Empathy can be of three types Cognitive, Emotional, or Compassionate, as classified and proposed by Paul Ekman, a pioneer in the field of emotions and micro-expressions: 1. Cognitive Empathy – Understanding and predicting the thoughts of another person by imagining ourselves in their situation. Also called ‘perspective taking.’ This involves thinking. 2. Emotional Empathy – Feeling with emotions similar to the other person, or feeling what the other person feels. In this, there is always a sharing of feelings – at least at a basic level. This involves feeling. 3. Compassionate Empathy – Making efforts to help out of a desire to respond after having understood the other person’s condition. This is about taking responsive action. This involves acting.