A friend posted this link on facebook:
I watched it and don’t quite understand it. They seem to be saying that sympathy as opposed to empathy is a bad thing while I don’t see how they are contradictory eg:
“I just crashed my car”
“Oh, I crashed my car once, I know how that feels” (empathy)
“Oh, that’s awful, are you OK?” (sympathetic)
How is one approach worse than the other?
Am I way off base here or missing something (which is quite possible).
I’ve always viewed sympathy as pity, which most people don’t want. Empathy is understanding, which most people do want.
To me “Oh, I crashed my car once, I know how that feels” begins to sound like some kind of competition. “My crash was worse than your crash” sort of thing.
I used to be a fleet manager for 200+ cars, and drivers phoning after a collision was a frequent event. After listening to my new employee taking one of these calls with some concern, I made sure that in future the very first question was not - “Is there much damage?” or “What happened?” but “Are you OK?” Everything else follows naturally from there.
Sympathy: I understand that you’re suffering (and it is usually implied that I wish to help)
Empathy: I suffer because you are suffering (and so I understand and grasp your suffering more deeply)
Neither of these things are specifically bad, IMO, but either can be subverted so as to make the sym/empathiser the focus of attention.
The definitions and distinctions of empathy and sympathy are long argued over, because they are often conflated. These are the ones I prefer:
[QUOTE=Empathy vs. sympathy]
Empathy vs. sympathy
When you understand and feel another’s feelings for yourself, you have empathy. It’s often spoken of as a character attribute that people have to varying degrees. For example, if hearing a tragic news story makes you feel almost as if the story concerns you personally, you have the ability to empathize.
When you sympathize with someone, you have compassion for that person, but you don’t necessarily feel her feelings. For instance, if your feelings toward someone who is experiencing hardship are limited to sympathy, then you might have a sense of regret for that person’s difficulty but are not feeling her feelings as if they’re your own. Meanwhile, sympathy has broader applications that don’t necessarily have to do with one person’s feelings for another. You can sympathize with a cause, for instance, or with a point of view that resonates with you.
[/QUOTE]
Empathy, in my world, is dangerous and useless. It’s not saying, “Oh, I’ve been there,” it’s actually feeling the emotions of the other person. It’s getting depressed when you sit with someone who is depressed. And then we’re both stuck here being depressed and of no use to each other at all.
Sympathy is, “Oh, I recognize that’s what happening to you,” without actually feeling the emotions yourself. It’s recognizing the person is depressed and sitting them with them while they experience their emotions without becoming depressed yourself. Often you can recognize their state because you’ve been in that state yourself in the past, but you can recognize - sympathize - without ever having “been there”.
I agree with her main point that “silver lining” for someone during a time of crisis is often (but not always) counterproductive. That’s actually quite true. I do disagree with her that sympathy leads one to “silver line”. Some people do silver line while they sympathize, and are usually better off learning other therapeutic communication techniques instead, but I don’t think it’s a behavior inherent to sympathy.
To me “empathy” means to acknowledge another person’s distress.
“Sympathy” means you’re willing to help them wallow in it.
Someone who has sympathy for you understands why you’re feeling bad. They may not feel anything in response, but they at least understand why you’re upset.
Someone who has empathy for you understands why you’re feeling bad and they also feel bad along with you.
Neither are good or bad. Some situations call for one but not the other. If someone is too empathic, they’ll be too busy bawling their eyes out to give good advice. But sympathy alone doesn’t necessarily move people to do anything helpful. It’s easy to say “I sympathize with you, I really do” and then just walk away.
I don’t struggle too much with sympathy. But empathy has always been hard for me since I tend to be very analytical. I also haven’t experienced a lot of tragedy or drama. You need to experience some of that to have empathy, I think.
Say your buddy pees on an electric fence, sympathy would have you say “You poor person”, empathy would have you laughing until you fall into the fence yourself. Point being one can be both empathetic and sympathetic, but it’s not required.
I think good therapeutic professionals know how to make themselves seem empathic without actually being that way. My therapist repeatedly tells me that she doesn’t understand what I go through, which then forces me to talk and explain. But it’s not like she sits there with a stony face, muttering empty platitudes and scripted lines. She acts as if she has empathy. “Oh, that’s awful! That’s so sad! That makes me mad thinking about that happening to you! It’s no wonder you feel that way!” And then she follows up with practical advice. I know it’s a put-on. But it seems real enough when I’m in the moment.
Acting empathic is not about how you genuinely feel. It’s about conveying to someone they aren’t over-reacting or making a mountain out of a molehill. Sympathy alone sometimes fails to make that clear.
Hmm, apparently those two words are understood differently by different people. My understanding is empathy means to identify with, to be able to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes. But it doesn’t imply sorrow or bad feelings, whereas sympathy usually means you’re feeling unhappiness because of someone’s problems.
There are exceptions – you can use sympathize in a glib or ironic way, “…while I sympatize with the problems faced by senators…,” that’s a special case.
I can feel sympathy or sadness for persecuted minorities even if I can’t empathize. (I’ve never experienced it). I can empathize with a millionare football player, because I believe I’ve felt similar emotions on a smaller stage.
Under those definitions neither emotion is usually bad.
To me, empathy doesn’t mean you necessarily take on the emotions of the person you are empathizing with. It conveys a sense of understanding, kind of a “yeah, I’ve been there, I know how it feels” experiential sort of knowing (although not necessarily), but it doesn’t mean, to me, that you’re necessarily feeling those emotions. Or, if you are, it’s on a much lesser scale. But you still have a close, personal understanding of their situation, so you are identifying closely with them.
Sympathy, once again to me, is compassion without that sort of psychological closeness. It’s like you recognize the situation requires compassion, but you don’t have a real idea of what the person is feeling except in an abstract sense.
ETA. Baal’s definition is pretty close to how I use the terms.
I am always arguing to myself about these concepts.
I remember back during the Aurora shooting, watching all the vigils and footage of people crying in the streets, and trying to analyze my feelings about it all. I felt totally uncaring throughout the whole thing, and I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me.
It was only until I imagined my sister running away from the bullets did I feel some the horror and the sadness. But I couldn’t at all relate to the emotions of the bystanders who weren’t directly involved in the tragedy. I still can’t empathize with them. Even though I know intellectually we all feel different things, some more than others, I still have negative thoughts when it comes what I perceive as recreational grieving.
Yes. This right here.
ETA: As someone who uses a wheelchair, I am often put in the position of telling a person that I want empathy, not sympathy. There is nothing to feel bad about in regards to my life, rather I seek a shared perspective.
If you are vulnerable or ashamed, empathy implies you are communicating that you understand what it feels like to feel vulnerable or ashamed to someone by sharing stories where you felt the same way.
Sympathy means you keep yourself on your higher perch where you are not vulnerable or ashamed, and feel sorry for someone who is vulnerable and ashamed. So sympathy can be alienating.
Empathizing is riskier and easier to fuck up. It’s best not to employ it unless you are at least 100% sure that 1) you know how to do it right, and 2) it will be received well. Sometimes people who don’t know how to empathize end up alienating the other person, whereas plain-old sympathy would have been safer. Sometimes you just need to stop talking.
For example:
Clueless: “I was so sorry to hear about your husband’s death. One time our yacht got into an accident and we couldn’t use it for a week. I really know how you feel.”
One-upping: “I heard about your car’s fender-bender yesterday. That must have been awful! It really reminds me of my car accident. I was in a full-body cast for a month, and they totaled out my car.” --I have a coworker and parent who LIVE for these moments. They suck at empathy.
Silver-lining and bonus cliches: “It’s so terrible that your mother died. But it’ll be okay. Time/God heals all wounds.”
Empathy can also suck hardcore for the person who is empathizing.
I suffer from depression and anxiety, and I can’t watch sad movies or horror movies because I end up IN THEM for weeks or months. I can’t break myself out of it - my mind is looped into feeling what those characters must have felt.
Likewise when friends or family suffer tragedies that are peripheral to me personally, I have to stay totally distanced from them, or I get sucked in to what they feel, which doesn’t end well for anyone - they feel like I’m drama-queening or trying to horn in on their grief, or that I’m subtly mocking them, and I feel like shit over someone/something that didn’t even directly concern me in the first place.
It sucks rocks.
(On the other hand, I’ve been told many times that I’m a perfect theatre audience-member for the actors to feed off of. Yay?)
This. Real empathy as opposed to fake empathy is often quite painful. If you are prone to empathy, you need to build yourself some boundaries in order to both protect yourself and to be useful instead of just adding your own suffering to the mix. Also I have found that if you are prone to being sucked into other people’s emotions, you are at risk of just confusing their pain with yours, hence not actually being understanding at all.
Real sympathy, as opposed to Hallmark Card sympathy, is a combination of compassion and empathy – the desire to be compassionate and understanding.
My 25 satang’s worth is that sympathy = feeling sorry for someone, empathy = “feeling their pain,” possibly from but not limited to having a similar experience in the past.
I think you can also have empathy with happiness: someone is happy and you feel it too, out of empathy.
You can’t really sympathise with happiness.
I’m curious to know which world you live in where empathy is “dangerous and useless”. :dubious:
Empathy is indeed feeling the other person’s feelings, but that doesn’t mean you need to wallow in it or let the emotion overcome you. An empathetic person can counsel a depressive person by offering specific advice, expressing understanding, and simply letting the other person know that you, well, empathize with their situation.
Sympathy is okay but not nearly as helpful as empathy. With sympathy, all you can offer are general platitutes and a sense of “I hope everything turns out okay.” Pity is a subset of sympathy which is basically the same, except with the added feeling that it must suck to be you.