For Edith Stein, there are three (3) levels of empathic experience. This would mean that empathy lets the subject go through a unique experience, so unique that Stein would say that it is sui generis.
The first of these levels is the emergence of experience. This simply refers to an awareness of a foreign experience, whatever this foreign experience is. This is the surface level of empathy because it is what happens first in the whole empathic experience.
In this level, the subject faces its object, the other subject.
Empathic Awareness In Practice
What does this level look like in practice?
Have you never wondered how you “see” your friend as happy? Have you not experienced knowing at first glance that your sister is sad? Have you not seen your child crying in pain? Have you not noticed that your co-worker was not in the mood when she entered the door? Have you not known that your mother was excited even when she did not tell you anything yet?
All of these are cases of the first level of empathic experience. It is simply a wonderful and very unique perception of what is in the person. Yes, we see the person in the physical body. Yet, we also see his or her experiences, experiences that are truly his or her own. Precisely, this seeing of foreign experience is what Stein calls empathy.
P.S. A disclosure: “empathic awareness” is my own term as I describe the first level of empathic experience.
Empathy 