‘It's a superpower’: meet the empaths paid to read your mind

They feel your pain as if it were their own - and charge you 200 an hour to do so. Why has empathy become such a prized commodity?

It is late on Friday at Piper's diner in Koreatown, Los Angeles. David Sauvage, a slight 36-year-old man with an arresting stare, is preparing to empathise with me. "These aren't ideal circumstances, but that's OK," he says. A few night owls busy themselves with eggs and tacos; a waiter carries a tray of drinks between booths. Sauvage crosses his legs, removes his necklace, exhales deeply and prepares to inhabit my feelings.

"If we start with where you are now, you're much more open than you were a few moments ago." He pushes his head back and takes tiny gulps of air. "You're right now in your life going through" I almost want to say a spiritual awakening? You're searching for cosmic truth. Or some emanation of the divine." He shudders. "It's very weird to have this experience in someone else's body."