A unique and special characteristic of Filipino culture is pakikiisa, which is simply empathy. This is completely different from pakikisama, which is trying to please others by agreeing with them, or simply creating the grounds to make others feel at home. Though seemingly positive at first glance, pakikisama could lead to negative ends as it remains only on a superficial level. It is more similar to sympathy, which is to feel for the emotion, whereas empathy is to directly feel or share the emotion.
Pakikiisa refers to a profound comprehension of the private world of other people. The listener must also be able to communicate to the speaker his own understanding. It’s putting oneself into the place of the other person. Empathy, a word coined by the American psychologist Edward Titchener, literally means ‘feeling in’, which is a very apt summation of the concept.
Pakikiisa or empathy means listening attentively, asking questions, withholding judgments, and using one’s imagination in order to understand the viewpoints and the feelings of the other person. This does not mean that the listener must merely feel for what the speaker feels (that would be sympathy) nor does it mean just behaving tenderly and acceptingly (that would be ‘support’).
Rather, empathy consists of identifying oneself with the other person, putting oneself in another person’s shoes, and sharing his or her experience emotionally. To become the other person would almost be the right definition, as empathy brings us to enter almost into the other’s heart, mind and soul so as to understand him or her to the fullest.
Empathy is a rather uncommon kind of understanding, since we seldom receive it nor offer it to others. The kind of understanding we usually offer or receive underlines only external aspects, because if I am really open to understanding the lifestyle of another person, if I can make his or her world part of mine, I run the risk of seeing life their way and therefore, I may feel compelled to change – except that no one wants to change, and this is why we tend to see the other person’s world through our own eyes, not through theirs.
In short, the ability to empathise implies coming in contact ‘here’ and ‘now’ with the other person’s intimate sphere, perceiving his or her feelings and values as though they were mine, and being able to communicate this fact to him or her.
Empathy is an expansion of the listener’s individual consciousness that makes every barrier between us and the other person fall, because if his or her joy and pain are also mine, I am letting the other person live in me, and vice versa.
True empathy is an antidote against anger and resentment – very common emotions in interpersonal relationships. Anger is triggered by our thoughts, not so much by other people’s actions. But once we understand the other person’s way of thinking and his or her reasons for doing something, there’s no longer any room for reproaches and prejudices. Thus, we come to understand that sheer wickedness and meanness are truly rare.
People generally behave in order to obtain gratification and avoid pain by whatever means they can. This, however, may not always correspond to one’s own perception of reality. Even in loving someone, pakikiisa would be one of the best ways of doing it. Putting into practice pakikiisa when we try to love someone would mean to love the other person the way he or she would like to be loved, and not the way we would like it to be, which is usually happens when we try to love someone in our own way.
In other words, we care less for the other person than we do about how we love him or her. Without knowing the other person well, such way of loving could become a burden rather than a soothing feeling for the other.
It’s funny when we become surprised why others don’t attach importance to our love, or when sometimes we tend to complicate things in relationship because of a lack of empathy. But it’s a problem that’s easily solved. Living pakikiisa would surely bring a real revolution of minds, hearts and even souls.
Roberto A Samson is a Filipino-Italian working as development officer of Catholic Youth Care's Youth at Risk Programme for Dublin's north inner-city
