One of the more challenging situations in my clinical practice is to observe a person needing empathy from his or her partner and not receiving it. Thus, an important emotional bond is not forthcoming. A hole in the relationship remains.

Basically empathy is the ability to understand, feel, and share the feelings of another. For the most part, empathy is called for when another person is in a place of physical and/or emotional pain and hurt. Empathy is what the “walk a mile in my shoes” expression is all about. An empathic person tries to understand another person’s perspectives, experiences, or motivations before passing judgment.

Empathy is not necessarily an attribute that many people have, especially men. The age old question of nature versus nurture comes into play here. Are you born with empathy skills or do you learn how to be empathic along the road of life? My clinical experience tells me it is both. 

Stereotypically, some cultures have a larger component of empathy than others. For example, a person from the Mediterranean area is more likely to have the ability than does someone from Scandinavia. Life’s challenges may help enable someone to gain the capacity to empathize.

Part of this understanding is the distinction between right and left brain. Left brain is about logic, understanding, analysis. Right brain is about emotions and creativity. Left brain dominant individuals have difficulty expressing empathy. Typical professions that tend to be left brain-dominant are accountants, airline pilots, computer geeks, military personnel, corporate executives, physicians. Their choice of professions tends to further exacerbate this inclination. Their training drains what little right brain that exists. You don’t want any of those professionals feeling weepy while performing whatever service is involved for you! These same professionals who have been rigorously trained NOT to feel must fight through this in order to empathize. That’s not easy. Right brain-dominant professions are usually in health care of some sort.

Personally speaking, I do not think I was a very empathic person until I started graduate school in the field of counseling psychology. My undergraduate degree is in economics. Does that not say much about where my brain development was at that time!? Studying personality types and starting the journey to become a good therapist opened my feelings capacity. The more I learned and counseled people with various needs the more I have become able to empathize. This developed ability has made me a better person and professional. I “get it” when working with clients/patients who work with me. Being married to a wonderful loving woman and having the experience of raising two awesome kids has further opened my heart, helping me to be more vulnerable, and capable of loving empathy — most of the time.

Growing older also helps; even those left brainers soften up and let feelings show more — which is a start. Aging brings on vulnerability, defenses usually come down, emotions perk up. You have to be able to feel emotion, both in yourself and in another, to empathize.

Empathy is a huge gateway to emotional connection between people. It is a particularly important facet in a marriage. If empathy doesn’t exist, a deeper bond is not capable of being created. This means emotional and sensual distance in most cases. If the shoes fits …   

Dr. Stathas can be reached at 706-473-1780. Email: jstathas13@gmail.com. Website: drstathas.googlepages.com. Blog: drstathas.com. Book: “A Successful Life – Guaranteed!” at Amazon