Empathy means:

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 4

The correct answer is Option (4) → Understand others’ problems and feel like them

Empathy is different from sympathy and from intellectual understanding of another person’s situation; the options describe these three states.

Option (1) Understand the problem of others but do not feel like them — Incorrect. This is intellectual understanding, which is cold: the person understands but is unable to feel like the other person and does not feel sympathy either.

Option (2) Compassion and pity towards others but no feelings for them — Incorrect. This is close to sympathy: one has compassion and pity towards the suffering of another but is not able to feel like the other person.

Option (3) Neither able to feel like others nor understand their plight — Incorrect. This is the absence of both understanding and feeling, the opposite of empathy.

Option (4) Understand others’ problems and feel like them — Correct. Empathy is present when one is able to understand the plight of another person, and feel like the other person: putting oneself in the other person’s shoes. It enriches the therapeutic relationship.

NCERT (2025-26): “Therapeutic Relationship … Empathy is different from sympathy and intellectual understanding of another person’s situation. In sympathy, one has compassion and pity towards the suffering of another but is not able to feel like the other person. Intellectual understanding is cold in the sense that the person is unable to feel like the other person and does not feel sympathy either. On the other hand, empathy is present when one is able to understand the plight of another person, and feel like the other person. It means understanding things from the other person’s perspective, i.e. putting oneself in the other person’s shoes.…”