Creativity requires empathy
What "Anatomy of a Fall" (2023) shows us about how we see others
Have I mentioned that I love empathy? I think empathy can solve a ton of our problems in life. The ability to take another person’s perspective and understand their thoughts, feelings, and experiences captures the fundamental meaning of empathy. We can also categorize empathy into two types, if we want: cognitive and emotional. Emotional empathy means feeling what someone else feels; cognitive empathy means understanding what they feel.
One of my favorite psychologists and the founder of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers, saw empathy as one of the most delicate and potent tools we have.
The best part of empathy is that it is accessible to pretty much everyone. In fact, we are naturally inclined toward empathy, but sometimes we turn it off or shut it out because it feels like we will just feel too much and it will overwhelm us or consume us. We can feel so much empathy and still go to work and do our day-to-day tasks. It doesn’t have to immobilize us. If that were the case, therapists would never leave the house. We can learn to empathize with others and set fluid, clear boundaries that allow us to get on with our day-to-day lives from a place of love, rather than being shut down or closed off.
Empathy serves three key functions:1
(1) Empathy expands our imaginative capacity.
(2) Empathy creates an ethical understanding with another person, creating trust.
(3) Empathy promotes change, especially in therapy, through creating insight.
The connection between empathy and creativity is becoming increasingly important among researchers. Creative empathy is essential to our daily life because it enhances our ability to generate new ideas, knowledge, ways of thinking, and ways of being in the world. Creativity gives our life meaning and enhances our critical thinking skills, and many studies show it is also important to our overall well-being. It regulates our emotions, gives us agency, makes life more meaningful, helps us solve problems, and supports our mental health. As a result, many researchers are exploring ways to incorporate empathy-related educational tactics, such as empathy maps, into the classroom. If empathy-building activities help students improve their creativity and critical thinking, then looking more deeply into empathy’s impact on our everyday creativity is something we can all get behind.
Empathy can make meaningless activities significant and fun. Empathy can help us to see problems from different angles, which can help creative performance. For instance, a screenwriter must imagine not just what a protagonist wants, but how every character experiences the same moment differently. By empathizing with a character’s fears, hopes, and insecurities, the writer avoids clichés and creates richer, more complex characters and better writing.
In Anatomy of the Fall (2023), one reason the movie is so compelling is that it considers and depicts multiple perspectives instead of resolving them. If you don’t know the film, it is an Oscar-winning courtroom thriller that examines the line between truth and fiction.
Synopsis: When Sandra Voyter (a transfixing Sandra Hüller), a writer who turns the material of her life into autofiction, is put on trial for the suspicious death by defenestration—or was it suicide?—of her husband, it opens up an inquiry that will turn a troubled home inside out. Tapping into the minimalist intensity of a chamber drama—and using intricate, elliptical editing—the director constructs a mystery that is ultimately less about a death than about the hidden lives we lead.
In the Journal of Personality, Tie et al. (2025) found that cognitive empathy was associated with everyday creativity across numerous activities and disciplines, whereas emotional empathy was not, which may indicate that everyday creativity is influenced more by social relationships than by a profound understanding of other people’s emotional experiences (i.e., a therapy setting).2
As a reminder, cognitive empathy is the ability to understand another person’s emotional state and perspective without necessarily sharing their feelings. Cognitive empathy enhances our ability to understand and express emotions and ideas. In fact, the researchers found a relationship between cognitive empathy and almost all areas of creativity, except in science and engineering, where logic and reason are more dominant.
The relationship between creative achievement and empathy shows that cognitive empathy has significant positive effects in the visual arts, creative writing, inventions, scientific discovery, and the culinary arts.
Creativity is not a luxury for just the filmmakers of the world, but something we all need and crave in order to stay flexible, connected to others, and feel alive. In everyday life, if, as a parent, you empathize with your teenager’s need for independence rather than control, you may impose fewer rules and develop creative agreements that do not center on punishment and lecturing. In that way, you are letting them develop the autonomy they need to succeed in life and giving them compassionate boundaries to achieve that within.
For your viewing pleasure, here are three ways to develop your cognitive empathy and increase your creativity through watching the movie Anatomy of a Fall.
1. Shift your perspective
In Anatomy of the Fall (2023), instead of asking, Did Sandra do it?
Ask yourself:
Whose version am I emotionally aligned with right now?
What evidence feels persuasive—and why?
What am I filling in that the film never shows?
The discomfort you feel in the film is on purpose. You are supposed to doubt.
2. Change your perspective
In Anatomy of the Fall (2023), look at people’s thoughts, beliefs, and motivations instead of emotions
What is Sandra trying to protect?
What does she believe about truth?
3. Deep dive into unfamiliar perspectives
Instead of asking “Is Sandra guilty?” ask:
What does each character believe happened?
Why would that version feel necessary to them?
Practicing cognitive empathy will help you experience understanding without those emotionally overwhelming feelings and make you a better problem-solver and creative thinker.
Let me know if you try this and what you think! Be well!
xxkendall
❤️ My daughter, who is a student in high school, is doing a special fundraiser for Blood Cancer. Many people in our lives have been directly impacted in a devastating way by blood cancer. Blood cancer is a group of serious and awful diseases—including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma—that develop when abnormal blood cells grow uncontrollably in the bone marrow or lymphatic system, disrupting normal blood function. These cancers interfere with the body's ability to fight infections and produce new blood cells. ❤️ If you have a moment, I’d be so grateful if you could take a look at her fundraising page. If you’re able to donate, wonderful — and if not, even taking a moment to read or share means a lot. Thank you for your kindness and support.
Link below:
❤️Blood Cancer United: Ari’s Student Fundraiser
The Blood Cancer United mission: Cure blood cancer and improve the quality of life of all patients and their families. Blood Cancer United funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world, provides free information and support services, and is the voice for all blood cancer patients seeking access to quality, affordable, coordinated care.
Blood Cancer United is a 501(c)(3) organization, and all monetary donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by tax laws. Please check with your financial advisor if you have more questions. Tax Identification Number: 13-564491
Levitt, H. M., et al. (2022). Learning Clinical and Cultural Empathy: A Call for a Multidimensional Approach to Empathy-Focused Psychotherapy Training. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy: On the Cutting Edge of Modern Developments in Psychotherapy, 52(4), 267–279.
Tie, B., Yang, W., Huo, T., Gao, Y., Yang, X., Tian, D., Pelowski, M., & Qiu, J. (2025). Empathy to Creativity: The Associations Between Empathy and Everyday Creativity. Journal of Personality, 93(6), 1212–1225.