When we empathise, how accurate can we be in feeling as others feel?

If I understand your question correctly, I don't think we can be "perfectly empathetic" -- we are simply not the other person/s.

To be as accurately empathetic as potentially possible, I think truly listening to the other person's/persons' words is an effective and necessary component.

:)

I empathize with suspicious people in the respect I think it would be a very self tormenting way to live. 

Never being able to really relax and enjoy, it makes me grieve inside for the person. 

It depends on the empathizer.  Close but no cigar is the norm.

:)

I think I understand what you mean. Yes, I'm sure that living with too much suspicion could be a very lonely and isolating experience.

But then, are there also other kinds of feelings that you empathise with?

Thank you for your reply.

You're welcome, hartfire!

:)

If you can put yourself in their place, you can come pretty close to their emotions, especially if the emotions are very strong. For example, if you see a mother who is devasted over the death of her child and you have experienced the same, you will know the pain of her suffering and will empathize with her emotions.

I think you have touched on the key - if we have had the similar experience.

I think some people have much better imaginations than others. They can imagine what it might be like to be trapped under an avalanche, slowly suffocating and dying of hypothermia on Mt Everest, with no chance of rescue, without ever having experienced it.

I guess we cannot know exactly our accurate our imagining is unless we can ask the other.

Thak you for your lovely reply.

Many years ago I read in an even older Reader's Digest of a parish priest who visited the family of a little boy who lost his life by being run over in the street. He went over to offer the family a few words of comfort, and perhaps a prayer; but found himself shedding tears along with the whole family as they wept together. That, I think, was perfect empathy and also the perfect prayer.

True empathy can never be conscious. It happens spontaneously. 

When it's conscious, it isn't empathy: it's sympathy.

Beautifully expressed. :)

We cannot, sometimes we get it wrong and that can be pretty ludicrous. Eg: Someone who hates spinach may "feel the pain" of someone who have to eat it (and loves it).

But mostly it works pretty good. There is a lot of 'body language' that the system use even if we do not conciously know it.

Well said.

I think it's human to project our experiences with certain similar situations.  We know what we know through our own eyes.  Hopefully we are conveying our feelings of empathy.  Sometimes people just want to know they are not alone.

True that we each have varying degrees of ability in empathy - and vary also depending on our state of mind.

The cigar reference I don't understand.

Sharonna, when you ask people how they are feeling, do you find that what they say echoes what you observed from their tone of voice, expressions, gestures and posture? Can you imagine how people might feel in a situation, and then discover you were right when they tell you? How do you know for sure how the recipient of one of your massages is feeling?

I agree that reading body language is a huge clue. We know from inside ourselves how we feel when we laugh, cry, feel tired, nervous, angry, enthusiastic, loving. From knowing in ourselves. we can see and feel it in others.

No wonder the Internet can be problematic.  It is true that when you can't see someone's expression, words can leave you wondering what was meant in the first place.

Exactly. Especially irony and sarcasm. Unless one knows the character, or they've left a cue like a winking eye sigil, on the Net one has no way of knowing if someone is serious or joking.

How accurate do you need it to be? We can only know by practiced inference, and that is no more than a superior kind of guesswork. Even if we were able to measure and record every aspect of brain and body reaction to a particular circumstance and reproduce the effect exactly in another person (in the year 2347 maybe - if humanity still exists then), we cannot be sure the empathy will translate exactly. One factor is personal history and emotional baggage, so no two brains interpret data the same way. There are things I react negatively to for no obvious reason. Snakes and spider are not in that group. I was never attacked or threatened by a snake or a spider or a nocturnal flying mammal, but neither were a great many people who exhibit the phobias. I was never attacked or threatened by a spinning wheel, nor anything that remotely looks or sounds like one - not in this life. But when I hear that sound the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my brain seems to know something that I do not.

Yes, it would be very interesting to get a handle on what is happening at all times in the brain, and exactly why, when certain events fall across our conscious. In our lifetime we are not even in the ball-park of understanding it though, but there are probably some who claim otherwise - those flat-Earther, sun orbiting Earth types. 

Empathy is the necessary prerequisite for getting along well in human relationships and as an inner guide to ethics.

We need sufficient accuracy in empathy to know reliably how a person is likely to feel in response to a given stimulus or situation. There can be a wide range of possible responses, but if we know a person well, or if we are good at reading body-language and tone of voice, we can pick up a huge amount of information via insight into how our bodies respond to each emotion.

Most of us can't always get an accurate reading every time, and can't know our degree of accuracy for sure - but we can guess and ask. ... Something like: "I see tears in your eyes and I'm wondering if you are feeling sad." If the circumstance is appropriate, the other will usually be relieved to nod a yes or perhaps say, "No, it's joy."

All people have varying degrees of capacity for empathy - some are overly endowed and end up focusing on others to the point of denying their own needs. Others are "blind" to many of their own feelings and most of others - they suffer endless mistakes in their relationships and communications without realizing the reason why.

Some could learn the skills, but have no chance unless they first recognize that they can't read others.

People who drink too much get Korsakov's Syndrome - the alcohol prevents absorption of Vit B1, necessary for nerve function. Brain cells die off and the person loses both insight into their own feelings and ability to recognize emotions in the faces and voices of others. It starts long before cirrhosis of the liver. So if we are living with a seriously addicted drinker, chances are high that he or she has lost the ability for empathy.