Actually, I want to modify my definition of empathy to include ‘or, I deeply understand your suffering through having once suffered similarly’
Empathy doesn’t have to include you telling the sufferer “Hey, Me too!” (me, Me ME!) - in fact, it very often shouldn’t, but empathy from experience (the fact that you too have suffered something similar in the past) can make you a more effective help to the sufferer - because you don’t just intellectually understand what they’re going through - you know how it feels.
Currently, nursing. But I came to that conclusion after about a decade as first a student and now a leader (small l - no one’s heard of me outside my own Circle) in the neopagan community, where Empathy is much prized. I see that as a real problem, and a limiting factor not only for our own personal development, but the continued existence and growth of our subculture. I see a lot of people, especially young women, who are very proud - proud the point of hubris - that they are an Empath, or they have Empathy, as if it’s some sort of sixth sense or sign of blessing from The Divine. What it tends to mean in reality is that when the shit hits the fan, they can’t pick up a bucket and rag, but stand there sobbing that they’re covered in shit. This makes them useless for obvious reasons, and dangerous because now I have two people falling apart on me, not one, and then another falls, and then another… They spread chaos and dysfunction within a group, and can destabilize the support structures of the Circle, or the nursing floor, or the company.
Been there, done that, by the way. I was once one of those young ladies, and a great deal of my spiritual and personal work has been to strengthen my boundaries - psychic and interpersonal - and learn how to turn *down *the empathy so that I can continue to function and serve others - to put on my metaphoric oxygen mask first so I can help others with theirs.
This is true, but the tendency is there to excess and needs to be reined in in the populations I’m most familiar with - neopagans and nurses. This is of course influenced by self-selection. I suspect these two groups do naturally have a larger dose of empathy than the general population, which is part of why they are drawn to these two subcultures.
These I would place under actions made possible by sympathy - by understanding what a person is going through and understanding possible avenues of action that might be useful.
and this is true as well. I don’t think one can entirely shut of empathy and remain fully human. We’re wired for empathy, as part of our evolution as social creatures.
I don’t think we’re working on the same definition of sympathy, then. I’m fairly used to that. As evidenced by this thread, most people no longer follow the dictionary definitions, and so those definitions are clearly changing and the two words will one day no longer be useful distinctions. Such is the nature of language. It’s the nature of my work as a teacher, however, to need a good pair of words that have distinct meanings - one for feelings, one for understanding - and so I continue to hold to their classic distinctions for teaching purposes.
In reality, of course, we use a combination of both (limited, functional) empathy *and *sympathy when we’re working at our best.
I used to participate on a board where people would talk about their experiences in psychotherapy. Often they would talk about the times they would make their psychotherapist’s cry.
It would totally freak me out if my psychotherapist identified that much with me. I like that I can say anything to her and not worry about her being affected. I would feel like I’d have to hold stuff back, just so she wouldn’t fall to pieces on me. Holding back in therapy is a waste of time and money.
But some people like this approach because it makes them feel like they’re dealing with an actual human being (as opposed to a “professional”) and that someone understands them.
I’m betting professionals who are that close to their patients eventually get burned out, though.
While I’m not empathetic to WhyNot’s vehemence, I agree with the greater point.
Are you capable of helping a person that is suffering?
If not because you are too overwhelmed by their issue yourself, you’re codependent and pretty useless.
However, some people don’t want help. Misery loves company.
So navigating between the two, at least to the point of faking it successfully, like monstro’s therapist, will make you more useful and compassionate to a wider range of people than choosing a single path.
Hmm…okay, I can see why empathy (or inability to control it) could be a major hindrance in that career. In fact, I’ve been told by some people that individuals with relatively low empathy (or can easily control it) are well-suited for becoming doctors, EMTs, etc. because they can focus on the immediate and potentially life-critical task at hand without becoming overwhelmed by emotion. That being said, I do believe it’s important for someone in that career to possess some degree of empathy, so they can express it when the situation warrants it – to make the patient feel comfortable, or allay their fears, even if their life is not directly at risk. And I do believe that is the general case, based on how often First Responders need to receive counseling after working an exceptionally traumatic scene.
That’s not empathy, though. That’s failure to cope. And here is where I will respectfully disagree with your prior statement that empathy itself is “dangerous and useless.” People like you describe, are people who either misjudge their ability to control empathy, or – more despicably – deliberately get themselves into situations where other people will feel sorry for them instead of someone else. Hijacking sympathy, if you like. But that doesn’t mean empathy itself is to blame. It’s analogous to the ancient cliche, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”
By the way, I’m enheartened to learn that you do indeed have strong empathy, but also possess the psychological tools to control it. Had me slightly concerned for a second.
Sympathy isn’t lack of understanding, it’s lack of experience. That’s how I would broadly define it. There’s always a small degree of empathy mixed in with genuine sympathy, however. A hypothetical example would be if a friend told me their child was in the hospital. I don’t have any children, so it’s impossible for me to comprehend what that specific situation must feel like. On the other hand, I can recognize they are afraid and upset and worried about possibly losing a loved one, so I can empathize to that degree – but only in a general, overarching sense. For the rest, all I can offer is sympathy.
My definition of pity was indeed somewhat sarcastic, but it is true to some degree – expressing pity is a situation where you feel the person doesn’t deserve sympathy (because they brought the problem upon themselves, or are making a huge deal over nothing, etc.) but you express sympathy anyway just to be polite. Again, that’s just how I broadly define it.
“I’m really empathising with her happiness over the new puppy” - You’ve had a new puppy before and you just feel the belly tingling she’s getting right now.
“I sympathise with her happiness over her new boyfriend” - You’re a nasty, sarcastic dick and you expect the relationship to turn sour. Or possibly you’re right and the boyfriend is a dick, but you probably should try to phrase it better.
How about if somebody gets a raise/award/has a child/adopts a dog/etc., where you’re happy for them, but not really in any real sense of knowing how that feels or even feeling that emotion other than an abstract sense of “well, my friend is happy, so I should be happy for them?”
Empathy means understanding someone’s feelings, while sympathy means feeling the same thing that they do.
**Situation: ** Your friend called a guy a wanker, and the guy punched him in the face.
Empathy: I’d hate being punched in the face, so I feel sorry for you.
**Sympathy: ** I hate that wanker who punched you in the face. Let’s go kick his ass.
If I had a friend who makes colossally stupid decisions and is constantly short on cash, I’d be empathetic, but not sympathetic.
By that, I mean that I know what it’s like to be short on cash, and can identify with that, but I’m not particularly sympathetic or willing to help them with their financial because they’re being a knucklehead. I’d be willing to help them with decision making out of empathy though.
Empathy for me, is the ability, using my imagination—either through personal experience or by some other innate human ability—to realize as fully as possible the personal task/situation laid upon the other. To place myself vicariously in their life and come to a deeper, profoundly visceral insight or realization of their circumstance.
Sympathy, on the other hand, would be more of a superficial understanding of any grief or tragedy another is going through.
Any actions you may take toward the other based on empathy or sympathy (which aren’t mutually exclusive), is irrelevant to the level at which you’re able to reach either state of emotion/understanding.
In short, empathy emerges from some subjectively deep and fundamentally human perspective; often profoundly intuitive and inspiring some level of action or reaction. Sympathy, from a more objective stance, yet usually supportive, though typically more passive, even if sincerely heartfelt and/or arrived at rationally.
Well, I wouldn’t really, either, since sympathy is usually reserved for negative emotions, at least the way I use it colloquially. But, thinking about it, I don’t see why you can’t sympathize with another’s positive emotion, such as happiness.
I guess this would be why the dictionary definition described your definition as the ‘can be confused with empathy’ one.
Sympathy is experiencing the same specific feeling another person is feeling (i.e. We’re both fans of the losing football team, so we’re mutually sympathetic) vs. empathy, which is feeling vicariously (I don’t really care about football, but I know how you feel).
Or to put it another way, nobody ever got executed on suspicion of being a communist empathizer.
Maybe I’m just misunderstanding your definitions. Here’s a grammar site explaining the difference: “When you understand and feel another’s feelings for yourself, you have empathy[…]When you sympathize with someone, you have compassion for that person, but you don’t necessarily feel her feelings.” Or here’s another take at an explanation: “If you’re feeling empathy, you’re in (em) the feeling. If it’s sympathy, you’re feeling sorry for someone.” ETA: Oh, and it looks like Dictionary.com (the reference you quoted) also has a long usage note explaining the difference, and uses a very similar definition to what I gave in my first post in this thread: " You feel empathy when you’ve “been there”, and sympathy when you haven’t." Also, “Empathy, by contrast, is literally ‘feeling into’ - the ability to project one’s personality into another person and more fully understand that person.” Empathy is psychologically “closer” than sympathy.
That’s basically how I’ve always known it (and it seems like the other posts in this thread more-or-less agree), but your definition seems to be the other way around. Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding what you’re saying.
I had watched the Brene Brown empathy/sympathy cartoon and felt a little nonplussed without quite knowing why.
I’ve read this thread with great interest and truly appreciate everyone’s contributions. I’m getting an inkling about why these words are so slippery.
When someone is suffering there are ways of responding that are helpful and ways of responding that are unhelpful. I could even say there are ways of responding that are agreeable and ways that are disagreeable to the sufferer. What responses fall into which categories will vary by sufferer (some people at some times for some problems like the “silver lining” response for example). Having a clue about what responses will be agreeable is necessarily informed by having an idea of what the sufferer is feeling which is why these words are tied up with the notion of feeling or understanding what another is feeling.
Our culture/language has begun contrasting these two words and everything the sufferer finds unhelpful/disagreeable is filed under “sympathy” (this is certainly true for the video) and everything the sufferer finds helpful/agreeable is filed under “empathy”
This distinguishing process currently underway is effectively ruining the previously useful and older word “sympathy”. The need for such a distinction (between helpful and unhelpful responses) was marked by the entry of the word “empathy” into the language at the quite late date of 1903.
Am I right? Can you sympathize with my conclusion?