It irks me anytime some says they are an Empath. It makes me feel like that person doesn’t have an understanding of human empathy. Because (Unless you’re born with some Schizoid or anti-social personality disorder) people are born with empathy, they are born with an innate connection with other people’s emotions, but empathy can be taught or abused out of us, which is where I think the term Empath really originates because there are a lot of people who are generally apathetic to other people, and so when a person does actually have empathy, that can be attributed to them being an “Empath”.
What I don’t like about it is that it makes it out to be that the majority of people are apathetic. Empath is considered something special. people attribute special to rare, thus empathy is something rare, if being empathetic is something rare, then apathy is something common. I hope that understands how I feel.
Some people say “Oh, but they feel the other person’s emotions.” I do too, but I won’t call me an Empath, because that should be basic human empathy. If I cause harm to a person, I can imagine myself in the shoes of that person being hurt, I can feel that phantom pain. When a character dies, I can feel the grief of the fellow cast.
Whenever someone says “I’m an empath” it can feel like they are saying “I’m more caring than you. You are not empathetic.” or it makes me respond, “So… You’re human?”
I mainly think its the wording of the term. If it was called “superempath” or something along those lines, I’d be fine with it because I am not denying some people are more empathetic, I just don’t like how the term used for those people can discredit people of lower amounts of empathy.
Maybe that term only contradicts my argument. I don’t know. I hope empathy is a scale or a spectrum and that being “more empathetic” isn’t used as someway to win some emotional argument.
Tl;Dr Possible Empath doesn’t like the term Empath because of how they think it makes non-empath people feel.
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It works if you replace the word empath with attention starved narcissist..
I have never met a self-professed “empath” who wasn’t an asshole and laughably ignorant of and insensitive to others’ emotions.
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As an empath, I understand your confusion and frustration.
Pretty sure we can attribute the current US vernacular usage of the term “empath” to one particular media franchise.
To be fair, most people that are actually genuinely “empaths” don’t go out of their way to talk about it or make it their whole personality, and don’t tend to call themselves empaths either. I agree with u that it’s a bit of a stupid term but I also recognise that a lot of people lack empathy around the world at the moment.
If I made a list of all the self-described empaths I’ve ever known, I would also, coincidentally, have a list of the least empathetic, most utterly self-absorbed people I’ve ever known.
It seems more like a verbal affirmation.
As if you’d become more empathetic once you considered yourself an empath.
Most people like that are probably like Sarah from Team America. 😀
It is ironic how little self awareness self proclaimed empaths have. They claim to be so in tune with other people’s moods and emotions but for some reason don’t notice most people find them disingenuous and even annoying.
I also get rather irritated by self proclaimed empaths, because they never seem to actually be able to read the emotions of others. I have found people’s emotions (generally) easy enough to read, just incredibly draining to constantly want to deal with. I stopped wanting to try so hard to be empathic towards people because they claimed they were the same way & weren’t showing it to me when I felt I was showing it to them. & I don’t even claim to be showing empathy, like you said, we all learn the phrase “put yourself in their shoes,” it’s just the human experience. I would ask myself that every time “if I was in this position,” but I can’t bring myself to think like that anymore (most of the time).
i thought “empath” was satire at first bc everyone is supposed to feel empathy.
Thankfully I’ve two empaths in my life, as my friends and they are the most sensitive kind people you’ll ever meet, they always go out of their way and comfort to help and be there for other people, I don’t think they even know they are empaths, or if they know they don’t care about it, too busy caring about other people.
Labeling yourself that negates the label in the first place
Well, I am going to read another book about empathy this summer, so maybe I’ll change my view,
But I don’t like the term “empath” or praising some experiences of empathy over others.
First of all, emotions or lack thereof do not make you a good person. Having empathy doesn’t make you better, and it certainly doesn’t mean your empathy is helpful for just existing. Feeling and action are not the same thing. Actually, too much empathy often crushes people and renders them incapacitated and unable to help effectively.
People should be moral whether or not they experience empathy. We are all responsible to each other.
I’m a big fan of cognitive empathy, because people with stunted feelings can usually learn how to do it, and unlike emotional empathy it has more longevity so people don’t start crying about “compassion fatigue.”
However, I read “I’m an empath” as “don’t worry, I’m not scary, I’m nice.” I would advise not trusting that. Even empathetic people do harmful things all the time.
It irks me too, mostly because “empath” is a pop-psych buzzword and means nothing. It’s not a real thing. You are correct, humans typically feel empathy to some degree, and that degree varies between persons and populations. As do a whole host of observable human traits.
Being more empathetic than the person next to you is not a super power and it’s not worthy of a special designation.
It’s because people don’t use the term correctly.
An empath isn’t just a person with empathy. The term for that is “decent human being”, because everybody is supposed to have empathy, it’s a significant part of what makes us human.
An empath, on the other hand, basically feeds on other’s emotions, feeling what others feel to an extreme. My dad, for example, is an actual empath. He can’t go to funerals and stopped attending veteran support groups (he’s a veteran) because he couldn’t deal with the grief everybody was feeling. The last time he went to a funeral, he nearly broke. Mentally. It was honestly scary to watch. And that isn’t a trait that many people have, which is good because it’s terrible.