Empathy

E.G. I do sympathise with someone bereaved through anothers action.

I can empathise with their feeling of wanting retribution but would not always condone what they wanted that retribution to be.

I can empathise with someone's point of view but can also come to a different opinion.

Absolute epidemic of 'empaths' now among young people who claim that they 'feel everything' that others do, seems to me like an excuse to be miserable as they never feel joy from others only misery. This attention seeking stuff gets on my wick.

We are obsessed with feelings in the modern world in my opinion.

I too want to tell people to get a grip a lot of the time, while they are screaming in the streets or having counselling because a president in another country has been elected or any other modern nonsense. There was a helpline when 'Take That' broke
up, what has happened to backbone?

I believe that we are constructing a society that encourages, even rewards people not coping with life. It is an industry, anti depressants are being taken by a huge tranche of the population, young people too, self harm and all manner of addictions for what is often self inflicted, counselling for all sorts of really minor stuff.

I also hate the term empathy, I feel it is arrogant to assume you understand another's pain when it is real and terrible. I had a friend whose mother died and in the time it took her to drive home from the hospital that day, her little son choked to death. I can't pretend to understand how that feels.....when however the electricians I had to rewire my house took a day off, to take their snake to the vets because they were 'worried about him'.........grrrrrrrrrr

The last generation lived with daily stress and horrors, for the war years and had to work through it all, literally go to work, not have time off with stress.

My philosophy, sometimes you are the pigeon sometime you are the post.

Great question. It often crosses my mind.

Mostly I can empathise, but sometimes I cannot. I do sometimes feel genuinely distant and unable to relate, and find myself screaming inside, where's your empathy, where's it gone today? I think your ability to empathise is down to your mood at that particular time.

I've never told someone to get a grip, although I might feel like saying it, especially to someone who just can't seem to deal with things. But then I turn the tables and imagine how devastated I'd feel, being on the receiving end of someone's "get a grip"!

I feel empathy when I have experienced similar illness problem etc.
Sympathy is what I have a problem with.
I believe that in most cases pro action is required be that by the person themselves or by another.
Offering help such as taking a friend to a hospital appointment or looking after grandchildren when a parent ill. If someone is down cooking them a meal or even just giving them an ear.
All better than sympathetic noises
Charities are proactive
I would imagine that lot of charitable money made is through the donor having empathy.
For example, themselves or family member living through particular illness.

There has always been depression, self harm etc, thankfully these are now spoken of and support given, but still understanding is needed as your views show radicalan , asking where is the persons backbone is the same as telling a suffering to pull themselves together

After the two wars many who suffered in battle didn't talk and this caused distress in many families

I think empathy is an over-used word and I ma deeply suspicious of anyone who uses it. Too often it is used as a form of internal self- congratulation, when speaking to someone who is going through some kind of difficulty in life. The 'I know how you feel' comment. Well, no, actually, you don't.

How can anyone empathise with someone, even if you have both shared a similar experience? You are not the other person, you cannot possible understand their internal emotional drivers.

I can sympathise with someone's plight, I can try and understand, how they feel about it, but I can never put myself in their shoes, and it is self-glorification to think I can.

As for feeling sometimes that someone should just get a grip. I think that is a reasonable feeling to have. We all know people who see every tiny setback as a major disaster or upset if anyone ever makes a remark to them that isn't totally affirming in every way.

All our reactions to other people are based on our own personal assessments of the situations they face, but empathy? deeply doubtful.

Not everybody wants a prayer.

No Anya...but some people do....

Gosh what an interesting discussion. I am embarrassingly over emotional at times and tend to cry if someone else is upset and crying. And feel at an utter loss as to what to do or say. Yet if I am upset, I am not very keen on being hugged as it makes me cry more!

MOnica, I haven't seen anyone here suggest that to feel empathy means you understand what the other person is feeling. It means feeling empathy for the situation the find themselves in. Most of us will have experienced the death of a loved one. We may go through similar well recognised feeling associated with bereavement but not one of us will respond in the same way.

i dislike the over emoting that is seen on tv shows like Jeremy Kyle, or reality tv but that doesn't mean I take the views expressed by some, who put all 'the younger generation' together and suggest they 'get a grip'. Learning to manage our emotions in a healthy way is a key life skill, as we're seeing again with toddler grandson ?

Yes I do especially if it's a death having lost many members of our family including my son.

My understanding is that sympathy means sharing the emotion; empathy is understandin g another's feelings but not sharng them.
I cannot sympathise with a refugee or a bereaved person unless i am or have been in the same situation. But i can empathise and offer help.
I know this is not the way these words are generally used but I believe these are the correct definitions.

Although having now looked up the definitions it may be the other way round!!! Not what i was taught at university many years ago im sure. Maybe the meanings have changed!

Thanks pollyperkins, clear and straightforward

Although according to my dictionary,

Empathy means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Sympathy means understanding between people; common feeling.

I would have said that sympathy was the ability to understand the painful feelings of others and be able to say something soothing and encouraging to them, while empathy was suffering with them, mirroring their pain or sadness, perhaps because it reawakened what you felt when in the same situation.

It is possible that too much empathy could actually make you less helpful to the person in trouble, if it impaired the ability to say the right thing because of your own distress.

The prefix "sym-" implies with, but "em-" implies entering right in. The "-pathy" is feeling.

I just do not think we can share the feelings of another and I think it is self-regarding to think we can.

I am one of three sisters. When my middle sister died after a road accident, my surviving sister and I shared the fact of the loss of a sibling, but despite all of us being very close our responses and feelings about the loss were very different. We both found some of the others responses and reactions very difficult to comprehend. It did not, however, stop us giving each other sympathy, understanding and support.

If I cannot share all the feelings of a sister I am close to over a common loss, I certainly cannot see how we can possible share the feelings of somebody we are not that close to over a problem we may not have experienced.

Anya do you not mean empathise?
I believe empathy without prejudice is sadly lacking in todays society.
Sympathy and empathy go hand in hand.
I am Christian in my beliefs however I do not go to church unlike those I have observed who profess to be Christian because they regularly go to church but can turn away from others who they believe 'have brought it on themselves'.

I am finding people's responses really thought provoking.

I personally do not like the big public responses to a 'celebrity' death e.g. Princess Di, as, to me, people are mourning an icon/ public image and not the person..as mostly they have never met them. However the public responses to national tragedy, e.g. Aberfan/Dunblane I can understand because we all realise it could be our loss, our community etc.

However I am not certain which I would call (if either) empathy/sympathy!

Yes, I find it easy and having been a Nurse for fifty years, it has been part of my job, and I think I have done it well, I hope so!

I must admit I sometimes find it very difficult as a strong minded person I often tend to want others to get a grip I also think as I get older it is becoming more difficult to show empathy.

Being able to listen to a person, share my own experience and make suggestions is something I do on a regular basis as a long term member of a 12 step program.

I think if you can identify with a person experience then you have empathy.

Even though I am experienced with identity and empathy doesn't mean there are times when I don't feel like doing it. I am human

I've always assumed everyone feels empathy, apart from psychopaths
It's lauded today, as if it's a special personality trait: "As an empath" blah blah..

Take refugees as an example. A lot of people in Germany have great sympathy for these people and want to help them but very often start sentences with .I can't undertand why they don't do this or that eg learn German.

They are lacking in empathy and have no one to point out the facts or to help them understand better. They can't put themselves in the place of a refugee mother with 3 young children trying to live in such restricted conditions.

I have empathy especially where living in a foreign country is concerned and I can easily see myself in their position.
I can empathise with a young mother as I learned German with two young children and had to get to know even what the meat in the Butchers shop is called.
But then I always could empathise but am lacking in that really generous impulse -that great sympathy that others feel which keeps these people still working with refugees - and the homeless and the old.....
What use is empathy if not backed up by sympathy.
German proverb:
Es gibt nichts Gutes,ausser man tut es
Its no use thinking about doing good unless you put it into practice.