Empathy

Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, transliterated as empatheia, meaning "physical affection, partiality") is  commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and feel directly the emotion of another. Since the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's mode of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.

Empathy is also a concept recognized as "reading" another person, completely translating each movement into understandable conversation.

Definitions of empathy

 * Theodore Lipps: Einfühlung ("feeling into").


 * Edith Stein: Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general


 * Heinz Kohut: Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.


 * Nancy Eisenberg: An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel


 * Gregory Gwyn:Empathy is a physical affliction of pain or loss that can be viewed by others through past experiences.Chritsopher Columbus Middle School Analysas, 28, pp. 345; 342-373.


 * Roy Schafer: Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person.


 * D. M. Berger: The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes.


 * R. R. Greenson: To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.


 * Wynn Schwartz: "We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but especially as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a manner that we can tolerate their being recognized."


 * Carl Rogers: To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth.


 * Jean Decety: a sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the other, without confusion between the two individuals.


 * Martin Hoffman: An affective response more appropriate to another's situation than one's own.

Metaphoric definitions
Empathy, like any complex term, has attracted to itself certain more-overt metaphors, especially those of mirrors and resonance. In addition, one theorist has proposed structural affinities between empathy and touch, and Chinese translation proposes the metaphor of the reasoning heart.

Touch
Philosopher Edith Wyschogrod asserts: “Since touch is the paradigmatic sense for bringing what is felt into proximity with feeling, structural affinities between touch and [empathy and sympathy] can't be shown.” Wyschogrod points out that visual objects and auditory sensations are both apprehended as occurring at a distance from their objects or sources, while touch implies not only proximity but contact. In general, “in intersubjective encounter [touch] is involved in caress and sexual arousal, as well as in aggression, slapping, punching etc.” Wyschogrod notes a vulnerability in empathy which is indeed more like that of touch; empathy implies that we can be genuinely affected, saddened, grieved, touched by those with whom we empathize. While she doesn’t precisely summarize in this way, by the time she is done, Wyschogrod’s vision of empathy links it to a sense which is not only that of our fingertips, or even of our entire skin surface, but of our limits, location, and movement.

Common English usage supports Wyschogrod’s approach. When empathising with another, we are reaching out to the other with our guard down. If the other chooses at that point to lash out, we can easily be very hurt. When this happens, it feels like nothing so much as being punched in the stomach.

We can take Wyschogrod’s metaphor and go further, suggesting that the kinds of touch, such as surgery, which move beyond the surface, and which fail thereby to observe Carl Roger’s "as if," are, even if well intentioned, invasive, and do necessary violence. Examples of this invasive type of empathy are not hard to find, with a paradigmatic case being a parent using her superior empathic skill to invade and attempt to control the inner life of her child, in an exploitation of her child’s vulnerability.

Musical resonance
The metaphor of musical resonance reinforces certain ideas around empathy that are often misconstrued. Gauss, suggests that, “In popular usage the idea refers to the emotional resonance between two people, when, like strings tuned to the same frequency, each responds in perfect sympathy to the other and each reinforces the responses of the other”

However, within the musical semantic universe, the better metaphor is that of overtones and undertones, by which an instrument incapable of replicating a particular frequency (pitch) a nevertheless resonate with pitches sharing certain harmonic structures. Harmonic resonance, unlike pitch replication, suggests appropriate differentiation between the two instruments, between model and beholder, while retaining a sense that some accuracy is required.

Interestingly, one Chinese translation for empathy contains the two characters not for the replication of pitch, but for harmonic resonance. This Chinese translation aligns with the forms of empathy which arise intuitively or non-cognitively.

Discussion
Since empathy involves understanding the emotions of other people, the way it is characterised is derivative of the way emotions themselves are characterised. If for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterised by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterised by combinations of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy.

Furthermore, a distinction should be made between deliberately imagining being another person, or being in their situation, and simply recognizing their emotion. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained, and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

The human capacity to recognize the bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities, and seems to be grounded in the innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself. Humans also seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling. See neurological basis below. There is some debate concerning how exactly the conscious experience (or phenomenology) of empathy should be characterized. The basic idea is that by looking at the facial expressions or bodily movements of another, or by hearing their tone of voice, one may get an immediate sense of how they feel (as opposed to more intellectually noting the behavioral symptoms of their emotion). Though empathic recognition is likely to involve some form of arousal in the empathiser, they may not experience this feeling as belonging to their own body, but instead likely to perceptually locate the feeling 'in' the body of the other person. Alternatively the empathiser may instead get a sense of an emotional 'atmosphere' or that the emotion belongs equally to all the parties involved.

More fully developed empathy requires more than simply recognizing another's emotional state. Since emotions are typically directed towards objects or states of affairs, the empathiser may first require some idea of what that object might be (where object can include imaginary objects, concepts, other people, or even the empathiser). Alternatively the recognition of the feeling may precede the recognition of the object of that emotion, or even aid the empathiser in discovering the object of the other's emotion. The empathiser may also need to determine how the emotional state affects the way in which the other perceives the object. For example, the empathizer needs to determine which aspects of the object to focus on. Hence it is often not enough that the empathiser recognize the object toward which the other is directed, plus the bodily feeling, and then simply add these components together. Rather the empathiser needs to find the way into the loop where perception of the object affects feeling and feeling affects the perception of the object. The following sequence of examples identifies some of the major factors in empathising with another:

I sense that:
 * Frank is feeling annoyed, (via facial, vocal or postural expression).
 * Frank is feeling annoyed due to not getting what he wants, (general object of emotion).
 * Frank is feeling annoyed because he missed his train, (particular object of emotion)
 * Frank is feeling annoyed because he missed his train, but only by a few seconds, (focus of particular object).
 * Frank is feeling annoyed because he only just missed his train and he had an important meeting to get to, (background non-psychological context).
 * Frank is feeling annoyed because he only just missed his train, and he had an important meeting and because he is generally an irritable sort of person (character traits).

It should also be noted that the extent to which a person's emotions are publicly observable, or mutually recognised as such has significant social conseqences. Empathic recognition may or may not be welcomed or socially desirable. This is particularly the case where we recognise the emotions that someone has towards ourselves during real time interactions. The appropriate role of empathy in our dealings with others is highly dependent on the circumstances. For instance, it is claimed that clinicians or caregivers must take care not to be too sensitive to the emotions of others, to over-invest their own emotions, at the risk of draining away their own resourcefulness.

There are also concerns that the empathiser's own emotional background may affect or distort what emotions they perceive in others. Empathy is not a process that is likely to deliver certain judgements about the emotional states of others. It is a skill that is gradually developed throughout life, and which improves the more contact we have with the person with whom we empathise. Accordingly, any knowledge we gain of the emotions of the other must be revisable in light of further information. Thus awareness of these limitations is prudent in a clinical or caregiving situation.

Methods for empathising
When seeking to communicate with another, it may be helpful to demonstrate empathy with the other, to open-up the channel of communication with the other. In this case two methods of empathy are possible:

a) either simulate 'pretend' versions of the beliefs, desires, character traits and context of the other and see what emotional feelings this leads to;

b) or simulate the emotional feeling and then look around for a suitable reason for this to fit.

Either way, full empathetic engagement is supposed to help to understand and anticipate the behavior of the other.

Empathy may be painful to oneself: seeing the pain of others, especially as broadcasted by mass media, can cause one temporary or permanent clinical depression; a phenomenon which is sometimes called weltschmerz.

Without a basic emotional understanding of others there is no basis for relationship, therefore a tension struggle lies in the dilemma to protect oneself from the pain of empathy or seek to relate to other humans despite the potential risk of injury.

Contrasting empathy to other phenomena
One must be careful not to confuse empathy with either sympathy, pity, emotional contagion, or telepathy. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better off or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help as they cannot fix their problems themselves. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively 'catches' the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognising this is happening. Telepathy is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, whereby emotions or other mental states can be read directly, without needing to infer, or perceive expressive clues about the other person.

Sympathy is, "I'm sorry for your sadness, I wish to help."

Pity is, "Things are bad for you, you seem as though you need help."

Emotional Contagion is, "You feel sad and now I feel sad."

Empathy is, "I feel your sadness."

Apathy is, "I don't care how you feel. "

Telepathy is, "I read your sadness without you expressing it to me in any normal way."

Psychological perspectives
Heinz Kohut is the main introducer of the principle of empathy in psychoanalysis. His principle applies to the method of gathering unconscious material. The possibility of not applying the principle is granted in the cure. For instance when you must reckon with another principle, that of reality. Some experts (psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientists) believe that not all humans have an ability to feel empathy or perceive the emotions of others. For instance, Autism and related conditions such as Asperger's syndrome are often (but not always) characterized by an apparent reduced ability to empathize with others. The interaction between empathy and autism spectrum disorders is a complex and ongoing field of research, and is discussed in detail below.

According to recent fMRI studies the syndrome of alexithymia, a condition in which an individual is rendered incapable of recognising and articulating emotional arousal in self or others, is responsible for a severe lack of emotional empathy. The lack of empathetic attunement inherent to alexithymic states may reduce quality and satisfaction of relationships.

According to Simon Baron-Cohen's ideas, an absence of empathy might also be related to an absence of theory of mind (i.e., the ability to model another's world view using either a theory-like analogy between oneself and others, or the ability to simulate pretend mental states and then apply the consequences of these simulations to others). Again, not all autistics fit this pattern, and the theory remains controversial, and does not differentiate between cognitive empathy and affective empathy, nor do autistic people lack compassion. Francesca Happe showed that autistic children who demonstrate a lack of theoy of mind (cognitive empathy) lack theory if mind for self as well as others.

In contrast, psychopaths are seemingly able to demonstrate the appearance of sensing the emotions of others with such a theory of mind, often demonstrating care and friendship in a convincing manner, and can use this ability to charm or manipulate, but they crucially lack the sympathy or compassion that empathy often leads to. Empathy certainly does not guarantee benevolence. The same ability may underlie schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the pain of another entity) and sadism (being sexually gratified through the infliction of pain or humiliation on another person).

Moreover, some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. We are also more likely to empathize with those with whom we interact more frequently (See Levenson and Reuf 1997 and Hoffman 2000: 62).

Developing skills of empathy is often a central theme in the recovery process for drug addicts.

Even more, people can empathize with animals. As such, empathy is thought to be a driving psychological force behind the animal rights movement (an example of sympathy), whether or not using empathy is justified by any real similarity between the emotional experiences of animals and humans.

In evolutionary psychology, attempts at explaining prosocial behavior often mention the presence of empathy in the individual as a possible variable. Although exact motives behind complex social behaviors are difficult to distinguish, the "ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and experience events and emotions the way that person expereienced them" is the definitive factor for truly altruistic behavior according to Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis. If empathy is not felt, social exchange (what's in it for me?) supersedes pure altruism, but if empathy is felt, an individual will help regardless of wether it is in their self-interest to do so and even if the costs outweigh potential rewards.

Empathy and autism spectrum disorders
A common source of confusion in analyzing the interactions between empathy and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is that the apparent lack of empathy may mask at least two other underlying causes: The former of these is cited by Phoebe Caldwell, an author on ASD, who writes:
 * Excessive sensitivity or "overwhelm," may be a cause of early learned suppression.
 * Failure to demonstrate empathy can arise from inability (or not knowing how) to express empathy to others, as opposed to difficulty feeling it, internally.
 * What is clear is that, while people on the spectrum may not respond easily to external gestures/sounds, they do respond most readily if the initiative they witness is already part of their repertoire. This points to the selective use of incoming information rather than absence of recognition. It would appear that people with autism are actually rather good at recognition and imitation if the action they perceive is one that has meaning and significance for their brains.
 * As regards the failure of empathetic response, it would appear that at least some people with autism are oversensitive to the feelings of others rather than immune to them, but cannot handle the painful feed-back that this initiates in the body, and have therefore learnt to suppress this facility. ("Letters", London Times, Dec 30 2005)

With these possible exceptions noted, it would be grossly misleading to infer that individuals with ASD's are generally exceptional empathizers when, quite to the contrary, research indicates the reverse. Research suggests that many ASD individuals have a lack of theory of mind (ToM) and alexithymia (85% of those with ASD's have alexithymia), both of which conditions involve severe deficits in the individual's ability to be empathetically attuned to others. Alexithymia involves not just the inability to verbally express emotions, but specifically the inability to verbally identify emotional states in self or others. However, research by Rogers et al. suggests that empathy needs to be differentiated between cognitive empathy and affective empathy in people with Asperger syndrome, suggesting autistic individuals have less developed understanding of the feeling of others, but demonstrate equally much empathy when aware of others state of mind, and respond more to stress experienced by other people that non-autistic people.

Empathy in animals
Some students of animal behavior claim that empathy is not restricted to humans as the definition implies. Examples include dolphins saving humans (sympathy) from drowning or from shark attacks, and a multitude of behaviors observed in primates, both in captivity and in the wild. See, for instance, the popular book The Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans de Waal. Rodents have been shown to demonstrate empathy for cagemates (but not strangers) in pain.

Neurological basis
Research in recent years has focused on possible brain processes as concomitant with empathy (Preston & de Waal, 2002). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has recently been employed to investigate the functional anatomy of empathy (for reviews see Decety & Jackson, 2006; Decety & Lamm, 2006; deVignemont & Singer, 2006). These studies have shown that observing another person’s emotional state activates parts of the neuronal network involved in processing that same state in oneself, whether it is disgust (Wicker et al., 2003), touch (Keysers et al., 2004), or pain (Morrison et al., 2004; Jackson et al., 2005, 2006; Lamm et al., 2007; Singer et al., 2004, 2006).

The study of empathic neuronal circuitries was inspired by the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys that fire both when the creature watches another perform an action as well as when they themselves perform it presents a possible neural mechanism for mapping others' feelings onto one's own nervous system. Based on some of this work, the simulation theory of empathy has been developed.

Dapretto et al. (2006) found that, relative to typically developing children, high-functioning children with autism showed reduced mirror neuron activity in the brain's inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis) while imitating and observing emotional expressions. The authors suggest this supports the hypothesis that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may underlie the social deficits observed in autism.

Components of circuitry involved in empathy may also be dysfunctional in psychopathy (Tunstall N., Fahy T. and McGuire P. in: Guide to Neuroimaging in Psychiatry, Eds. Fu C et al, Martin Dunitz: London 2003).

Development of empathy
By the age of 2, children normally begin to display the fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with another person. Even earlier, at one year of age, infants have some rudiments of empathy, in the sense that they understand that, just like their own actions, other people's actions have goals. . Sometimes, toddlers will comfort others or show concern for them as early as 24 months of age. Also during the second year, toddlers will play games of falsehood or "pretend" in an effort to fool others, and this requires that the child know what others believe before he or she can manipulate those beliefs (Feldman, 1997).

In 1997, Douglas Olsen defined empathetic maturity as the cognitive structure that determines whether a person can feel or not feel empathy, who one feels it for and how broad a group. Differences in empathetic maturity are differences in the way a person relates self-created meaning to meaning perceived in others. Empathetic maturity provides the criteria for determining whether another will be experienced as "like me" or "different." More inclusive criteria increase the number and diversity of others who will be perceived empathetically. The highest of the hierarchical stages of empathetic maturity is the most inclusive where all others are perceived as "like me." (Olsen, 2001) There are three stages of empathetic maturity (Olsen, 2001; and Olsen, 1997):

Stage 1 – This most primitive pattern and not common in adults. Persons at this stage see others as fundamentally different from themselves. The rationales for another's actions, feelings, or thoughts are not experienced as having human relevance in the sense that one’s own rationales do. Those operating at this stage perceive mutuality with others concretely.

Stage 2 – People at Stage 2 hold that their rationales for behavior are valid for everyone. And so, reasons for behaviors and feelings are legitimate to the degree they coincide with the person at Stage 2. Unlike Stage 1, the Stage 2 person sees others like him or her so long as they make sense of their world the same way. Therefore, positive regard for a sufferer perceived to be participating in negative behaviors is difficult for the Stage 2 person unless the behavior is explicable from his or her point of view. An example of such negative behavior would be AIDS as the result of sex practices not condoned by the Stage 2 observer. If the Stage 2 person believes the sufferer is responsible for the behavior, he or she will have no empathy. If the Stage 2 person can detect an acceptable reason why the sufferer is not actually responsible, for example, illness resulted from blood tranfusion, beyond the sufferer's control, then empathy emerges. Caregivers at Stage 2 who want to feel empathetic toward their patients often try to find factors that mitigate responsibility. Most of society operates at Stage 2.

Stage 3 – At this stage, mutuality occurs prior to any judgment about the person's behavior. The other is perceived as human in the same way the self is experienced, based solely on being a creator of meaning rather than on the content of the meanings created. The perception of another person as responsible for a problem no longer has the power to hinder the development of empathy. If the sufferer is seen as responsible, there is no longer any need to mitigate that responsibility as a method for allowing empathy. A hallmark of Stage 3 is a person's ability to perceive another empathetically while simultaneously and without apparent contradiction perceiving that other as responsible for problematic behavior.

Development of empathy in education
An important target by the method Learning by teaching (LdL) is to train systematically and in each lesson the students-empathy. They have to transmit new contents to the classmates, so they have to reflect continuously on the mental processes by the other students in the classroom. This way - in addition - it is possible to develop step by step the students-feeling for group-reactions and networking.

Other aspects
In addition to the above use, the term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. This, reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, overwhelm or stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "white noise" or multiple emotions as they pass through it, a phenomenon not to be confused with agoraphobia and sometimes informally known as crowd-sickness.

Empathy in this sense is ascribed by such people to various mechanisms. These include simply more sophisticated subconscious processing of sensory cues or stronger emotional feedback than the norm, (i.e. the normal human experience but more so), and therefore fit within present models. Some people, perhaps due to synesthesia, believe it instead to be a direct emotional sense or a feel for others' "energy". The New Age religion(s) have constructed belief systems around anecdotal evidence of persons who claim to be "empaths" in this sense. This aspect of empathy is not clinically recognized, and someone calling themselves an "empath" usually does not intend to imply that they are gifted with any psychic ability.

A recurrent theme of discussion on such websites relates to the impact upon individuals, and therefore also methods (including mental practices, emotional processes and ritual) which anecdotally can help reduce the intensity of empathic reactions to others' feelings to a more bearable level (informally called 'shielding' or emotional detachment).

Empathic accuracy
A measure of how well a person can infer the specific content of another person's successive thoughts and feelings (Ickes, 1997, 2003). William Ickes and his colleagues have developed a video-based method to measure empathic accuracy and have used this method to study the empathic inaccuracy of maritally aggressive and abusive husbands, among other topics.

In works of fiction
In some works of science fiction and fantasy, empathy is understood to be a paranormal or psychic ability to sense the emotions of others, as opposed to telepathy, which allows one to perceive thoughts as well. A person who has that ability is also called an "empath" or "telempath" in this context. Occasionally these empaths are also able to project their own emotions, or to affect the emotions of others.

Examples from television and motion pictures include the character Deanna Troi (who, being half-Betazoid, is empathic, rather than telepathic) from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the demon Lorne of the American television show Angel. In Superman (Pre-Crisis), Lex Luthor's younger sister Lena Thorul is also an empath. One of Teen Titans character Raven's powers includes empathy. Also, in the Marvel Universe, the mutant Empath has, as his name suggests, empathic abilities, both to sense and manipulate emotions. In the NBC television series Heroes, the character Peter Petrelli is revealed to be an "empath", possessing the ability to absorb and use the power's of other heroes, even when they are not present, simply by recalling the way he felt when he was near them. Also on Smallville Chloe Sullivan has the power of Empathy described as the ability to heal others by taking on their pains and making it her own.

Additionally, in Charmed, Prue (temporarily) and Phoebe Halliwell become empaths, in addition to a race of empathic magical creatures. In the Charmed universe, magical powers are said to be tied to the user's emotions. Due to this concept, the empath Phoebe Halliwell is able to not only feel the emotions of others, but also to tap into them in order to control and channel a magical being's powers. Charmed also displays empathy as a way of strengthening a being's own magical powers. Finally, in the series finale, Forever Charmed, Phoebe discovers that she is able to conjure her future-husband Coop simply due to the strong emotional bond they share. This may be as a result of her empathic power and/or her psychic, clairvoyant abilities.

The character Vincent in the TV series Beauty and the Beast is constantly empathically connected with his love, Catherine, and is considered by many fans to have at least a partial empathic sensing of others around him, fading with distance. In the movie Equilibrium, members of the Grammaton Clergy claim to be able to feel someone's feelings, sometimes before the other person is even aware of their own feelings.

Also, in the television series, Scout's Safari, Scout is a young girl living in Africa who has the empathic ability to feel the emotions and thoughts of animal. She uses this ability to help the animals and help humans understand them.

In printed fiction, several characters in Anne McCaffrey's novel To Ride Pegasus and its sequels are telempathic, empaths who are also able to broadcast chosen emotions. The character Flinx from Alan Dean Foster's ongoing "Flinx and Pip" series is telempathic as well. In the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey, a prominent American fantasy writer, characters are imbued with different abilities, including empathy, most notably the Queen's Own Herald, Talia. Octavia Butler's classic science fiction novel Parable of the Sower also features a character who is an empath. In Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles, some characters have the ability to project their own emotions and to 'feel' the emotions of others around them. In the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, a vampire character named Jasper has a strong ability to feel any emotion in anybody and change the emotions of the people around him. He often uses this power to calm others in hostile situations.

The book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (on which the film Blade Runner was based) directly explores a number of issues surrounding empathy and the emotions, most notably a test which distinguishes humans from androids based on involuntary empathic reactions; it also tells of a religion based on collective experience and empathy for animals, as well as the 'mood organ' (a device which arouses any chosen emotion).

In the Pokémon manga series Pokémon Adventures, the characters Yellow, Lance/Wataru, and Giovanni/Sasaki have empathic powers towards Pokémon creatures. Empaths and empathy also play a part in many other Japanese manga. Some examples are Hisoka Kurosaki from Descendants of Darkness, Camus Pfalzgraf von Silvaner Lüneburg from Meine Liebe, and Quatre Raberba Winner from Gundam Wing.

Rose Rosetree describes how an empath learns to explore her empathic talent and to use it more efficiently in her novel The Roar of the Huntids. .

In the pen and paper role-playing game Rifts, empathy is a psychic ability used to "feel" or "read" the emotions of others. The super psychic ability "empathic transmission" enables the psychic to affect the emotions of others, with negative or positive results. For example, the psychic can force his victim to feel extreme sorrow, or extreme joy.

Empathy in history
Some Post-Modern historians such as Keith Jenkins in recent years have debated whether or not it is possible to empathise with people from the past. Jenkins argues that empathy only enjoys such a privileged position in the present because it corresponds harmoniously with the dominant Liberal discourse of modern society and can be connected to John Stuart Mill's concept of reciprocal freedom. Jenkins argues the past is a foreign country and as we do not have access to the epistemological conditions of bygone ages we are unable to empathise. The reader will not be astonished at the conclusive issue about empathy and history. Only events and their products meet or not empathy. It is impossible to forecast the effect of empathy on the future. We can pay attention to the means of language of telling events. We above checked a contemporary subject may not take part in the past. A past subject may take part in the present by the so-called historic present. If we watch from a fictitious past, can tell the present with the future tense, as it happens with the trick of the false prophecy. There is no way of telling the present with the means of the past. The way of making the study of empathy functional is still long.

Empathy and moral theory
In research published in 2007 in the book "The Ethics of Care and Empathy," Philosopher Michael Slote introduces a theory of care based ethics that is grounded in empathy. His claim is that moral motivation does, and should stem from a basis of empathic response. He claims that our natural reaction to situations of moral significance are explained by empathy. He explains that the limits and obligations of empathy and in turn morality are natural. These natural obligations include a greater empathic, and moral obligation to family and friends, along with an account of temporal and physical distance. In situations of close temporal and physical distance, and with family or friends, our moral obligation seems stronger to us than with strangers at a distance naturally. Slote explains that this is due to empathy and our natural empathic ties. He further adds that actions are wrong if and only if they reflect or exhibit a deficiency of fully developed empathic concern for others on the part of the agent.