Empahty is technically sesning the emotions of others. We understand how they feel. Biologically? It is the feeling of emotional pain when we wee a fellow human in pain or discomfort, physical, mental or emotional. What does this look like biological? What set of chemical cascades trickle down? In effect we really are sesning some level of true biological pain by being surrounded by others in pain.
Pain would cause action-ie helping the other so that it does not suffer-the biological, evolutionary basis of empathy as a society depends on having each of us support the other so reciprocally, wehn we need help, the other will support us.
If a true biologically induced sensation, then the empathic person can suffer stress, a biological phenomena, from not being able to alieviate the suffering of the other. High stree can trigger all types of other problems-depression, CFS, fibromyalgia-all thought to be mental but as of late found to have true biological components.
Thus, it follows that highly empathic people are more likely to suffer from stress induced types of illnesses.
Another aspect:
When surrounded by others in pain, to relieve the empathic pain, the empath does something to help the other. If they cannot, not only do they continue to feel the other's pain but also experience guilt at not being able to allieve the other's pain. After years of being surrounded by a society full of suffering the empath is weighed doen by loads of guilt and remorse that don't really have a specific origin. They seek forgiveness for this lack of ability to do anything via religion, self-injury, or sado-masochisitic relationships where they give conrtol to another. That person/god then can "punish" them for their inability to act in the past and then "forgive" them.
The empath oddly enough gets a sens of joy and euphoria when helping others. For them charitible work can also be a source of forgiveness and "action" in aleiviating the other's pain thus stopping the internal pain as well.
Empath personality types: SFJ and NFP. The SFJ will be better off as they can fall back on societal norms as the reson they did not help the other or build up walls that redefine how they relate to the other. ie "I will help my neighbor but those people on the east side are just lazy and cause thier own problems". NFPs will experience the full gamut of being an empath as they cannot rationalize away the other's pain.
