Empathy: Definition, Phases and Application in Coaching

Definition: Identifying with the Other

Empathy is a crucial interpersonal skill, defined by the Royal Spanish Academy Dictionary as the ability to identify with someone's feelings.

It goes beyond simple sympathy or compassion; it involves a person's ability to internally experience the feelings experienced by another person.

In doing so, one gains a deeper understanding not only of their emotional states, but also of the motivations underlying their decision making and behaviors.

It is the ability to "put oneself in the other person's shoes" on an affective and cognitive level, perceiving the world from their frame of reference.

Characteristics of Empathic People

Who are, then, the people who demonstrate a high empathic capacity? Generally, they are characterized by being individuals:

• Capable of listening attentively to others, striving to understand their underlying problems and motivations, not just their superficial words.
• They tend to enjoy popularity and social recognition, as their ability to connect with others facilitates positive relationships.
• They create a favorable environment around them, enabling others to feel welcomed, understood and accepted without judgment.

This ability to generate a safe space is fundamental in helping roles.

Empathy as a Core Coach Competency

Within the coach's skill set, empathy is considered a basic and indispensable competence. Its presence greatly favors the good development of the coaching process.

Why? Because empathy helps to generate a communicative context in which the coachee feels safe and free to express him/herself fluently.

This openness allows the coach to respectfully enter into the person's personal universe.

Thanks to empathy, a climate of mutual trust can be generated, a necessary condition to understand the essence of the coachee and for the coachee to feel comfortable sharing intimate aspects such as his or her value judgments, emotions, fears and goals.

Empathy as a three-phase process

Some authors argue that empathy is not just a static quality, but rather a dynamic process that unfolds in phases.

One model proposes three key phases in the coach's empathic experience:

• Identification Phase: The coach actively sees and feels the situation from the coachee's perspective, trying to understand his or her subjective experience.
• Incorporation and Repercussion Phase: The coach becomes aware that everything the coachee shares (his emotions, his stories) will also have repercussions on him to some extent, affecting him emotionally.
• Separation Phase: Finally, and crucially, the coach withdraws his deep involvement in the coachee's feelings and resorts to reason and logic to process the information and plan his interventions.

This phase is fundamental, as one of the defining characteristics of professional empathy (as opposed to emotional fusion) is to remain one