What Is An Empath, Anyway?
Searching for answers to empower empaths and those who love them
“I need to tell you something important about me; I am an empath.” Those were my friend Travis’s words as he opened up to me one afternoon in March.
When you first meet Travis, you notice right away that he is an empathetic person who has a deep connection (almost magical) with his pets, a cat whisperer. He is also overly concerned about the planet and the future of humanity, which he often discusses in an apocalyptic tone: “We (humans) are not going to make it unless we take climate change seriously.”
I didn’t know what to make of Travis’s confession back in March. He didn’t say that he was just empathetic, he said that he was an empath. Although I have studied empathy and written articles about it, I have never thought of the term empath as something other than being empathetic.
What is an empath?
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, an empath is a person “who experiences the emotions of others; a person who has empathy for others.” This definition, although clear and simple, doesn’t seem to capture what Travis meant. He said it as if he was confessing a fundamental and non-negotiable truth. So, what did he mean?
“I feel other people’s energies,” he said. “When I’m in a room full of people, I can feel each person’s energy. It is as if I was in a pond feeling each of the ripples from hundreds of pebbles tossed around me. It is exhausting.”
His analogy made me think of an article I read years ago about the sixth sense of fish that allows them to detect currents and respond to their fluid surroundings. Is being an empath like having a sixth sense?
The more I thought about being an empath, the more puzzled I became. Is it just about absorbing other people’s emotions or is there something more to it? How does Travis know that he is an empath? Am I also one?
I read dozens of articles on empaths but ended up with more questions than answers. Many explained the term by giving a list of generic characteristics shared by most empaths (being empathetic, intuitive, prone to absorb others’ emotions, or unable to be in a crowd), or by contrasting empaths to narcissists (personalities which are supposed to be at the opposite ends of the same spectrum). Others were accounts by self-proclaimed empaths on how to deal with the challenges of being an empath in a society designed to repress most expressions of emotions.
I also watched YouTube videos on empaths, but couldn’t find a single one that would convincingly explain what being an empath meant. Many had an esoteric quality to them.
The only thing that seemed clear from both articles and videos was that, as exhausting as it can be to be an empath, it is not considered a disorder but rather a personality trait, like being highly sensitive.
Exploring highly sensitive people
So I decided to shift the focus of my readings from the term “empath” to “highly sensitive people.” And that’s when I finally had my eureka moment. I found the work of Dr. Eileen Aron, the clinical research psychologist who coined the term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). In her research, which was originally published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1997, Dr. Aron discusses “sensory processing sensitivity,” a model aimed at explaining the traits characterizing HSPs.
For the first time since I started thinking about what being an empath meant, I felt like I was getting somewhere. Her work was based on empirical research, which satisfied my hopeless and incredulous academically-trained mind.
There are four aspects in Aron’s model, which assumes that in order to be considered highly sensitive, a person needs to have all four of them: depth of processing, overstimulation, emotional reactivity along with empathy, and sensing subtleties.
Depth of processing refers to the tendency that HSPs have to process a greater depth of information than non-HSPs. This tendency can be conscious or unconscious. It means that they process everything more, spend more time relating and comparing information, and take more time to make decisions.
Overstimulation refers to being easily over aroused. Since HSPs process much more information than non-HSPs, they can be easily stressed by overstimulation from both physical sources (such as light, sound, smell) and emotional sources (other people’s emotions). This is why generally they prefer to avoid crowds or any other types of intense or stressful situations.
Emotional reactivity along with empathy refer to the tendency that HSPs react more and with more intensity than non-HSPs to experiences, both positive and negative. It also refers to their increased capacity to feel empathy. In experiments cited by Dr. Aaron, it was shown that when stimulated by pictures of faces with different emotions, the brains of HSPs showed increased activation in the insula and in the mirror neuron system. These neurons literally mirror some of the neurons of the other person.
Sensing subtleties refers to HSPs greater awareness of subtleties than non-HSPs. This is what allows HSPs to perceive little things that are generally missed by other people. Since they process sensory information more deeply and carefully, they have an increased ability of perception.
Are empaths HSPs?
Dr. Judith Orloff, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, answers this question in an article published by Psychology Today and based on her book The Empath’s Survival Guide.
“Empaths take the experience of the highly sensitive person much further,” explains Dr. Orloff. She says that in addition to showing the four aspects in Dr. Aron’s model, empaths also sense “subtle energy.” She compares this energy to the concept of Shakti in Hinduism.
“This capacity allows us to experience the energy around us, including emotions and physical sensations in extremely deep ways,” she notes.
Thus empaths, according to Dr. Orloff, are HSPs who are able to feel the energy of people around them and internalize their feelings and pains. This definition, as unorthodox as it sounds, seems to match Travis’ conceptualization mentioned earlier: “I feel other people’s energies.”
In addition, Dr. Orloff discusses in her article that empaths “have profound spiritual and intuitive experiences” with animals and nature. Again, this is a trait that is pretty obvious in Travis’ case. As noted above, his deep connection with his pets is clear as crystal.
People like me, who are not empaths, might have a hard time understanding the concept of “feeling other people’s energies.” For many of us, it is way too abstract and lacks rationality. We can probably understand what an HSP is, but it is more difficult to grasp the idea of an empath.
However, anyone who has met an empath can probably tell you that there is something in that person’s sensitivity that can’t be explained. It’s almost as if they knew what you’re thinking or feeling before you express it to them. That’s certainly how I feel about my friend Travis. So yes, empaths are HSPs with extraordinary senses. They are like the fish whose sixth sense allows them to detect currents and respond to their fluid surroundings.
