Emapthy (aka Telempathy) is the ability to pick up on feelings and emotions from the people around you (imagine a very heightened sense of intuition). It starts out mostly whacked out and running wild with the person picking up on everything and anything around them, good to bad, pain to happiness just like Riana said. As you get more control over it, you can start to pin point when to use the ability and from who etc.
Phoebe gained the ability from her continued work as a column writer in her advice section. The sudden "right on closeness" of her replies were caused because of the sprouting power, so now she uses it to help her readers by getting more intuned with her/their feelings. And she also uses it to channel other people's feelings and use their powers against them lol.
