Passing-Thought

Alfred Adler on 'Empathy'

(An excerpt from Understanding Human Nature, p. 52)

Empathy occurs in the moment when one human being speaks with another. It is impossible to understand another individual if one cannot at the same time identify oneself with him. Drama is the clearest expression of empathy, since through the playwright's skill we readily identify with the characters on stage and act the most varied roles within ourselves. Examples of empathy in everyday life are those cases in which we have a strange feeling of uneasiness when we notice another person in danger. This empathy may be so strong that we make involuntary movements in self-[defense], even though there is no actual danger to us; for example, we all know the involuntary movements people make when someone has dropped a glass! At a bowling alley, one may see certain players following the course of the ball with movements of their body as though they wanted to influence its progress by these gestures. Similarly, during football games whole sections of the crowd in the grandstand will push in the direction of their favorite team. Another common example is the involuntary application of imaginary brakes by the passengers in a car whenever they feel they are in danger. Few people can watch without a shudder of fear a window cleaner worker at work on a tall building, and when a public speaker loses his thread and cannot proceed, the audience feels uncomfortable and embarrassed. Our entire life is very much dependent upon this faculty of identification. If we look for the origin of this ability to act and feel as if we were someone else, we can find it in every human being's inborn empathy with others. This is a universal feeling and a reflection of the oneness of the whole cosmos of which we are apart; it is an inescapable characteristic of being human. It gives us the ability to identify ourselves with things outside our own direct experience.