Empathy

Empathy is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.

Phoebe first developed this power in 2003 while on a radio show promoting her "Ask Phoebe" column in the Daily Mirror, when she was able to sense that the DJ had feelings for her. It took her awhile to control this power. The power of empathy developed directly from her premonition power, as she is able to empathize with people in her visions. It also links to the fact that both powers are psychic. It works by her connecting herself psychically to everyone in a short range around her. This allows her get vibes from those people and react accordingly to their emotions. If that emotion is particularly strong, Phoebe might be overcome by that emotion, and without control of her actions will act on their feelings. For example in Forget Me....Not, Phoebe channeled the emotions of a worker at the Daily Mirror, for a severe dislike for Phoebe's boss. When she channeled this emotion she punched her boss and started a fight in the office, while under the control of someone elses emotion.

The power continued to develop throughout the season both in range and depth, sometime able to read peoples mind as well as their emotions like telepathy. The range of her power is very limited, only managing to empath a few metres away from her. However if an emotion is in a particularly strong concentration, Phoebe is able to sence them quite easily (In Forget Me....Not Phoebe sensed the emotions of people being attacked by a dragon even though they were miles away). At the end of Love's a witch, Phoebe's close family took an empath blocking potion to protect them from her empathic intrusion that was driving them crazy. Over time, Phoebe was able to block out the emotions of others, sometimes meditating to rid herself of all the emotions.

A great addition to the power of empathy on charmed is the fact that it can also be used to channel powers. In the charmed universe, all powers are connected to emotion so when Phoebe connects herself to a magical being, she can sometimes channel their powers. A limitation on this is that that being must be actively using their powers onn her for her to be able to channel that specific emotion connected to that power. This makes it a perfect power to defect fire and energy balls thrown by demons back at them. This is demonstrated in Used Karma while Phoebe battled two demons, and again when she saves her boyfriend from a barrage of fireballs thrown at him.

Unfortunatly in Crimes and Witch-Demeanors Phoebe was stripped of her empathy power, along with her premonition and levitation power, when she was using her visions for personal gain. Although she recieves back her promonition power, her empath power is never seen on the show again, however it is quite probible that her remaining powers will one day return to her.

It is also important to note that Prue was an empath for a short time in Primrose Empath. While she had this power, it nearly drove her insane due to the fact that it was much more developed than Phoebes power when she recieved it. She was able to boost her telekinesis to an incredible level, and was able to use it to vanquish an unvanquisable demon. After the battle she lost the power.