{"id":177,"date":"2022-03-23T14:47:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T18:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/?post_type=chapter&p=177"},"modified":"2022-03-23T14:47:11","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T18:47:11","slug":"empathy","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/chapter\/empathy\/","title":{"raw":"Empathy","rendered":"Empathy"},"content":{"raw":"Simply put, empathy is an awareness of someone else\u2019s feelings in a way that you are able to put yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling.\r\n\r\nEmpathy will play an important role in everything you do in your role as a peer support worker. Empathy will come up throughout the whole training.\r\n\r\nWhen we tap into empathy, we know that we could very easily be in the same situation as that person, if we haven\u2019t already been there.\r\n
\r\n\r\nIn her book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn\u2019t)<\/em> (2008), Bren\u00e9 Brown references nursing scholar Teresa Wiseman\u2019s four attributes to empathy<\/strong>:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. The ability to see the world through another person\u2019s perspective<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Staying out of judgment<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Paying attention to, and doing our best to understand another person\u2019s emotions<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Communicating your understanding of that person\u2019s feelings<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\nSympathy is feeling bad\/sad for someone without putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathy can have an element of pity, whereas empathy is feeling with<\/em> someone\u2013empathy involves perspective-taking.\r\n\r\nThe especially difficult part of empathy is that it makes us vulnerable. It asks us to tap into the difficult feelings inside ourselves in order to connect with the other person. That can feel scary. As peer supporters, we need to practice good self-care, and self-compassion.\r\n\r\nEmpathy puts us in someone else\u2019s shoes, but it stops being supportive if we are so enmeshed in the situation that we fall apart. Choosing to be empathetic and compassionate is important, as is\u00a0 avoiding overwhelm from taking on someone\u2019s difficult emotions as your own. Part of your self-care will be learning how you take care of you while you are supporting someone else.","rendered":"

    Simply put, empathy is an awareness of someone else\u2019s feelings in a way that you are able to put yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling.<\/p>\n

    Empathy will play an important role in everything you do in your role as a peer support worker. Empathy will come up throughout the whole training.<\/p>\n

    When we tap into empathy, we know that we could very easily be in the same situation as that person, if we haven\u2019t already been there.<\/p>\n

    \n

    In her book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn\u2019t)<\/em> (2008), Bren\u00e9 Brown references nursing scholar Teresa Wiseman\u2019s four attributes to empathy<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The ability to see the world through another person\u2019s perspective<\/li>\n
    2. Staying out of judgment<\/li>\n
    3. Paying attention to, and doing our best to understand another person\u2019s emotions<\/li>\n
    4. Communicating your understanding of that person\u2019s feelings<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

      Sympathy is feeling bad\/sad for someone without putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathy can have an element of pity, whereas empathy is feeling with<\/em> someone\u2013empathy involves perspective-taking.<\/p>\n

      The especially difficult part of empathy is that it makes us vulnerable. It asks us to tap into the difficult feelings inside ourselves in order to connect with the other person. That can feel scary. As peer supporters, we need to practice good self-care, and self-compassion.<\/p>\n

      Empathy puts us in someone else\u2019s shoes, but it stops being supportive if we are so enmeshed in the situation that we fall apart. Choosing to be empathetic and compassionate is important, as is\u00a0 avoiding overwhelm from taking on someone\u2019s difficult emotions as your own. Part of your self-care will be learning how you take care of you while you are supporting someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"menu_order":7,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-177","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":90,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/177\/revisions\/178"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/90"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/177\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/peersupport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}