 So with that conceptual background, I'd like to attempt a description of empathy which would seem satisfactory to me today. I would no longer be terming it a state of empathy, which was in my earlier definition, because I believe it to be a process rather than a state, and perhaps I can capture that quality. The way of being with another person which is termed empathic has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive moment to moment to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his life, moving about in it delicately, without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which he is totally unaware, since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensings of his world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he is fearful. It means frequently checking with him as to the accuracy of your sensings and being guided by his responses. You are a confident companion to him in his world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his or her experiencing, you help him to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience his meanings more fully and to move forward in his or her experiencing. Now to be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values that you hold for yourself in order to enter his world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside yourself and this can only be done by a person who is secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other and can comfortably return to his own world when he wishes. Perhaps that description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong, yet subtle and gentle way of being.