Sympathy vs. Empathy

[Nametag]

[QUOTE=picunurse]
According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary:
“Empathy- the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object, so that object appears to beinfused with it.”
So, when one empathizes, one appears to understand.

“Sympathy- having common feelings.”

It appears many of you have switched the meanings… I empathize.
[/QUOTE]

My god, I was wondering if anyone in this thread knew how to use a friggin’ dictionary. What most people think “empathy” means is entirely the creation of one episode of Star Trek.

Sympathy means “to feel with” – it is a far closer and more intense identification than empathy, which doesn’t even denote true understanding.

[pulykamell]

Here’s another thread on sympathy and empathy from a couple months back. And I will reprint dictionary.com’s FAQ on the matter:

What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?

Both empathy and sympathy are feelings concerning other people. Sympathy is literally ‘feeling with’ - compassion for or commiseration with another person. Empathy, by contrast, is literally ‘feeling into’ - the ability to project one’s personality into another person and more fully understand that person. Sympathy derives from Latin and Greek words meaning ‘having a fellow feeling’. The term empathy originated in psychology (translation of a German term, c. 1903) and has now come to mean the ability to imagine or project oneself into another person’s position and experience all the sensations involved in that position. You feel empathy when you’ve “been there”, and sympathy when you haven’t. Examples: We felt sympathy for the team members who tried hard but were not appreciated. / We felt empathy for children with asthma because their parents won’t remove pets from the household.