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Bulmer (1975:vi) defines empathy as:
.. .aprocess wherelry onepersonperceives accuratelY anotherperson'sfeelings and
the meaning ofthesefeelings and then communicates with sensitivity this
understanding to the otherperson.
Accurate interpersonal perception plays an important role in the empathic
process because no matter how well phrased or how sensitive a response may seem, a
true state of empathy between individuals cannot exist unless the responses are based
on accurate percepts.
Empathy As An Analogical Process
For empathy to take place there must be a comparison of emotions. According
to Barnes and Thagard (1997) this process is analogical and it involves the stages of
selection, evaluation and learning. When someone is faced with a problem, he thinks of
a similar problem and selects from a source analogue or retrieves from memory what he
thinks can contribute to the solution. In other words, he maps the source analogue to the
target analogue to make appropriate comparisons. Then he must critically evaluate the
effectiveness of the analogy i.e. whether it has achieved its purpose of solving the
problem. Ifit has, then he learns from the analogy and he produces a schema for future
use.
Analogical thinking in empathy can, according to Barnes and Thagard (1997:
5), be understood in terms of three cognitive constraints: similarity, structure and
purpose. The constraint of similarity means correspondence must be found "between
objects that have properties which are perceptually or semantically similar."
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