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Wiss Well-being: Practicing Empathy to Connect with and Help Others

Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character. Why is empathy important? Psychology Today shares that empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It involves experiencing another person’s point of view, rather than just one’s own, and enables prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced.

Building empathy skills is a work-in-progress throughout childhood and adolescence. Read more about how children develop empathy here. VeryWellMind also provides techniques that researchers believe can build empathy skills:

  • Work on listening to people without interrupting
  • Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication
  • Try to understand people, even when you don't agree with them
  • Ask people questions to learn more about them and their lives
  • Imagine yourself in another person's shoes
  • Strengthen your connection with others to learn more about how they feel
  • Seek to identify biases you may have and how they affect your empathy for others
  •  Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on differences
  •  Be willing to be vulnerable, opening up about how you feel
  • Engage in new experiences, giving you better insight into how others in that situation may feel
  • Get involved in organizations that push for social change

WSD embraces the importance of the well-being of our Wissahickon community!