"Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others and to fully concentrate on them."

It is necessary to succeed in life.

 The messages transmitted by our bodies are generally much more honest than the words we speak. Whether we are dealing with children or with a partner, with friends or colleagues, the person who can interpret the feelings behind the mask and the well-chosen words can be much more responsive with the person they are dealing with.

Those who do not possess this ability will find it difficult to handle many situations in life. The ability to empathise with someone is learned in childhood. When very young children see another child crying, they themselves burst into tears and offer comfort and help. It is between two and three years of age that they begin to differentiate their own feeling and those of others. A child learns to recognise that the tears of his/her playmate do not express grief, for example, but only a feeling of anger because he or she has to give a toy away.

In late childhood comes the ability to understand the feelings independently to actual situations. At this stage, achild can mourn the loss of a beloved person and have pity for people who live in poverty and hardship. Moral convictions are formed at this time and youngsters often feel a burning desire to support the rights of others. Only those who are able to put themselves in another person's position and feel their emotions will be in position to act in a morally forthright manner.

But there are also people who lose the capacity of empathy and suffer a lack of moral sense. This is why murderers or rapists are incapable of understanding the pain of thier victims. 'I only wanted to show the child my affection!' 'If only he had not put up a fight!' 'But she provoked me!' - these are all excuses that the prepetrators use to rationalise or justify their actions. It may seem inconceivable that some peopleare capable of inflicting such horrific cruelties on others, even on children, but obviously people who commit such crimes have the ability to repress feelings of empathy for the victims.