Were you consoled by these expressions of empathy? Did you believe them? Did they make your situation any better, or did they become the replacement for what you really needed: patient listening, ongoing caring, practical help and lasting companionship? Were they ultimately no more than your conversation partner’s gateway to escape from the duty of really hearing you and going through sorrow with you?

What is empathy worth?

A review of Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind by Gad Saad, 256 pages, Broadside Books (May 2026).

Homeowner Jane invites the homeless James to live with her. “I’d hate to be homeless,” she tells herself. James starts to exploit and abuse her. She accepts it. “I would not exploit and abuse someone unless something truly terrible had happened to me,” she thinks. This is what Gad Saad would call “suicidal empathy.” In his book of the same name, the Canadian commentator rails against “the orgiastic misfiring of one of our most noble virtues, empathy.”

There is merit to Saad’s critique. He is correct that empathy is problematic when people exaggerate the similarities between individuals. In all likelihood, James is not exploiting and abusing Jane because he has been maddened by trauma. He is, fundamentally, a less conscientious person.

DEFINING EMPATHY AND COMPASSION
Empathy and compassion are related, yet distinct constructs, each of which have multiple dimensions: affective, cognitive, behavioral, intentional, motivational, spiritual, moral, and others. In addition to their multidimensionality, compassion and empathy are crowded by multiple adjacent constrcuts with which they overlap to varying degrees, such as kindness, caring, concern, sensitvity, respect, and a host of behaviors, such as listening, accurately responding, patience and so on. 

Both compassion and empathy can be conceptualized at state and/or trait levels: people can have context-dependent experiences of empathy or compassion (i.e., state), or can have a tendency to be empathic or compassionate (i.e., trait). Compassion and empathy also appear to differ in underlying structure as well as brain function. When assessing compassion and empathy, it is often important to measure their opposites, or constructs that present barriers to experiencing and expressing compassion or empathy. 

“Compassion fatigue” is more accurately characterized as empathy fatigue, and some evidence indicates that compassion can actually counteract negative aspects of empathy.

Damage to the amygdala has been linked to impairments in empathy, typically documented as deficits in accurately identifying others’ emotional experiences, especially fear. This has led some to theorize that amygdala dysfunction is a core feature of psychopathy. There is growing evidence, however, that motivation to empathize is distinct from empathic accuracy. Moreover, anecdotal observations in patients with amygdala lesions have noted their tendencies to approach, rather than avoid, empathic encounters with strangers, even when the patients have impairments in empathic accuracy.

We conducted a novel investigation specifically examining empathy motivation in patients with amygdala damage. We used a free-choice paradigm to assess motivation to empathize.

By Daily Freeman

This inability to express or feel empathy, it turns out, is serious. It isolates the powerful into their own stereotypes and egotistical certainties, which lessens their ability to make good, or even rational, decisions. (Right, Donald?). And hubris syndrome isn’t merely psychological; it’s also physiological.

Citing neuroscience research, Useem writes: “And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, ‘mirroring,’ that may be a cornerstone of empathy. Which gives a neurological basis to what (psychologist Dacher) Keltner has termed the ‘power paradox’: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.”

In May our theme for Mental Health & Education Week is "Feel Well, Think Well, Learn Well….Together!". When we practice empathy, we help each other feel well by creating safe and supportive spaces, think well by understanding different perspectives without judgment, and learn well…together by growing through shared experiences and mutual care.

This month, we are focusing on the theme of EMPATHY with students as part of their mental health skill-building. Empathy is the ability to understand what someone else may be experiencing by imagining how they might feel or think. It’s about “walking in another person’s shoes,” listening to their perspective without judgment, and expressing our understanding of their emotions. Empathy involves recognizing the humanity in others, being fully present, and validating their feelings. Often, it is the first step toward compassionate action and supporting others in meaningful ways.

Empathy is important because it helps us:

Treat others in the way they want to be treated

Better understand the needs and feelings of those around us

Recognize how our words and actions are perceived by others

Respond more thoughtfully to the needs and experiences of others

A new study is the first to show that two of our most sophisticated cognitive functions, using and understanding language and being able to sense how other people feel, have distinct origins in the brain in young children – matching what we know about the adult brain. 

The findings suggest that these separate but related ways of processing complex concepts, both uniquely human skills, do not originate from overlapping brain areas and grow more distinct as the mind matures, which challenges prior theories. Instead, our brains appear to have evolved with discrete architecture and wiring enabling these different kinds of thinking. 

At work, the human case for empathy is straightforward: Social connection is one of our greatest sources of well-being, and when workers feel it they grow happier and healthier. Research has now made the business case for it equally clear: Employees of empathic companies do better, working harder, collaborating more efficiently, and generating stronger ideas.

AI, however, is putting human connection at risk. Many workers, deeply concerned about how the technology will change their jobs, are experiencing rising levels of mistrust and “FOBO,” or fear of becoming obsolete. A 2025 study found that when companies adopted AI, employees’ depression levels tended to increase over time.

In the study, researchers analyzed conversations in which participants responded to emotionally charged scenarios and practiced writing empathetic replies. Some did so without any feedback, others were allowed to watch a video with suggestions from a communications expert, and others got personalized feedback from an AI coach.

The experiment involved 968 participants, producing over 2,900 conversations and over 30,000 messages exchanged. The conclusion highlighted a surprising but powerful insight:

The ability to feel empathy is different from the ability to express empathy.

Empathy is increasingly held up as the one leadership quality AI cannot replicate. The irony, then, is that new research from Stanford suggests it can be trained using AI — but doing so may produce leaders who communicate empathy without actually feeling it.

Swap draining affective empathy for cognitive empathy to understand others without losing your perspective.

Avoid empathic tunnel vision to prevent unfair biases and emotional burnout.

Adopt rational compassion over emotional "quick fixes."

That is where the second form of empathy helps. Cognitive empathy is about perspective-taking. It allows you the intellectual understanding of the situation, but doesn't let you be absorbed by feelings and forget the bigger picture. When you utilize cognitive empathy, you are gathering information and creating a mental map of the situation.

by Ruth Gotian

Empathy Shadowing
Speaking with end users in their own environment during their normal routines is a process called empathic design. This approach sparked the design thinking movement, which puts the user at the center of the design. Research has shown repeatedly in nearly every industry, including healthcare, technology, hospitality, and the financial sector, that observing and experiencing the user’s experience builds empathy.

Empathy shadowing helps leaders understand the full ecosystem—customers, employees, and the processes connecting them. By visiting employees where they actually work, leaders can wrap their head around problems in real time and see them, and their response, as they unfold. Following a patient through the care journey reveals both patient frustrations and the systemic hurdles clinicians and staff face. Listening to customer support calls shows engineers how customers feel and where internal tools create friction. Acting as an anonymous hotel guest exposes service issues and the constraints causing them. Leaders make better decisions when they understand the experience from every perspective.

At the very heart of America’s strength lies the boundless love and quiet power of mothers. We are the most devoted teachers, gently nurturing empathy, inspiring dreams, and guiding our children towards goodness. We help them rise with courage when life grows difficult. In every hug, every story read at bedtime, and every sacrifice made without complaint, mothers build the moral foundation of our families. In doing so, America’s mothers help build the soul of our nation.

I pray you find enduring strength as your loved one serves in defense of our freedom. Most know my husband as the strong Commander-in-Chief, but his empathy transcends the role and shapes a caring leader who constantly remembers each and every American soldier is someone’s child.

“We’re trying to get the kids to think a little bit more introspectively about their feelings since the first step of empathy is recognizing one’s own emotions.”

"The Empathy Handbook" came out of the Educating for Democracy course, part of ASU’s Humanities Lab. The lab is supported by the Create the Change Initiative and the Cultivating Civic Virtues through Action, or CCVA, initiative, granted by the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University and funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc.

People with high levels of psychopathic tendencies are often incapable of feeling empathy for other people. From a brain science perspective, empathy isn't a single emotion but a multi-part neural process. It involves brain systems that help us share others' feelings, understand their perspectives, and even mentally step into their experience.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare, empathy remains a crucial yet often elusive attribute among professionals tasked with the care of aging populations. A groundbreaking study published in BMC Geriatrics in 2026 sheds new light on this challenge, investigating the transformative potential of a brief intervention using an aging simulation suit. This randomized controlled trial, led by Serrada-Tejeda and colleagues, explores how immersive experiential learning can enhance clinical empathy in healthcare workers who operate within long-term care settings. The findings hold profound implications for medical training and the future of geriatric care.

At the heart of this study lies an innovative approach to empathy training—deploying an aging simulation suit that physically mimics the sensory and motor impairments associated with aging.

Business schools are under growing pressure to prepare graduates who can act responsibly in a world shaped by deep social inequality and urgent environmental challenges. 

However, many educators still rely on learning strategies that prioritise cognitive understanding of social problems over emotional engagement. Students typically learn about social problems through cases, lectures and simulations, which keep human experience at a distance. 

Cognitive empathy, or the understanding of what someone is going through, can be taught through cases and simulations. Affective empathy, which is the emotional connection that makes a problem feel personally relevant, cannot. Without it, students struggle to connect deeply to social problems and to act on them.

"by Sarfaraz K. Niazi

Empathy plays a central role in healthcare delivery, where higher clinician empathy is consistently associated with improved therapeutic alliance, increased patient satisfaction, better adherence, and improved outcomes.

Empathy-focused educational and behavioral interventions have therefore been increasingly adopted in medical and allied health training programs, with systematic reviews demonstrating moderate but reliable improvements in empathic skills. Educational systems similarly acknowledge empathy as a fundamental social–emotional competency associated with mental health, academic engagement, and prosocial behavior."

The word “empathy” carries a curious linguistic history in meaning that stretches across centuries and languages. It once existed in Greek as empathia (εμπάθεια), a term associated with emotion and inner movement. Today, English uses “empathy” to describe understanding and compassion, while in Modern Greek, empathia often conveys hostility or resentment.

From emotion to excess: The ancient roots of the Greek word “empathy”

Listening is a habit—and habits aren’t fixed
Graham Bodie, professor of communications at the University of Mississippi, describes listening as a habit-based behavior. Like other habits, he says, “listening becomes ingrained through repetition, often runs below conscious awareness, and remains malleable.”

That framing matters. If listening were a fixed trait—something you “have” or “don’t have”—we’d be stuck with our defaults. But if listening operates like a habit, we can strengthen it. We can notice our filters, experiment with new choices, and adapt our listening to what the moment requires.

Listening intelligence (LQ), a framework developed by Bodie and several colleagues, invites us to build three capacities: