The Importance of Empathy

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Your primary empathy style — cognitive, emotional, intuitive, or spiritual — reflects how you most naturally express empathy to yourself and others. Although you may relate to other styles as well, your primary style is your default setting — how you naturally express empathy most of the time. Knowing your style is the starting point for appreciating how your own empathy functions and how you can comfortably give and receive caring. (Note that people high in narcissism and others with empathy-deficient disorders will not have a style of empathy because they lack this quality.)

All styles of empathy can be healing in their own ways. The goal is to make the most of your personal assets and perhaps to experiment with different styles to broaden your options. In my book The Genius of Empathy, I write about the four types of empathy, their advantages and disadvantages, and how to balance them. Here is a brief description of each; see if you can recognize your own:

Style 1. Cognitive Empathy: The........

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