UDC: 378: 364.08 ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OFEMPATHY AS A PROFESSIONALLY SIGNIFICANT FEATURE OF A SOCIAL WORKER
DОІ:https://doi.org/10.51706/2707-3076-2021-4-16
Abstract
The article characterizes empathy as a professionally significant feature of a social worker. The significance of empathy for social workers is substantiated due to the fact that social workers are forced to be in close and intense interaction with different people, in an emotionally tense atmosphere, which can cause significant damage to their health and professional activities. The main directions of scientific research of the phenomenon of empathy are outlined, the analysis of scientific sources allowed to come to the conclusion that empathy was most actively studied in the problematic field of psychology, ethics and philosophy. The main approaches to defining the essence of empathy are determined: epistemological, ethical and integrative. The main types and forms of empathy are indicated: short-term and long-term empathy, adequate and inadequate empathy, situational and dispositional empathy. It was found out that the formation of empathy is influenced by socio-demographic, psychological and external factors. Factors that significantly complicate the development of empathy include egocentrism, emotional coldness, instability of character, excessive self-control, and so on. It is noted that interpersonal interaction between a social worker and a client is a complex two-way process that requires empathic response not only from social workers, so empathy should be developed in clients and it is important to motivate them to communicate with the specialist. We see a promising direction of further research in the study of techniques of balanced interpersonal interaction, which, on the one hand, will promote sufficient expression of empathy on the part of the social worker, on the other hand, will help to resist his/her emotional exhaustion. The essential characteristics of the social workers’ empathy are defined: they are humanistic attitude to the client, the two-sided nature of the manifestation of empathy, the correlation of empathy with the psychological mechanism of identification and the combination of three components in empathy (cognitive, emotional, activity components).
