Ecpaty is a new complementary term to empathy, which allows adequate control of emotional contagion and induced feelings, a concept proposed by the doctor and professor of psychiatry JLGonzalez to define the voluntary process of exclusion of feelings, attitudes, thoughts and motivations induced by others. .
Ecpatia is not the indifference or emotional tenacity characteristic of people who do not have empathy, but is a positive mental action or maneuver that compensates for empathy, this compensatory mental action protects us from emotional deluge and prevents other people’s emotions from dragging us: a risk that people too empathetic are in danger.
- From this point of view.
- You can’t confuse “putting yourself in each other’s place and taking each other’s place.
- “Empathy helps us understand people and their problems.
- But it can be really dangerous when we’re trapped.
If the degree of involvement of an empathetic person with others is not adequate, there is a risk of falling into what is called the “messiah trap”: loving and helping others by forgetting to love and help oneself. Carmen Berry?
Although we believe that there are specialists in the induction and transmission of emotions, the reality is that we are not helpless: can we or can we acquire enough tools to make this?Emotional doesn’t happen. An emotional abduction that is often given by the particular sensitivity of the abducted and not by the intention of the kidnapper that the other remains in that state, in this sense we cannot confuse emotional contagion with empathy.
Empathy manages the information we receive from others, if we consider only the opinions, desires and emotions of others, coexistence becomes disastrous; however, empathy is incomplete without the ability to manage emotional contagion and compensate for it with another mental quality.
While empathy is about “putting yourself in each other’s place,” ecpatia would mean “putting yourself in its place. “Both qualities are necessary and important. Ecpatia is a mental action that protects us from the manipulation or emotional flooding of others, preventing the emotions of others from dominating us.
“Empathy is a more appropriate emotional response to the situation of others than to your own. “Martin Hoffman?
Daniel Goleman, author of the book “Emotional Intelligence,” says empathy is essentially the ability to understand the emotions of others in other people’s situations; however, it also notes that on a deeper level, it is about defining, understanding and responding to the concerns and needs that are rooted in the emotional responses and reactions of others.
Ecpaty is quite the opposite and, at the same time, complementary to empathy, this voluntary process helps us avoid excessive emotional contagion in certain situations, such as patient care or humanitarian tragedies, in this way we end up blocking pain, avoiding mental manipulations. or even collective hysteria.
Therefore, any emotional contagion is not good for our emotional health, the ideal would be to regulate the capacity for empathy, not only to improve the capacity for understanding, but also to prevent or limit the scope of that experience. This imbalance can be detrimental. the overly empathetic person.
“When people talk, listen carefully, do most people ever listen?Ernest Hemingway?