Importance of Empathy for Social Work Practice: Integrating New Science

Abstract

Empathy is more important than ever to a national population worried about difficult political and socioeconomic situations. During the last 10 years, an enormous amount of research has been carried out to elucidate the nature, mechanism, and function of empathy. New research from social-cognitive neuroscience and related fields indicates that, like language or eye-hand coordination, empathy is an innate human capability that can be greatly enhanced by purposeful and informed guidance. Empathy is particularly important to social work practice. Clients experiencing empathy through treatment have improved outcomes. Empathic social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their roles better. Social work practitioners can and should learn about emerging research on empathy and use that information to better serve their client populations. This article, emphasizing research of the past decade, focuses on empathy and its benefits as an asset to social work practitioners.

The role of empathy in case management: a pilot study

“…In view of the previous finding that first-year students showed higher empathic concern, as compared to advanced-level students (Hen & Goroshit, 2011), it would seem pertinent to pay closer attention to the impact of curricular content on empathy. It should by all accounts be useful to address empathy (Gerdes & Segal, 2011), as well as knowledge and regulation of emotion (Morrison, 2007), to increase our understanding of how such skills can be explicitly recognized in students and further developed throughout their education and training in social work.…”

“…In recent studies, researchers have called for closer attention to be paid to empathy in the education of social workers and in the practice of social work (Gair, 2013;Gausel, 2011;Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Grant, 2014;Hen & Goroshit, 2011;Napoli & Bonifas, 2011). There is a good reason to claim that empathy is an advantage in the anti-oppressive practice of social work, which is intended to help people in various situations of distress, dysfunction or deadlock.…”

Researchers’ reflections of empathy following interviews with migrants

“…The participants' emotions were diverse; however, the researchers focus on emotions of annoyance, sadness and loneliness to show how this stimulated Laura and Harriet's empathy, which manifested due to their cognitive "awareness in 215 Empathy following interviews with migrants imagination of the emotions of another person" (Wispé, 1986, p. 316). Empathy is a bodily sensation and a concomitant thought that triggered solidarity with the participant and which arose from the researcher's inter-subjectivity (Gerdes and Segal, 2011). Rather than feeling sorry for the plight of the participant, as with sympathy, or living through the participant vicariously, the researchers felt a connection that manifested at a deep and experiential level (Kligerman, 1984;Wispé, 1986).…”

The relationship between adolescents’ childhood trauma experiences and empathetic tendency, social problem solving

“…Rogers (1983)'a göre empati, bir kişinin karşısındakinin duygu ve düşüncelerini doğru olarak anlaması, onun hissettiklerini hissetmesi ve bunu ona iletme sürecidir. Empati, diğer kişiyi algılama, anlama, duygu durumuna ve fikirlerine cevap vermeyi içermektedir (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). Empati, bir kişinin öznel deneyimlerini onun bakış açısından anlamaktır.…”

“…Another development task of adolescence period is to set and maintain personal relationships with peers (Dziobek et.al., 2008;Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Rogers, 1983;Thoma, Friedman & Suchan, 2013). Empathetic tendency and social problem solving ability are two important elements to set and maintain relationships between individuals (Farstad--Peck, 2012).…”