The Difference between Empathy vs Sympathy

Mental health professionals find social connections critically important to the ways that people cope with and overcome suffering, grief, and trauma.

Words like?sympathy,?empathy, and even?apathy?describe the nuanced differences between the very complex social connections and reactions humans display compassion when we are suffering or when we witness others in pain.

When a friend is suffering from some misfortune, loss, or?stressful experience, we want to be able to commiserate in a way that is both helpful and supportive.

Whether it’s a physical problem, like a health issue, or an emotional problem, like a breakup from a romantic partner.

How do we respond in a way that emanates warmth and understanding?

Do we offer sympathy or empathy?

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Thank you?….What's Empathy?

Empathy and sympathy are similar, yet they differ in how they can make one who is suffering feel. Empathy is a sense that you can understand and share the feelings of another.

This "shared" experience can generate a profound understanding because you attempt to know what it’s like to “walk in their shoes.”

Let’s take an example: Your friend’s Mom just died of cancer.

If someone you know has died, you may feel empathy for your friend because you have “been there”—you remember how lost you were, and how alone you felt.

You recall how for months or longer you felt like you had a huge hole in your heart and your life.

Because of the shared experience, you may know how the other feels so you can really empathize with their sense of emptiness and utter loss.

But even if you never experienced whatever your friend is experiencing, you can still feel empathy by mentally or emotionally putting yourself in "their shoes."

in the digital age, we are?less likely to be empathic?and more likely to be?narcissistic. So we have a lot of work to do to get our empathy gears moving again.

What's Sympathy?

Sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

Sympathy may not be received as well as empathy, but sorrowful sympathy can offer some warmth and support in the face of someone else’s misfortune—if administered with sensitivity and sincerity.

Is that “empathy” or “sympathy” you're showing?

While the two words are often incorrectly used interchangeably, the difference in their emotional impact is important.

Empathy, as the ability to actually feel what another person is feeling — literally “walk a mile in their shoes” — goes beyond sympathy, a simple expression of concern for another person’s misfortune.

Taken to extremes, deep or extended feelings of empathy can actually be harmful to one’s emotional health.

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Compassion?means ‘to suffer together,’ which is an expression of caring and warmth.

So is the difference between the two: compassion vs. empathy. What might be surprising is how much that difference matters.?

Someone who expresses compassion recognizes the pain in another person and is motivated to help them.?

Many of the ideas on this list fall into the category “act of kindness”.

?Beyond this list, there are many more activities that are considered acts of kindness. Attempt to practice at least two different acts of kindness a day. The possibilities are endless!

Life is too short to be “busy” all the time.

We all have a tendency to get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle of getting to school, going to work, getting homework done, and trying to catch up on chores around the house.

Set aside time to forget about everything you need to do and just spend a few hours catching up with family and friends. It will be time well spent and you will have plenty of time to catch up on your to-do list later.

Today’s world is absorbed in negativity. It seems that nothing is ever good enough and the things people do often come up short of perfect.

Instead of dwelling on everything people do wrong, use your voice to tell them what they are doing right and encourage them to continue working towards their goals.

Compassion, in my view, is neither empathy nor sympathy, but requires both.?

Empathy?involves responding to another person's emotions with emotions that are similar.?

Sympathy?entails feeling regret for another person's suffering.

Compassion, on the other hand,?is caring about another person's?happiness ?as if it were your own.

The challenge with this definition, however, is how easily it causes us to mistakenly infer that compassion therefore means.

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