What Is Ecpathy?
Ecpathy is a new term complementary to empathy, which allows for the appropriate treatment of emotional contagion and induced feelings. This concept was proposed by the doctor and professor of psychiatry JL González to define the voluntary process of exclusion of feelings, attitudes, thoughts and motivations induced by others .
Ecpathy is not the same as the indifference or affective harshness characteristic of people without empathy, but rather a positive mental maneuver or action that compensates for empathy, not its mere lack. This compensatory mental action protects us from the emotional flood and prevents the emotions of others from dragging us along – a risk that overly empathetic people run.
From this point of view, we must not confuse putting ourselves in the other’s shoes and installing ourselves in the other person’s place. Either way, this empathetic journey is necessary for compression, but it can also be really dangerous when we find ourselves stuck in each other.
Ecpathy vs. manipulation
Although we believe that there are specialists to induce and transmit emotions, the reality is that we are not defenseless in the face of its latest: we have or can acquire enough tools so that this emotional “sequestration” does not occur. not produce. An emotional sequestration which is often more in the particular sensitivity of the one who is kidnapped than in the intention of the kidnapper that the other is kept in this state. Indeed, we should not confuse emotional contagion with empathy.
Empathy is about the valuable information we receive from others. If we only take into account the views, desires and emotions of others, coexistence becomes disastrous. However, empathy remains incomplete without the ability to deal with emotional contagion and compensate for it with another mental quality.
While empathy involves “putting yourself in the other’s shoes “, ecpathy would involve “putting yourself in your own shoes”, and it is well known that both of these qualities are necessary. The latter being the mental action that protects us from manipulation or emotional flooding of others, preventing outside emotions from dragging us down.
The right level of emotions is between empathy and ecpathy
Daniel Goleman, author of the book Emotional Intelligence , says that empathy is essentially the ability to understand the emotions of others under the circumstances of others. However, he also emphasizes that, on a deeper level, it is about defining, understanding and responding to concerns and needs that underlie the responses and emotional reactions of others.
Ecpathy is both the opposite and the complement of empathy. This voluntary process allows us to fight against an overdose of emotional contagion in situations such as caring for sick people or in humanitarian crises, so that the pain does not end up blocking us and also to prevent mental manipulation or even l collective hysteria.
Therefore, not all emotional contagion is necessarily good, and as a conclusion for our emotional health, the ideal would be to regulate empathic capacity not only in the sense of strengthening the capacity for understanding, but also in that of preventing or limiting the extent of this experience when it can be dangerous for the person who is going through it, for the person who is empathetic.
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