feelings of others in distress or trouble. You feel their pain by putting your feet in their shoes. For example, you see a person on the road who has just met with an accident and you feel sad for them. You call the ambulance and let them deal with it. This is sympathy.

But when you see someone wounded on the road, you rush to help them, take them to hospital and stay there unless their family member arrives. You did all this because you considered what if it had happened to you and you needed help from others. This is the simplest example of empathy. Now let us describe empathic communication.

Empathic communication:

In simple words, empathic communications mean that you show the other person that he is listened to and being understood for his thoughts or emotions or values.

Empathic communication is something that enables you to see what other people are seeing from their perspective. It is not easy but it saves us from mis conclusions or wrong assumptions about other people who are talking to us.

Psychology gives more importance to empathic communication. if you do not have the correct perception about the meaning of the message conveyed to you then it may decrease empathy in your communication because you have assumed the meaning wrongly. It is no wonder why faulty communication is the root cause of conflicts.

Some of the reasons of faulty communications are as follows;

  • Either we do pretend that we are actively listening but we actually are not listening. So, to show this we nod our head whenever we have eye contact with the person who is talking.
  • We answer the selective part of the conversation as we have not listened to the whole part actively.

But the most effective form of listening is concentrating on the whole conversation and understanding what the other person is saying.

After listening carefully our reactions can be one of these;

  1. Do we evaluate whether we agree with this person or not?
  2. If we have some confusion or disagreement, we ask some questions according to our point of view.
  3. If we have understood what the other person had said, our response is giving them advice according to our point of view.

How to develop empathic communication?

To develop empathy in your communication there are some ways that you may follow;

  1. Be more attentive towards the conversation.
  2. Instead of abruptly assessing the whole scenario listen to the whole conversation and then assess what is being said. On the contrary, it will show that you are being ignorant by not listening carefully.
  3.  Show the speaker active listening, which means that you participate in the conversation when the speaker takes a break or looks at you for your comments, but still don’t assume quickly or start giving advice until the speaker has finished what he was saying.
  4. There are usually two parts of communication, one is the verbal part which is in the form of said words, while the other one is nonverbal which is in the form of gestures, facial expressions or movements of your body, tone of voice and eye expression, etc. 

So, try to examine the nonverbal part of the communication to have a better understanding and have empathic communication.

Benefits of having empathic communication:

Some of the many benefits of having empathy in communication are;

  • Empathy helps you enhance your social skills because when you respond to people in an appropriate way in social gatherings. You show the people that you have understood what they mean by their perspective then it builds up new social connections.
  • Empathy in communication helps you to monitor and regulate your emotions even in stressful situations. It makes you understand that, where, when and how to respond. You don’t become overwhelmed when someone passes different comments about something that you like and it may feel you are annoyed but when you are empathizing you just don’t respond so quickly. This helps you to control your emotions and be comfortable in stressful situations.
  • Having empathy means you understand when another person needs your help. It promotes helping others. You understand their needs and are motivated to help them. This is how empathy makes our environment a beautiful place.

Why do people lack empathy?

There are a few reasons that contribute to a lack of empathy.

Biases: 

Some people are really biased towards others. They don’t have the ability to understand and perceive the world around them with empathy. They have cognitive biases in examining other people’s situations. For example, they see the failure of other people as their own internal disabilities. They don’t understand the other person’s perspective for their shortcomings. This makes them less empathic.

Dehumanizing other people:

Some people lack the understanding that the people living in any part of the world are similar to them. They feel pain and misery in the same way. But some people don’t feel empathy for other humans who are suffering but are in the other part of the world. They don’t know each other so they don’t have any empathy for them. They think since the sufferers are different than us so they don’t deserve empathy.

The blame game:

  This is particularly one of the worst things that anybody does to other people. It happens when people find a person who has suffered anything as being a victim of robbery or bullying. These people start blaming the victim which is already in need of help. This makes the victims more miserable when they are asked what they might have done differently to prevent the crime instead of empathizing with them in that tough time. This makes the world a difficult place to live in.
Still, many people are able to emphasize and this is why the world is a place where we are able to live. We need to make people aware of the importance of empathy in our lives and how just having empathic communication can save us from so many conflicts.