Empathy

margaret I was referring to MissAdventure's claim that anyone who didn't have empathy was a psycopath.

I know what a psychopath is and her comment was ludicrous and suggests that perhaps she wasn't quite sure what a psychopath was.

daphnedill thank you, it was a long time ago, but I still miss her.

The picures were lovely.

I thought I had kept my lovely Water Babies book but alas, it must have gone out at some point.

I loved the Water Babies as a girl..we had a copy with line drawing illustrations and I spent ages looking at them. I longed to be called Ellie the girl in the white bed sheets that sooty Tom sees when he enters the room via the chimney. She had long,straight dark hair in the illustration. I had short, dark curls!

I remember Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By, from the Water Babies Penstemmon

Along with Mrs Be-Done-By-As-You-Did.

Maybe it is my dear mum's motto 'Do, as you would be done by'

But I agree absent re children learning 'social skills'.

I think it is part of emotional intelligence..being able to consider / understand others' feelings, their perspective, opinions, reactions and to know how our actions, big and small, can affect others, and then to, maybe, modify our behaviour so we do not cause innecessary hurt/distress/discomfort to others.

Doesn't empathy cover other aspects of life besides death and problems? Is not empathy part of the process of learning and applying the mores of social interaction? We tell a child that it is wrong to tear up his friend's painting: "How would you like it if he tore up your painting?" We apply the same approach in more adult contexts from dumping/not leaving the supermarket trolley in the car park space where it will be an inconvenience for someone else to far less trivial or everyday concerns, some of which have become enshrined in law.

We used to say "don't get emotionally involved" when faced with trying to arrange practical help for people with problems. Is that the same thing? I would go to great lengths to do this, or to try to find ways for them to help themselves.
Another kind of suffering that hurts me is that of animals, who can't do anything about it. Especially dogs. Even a mouse or a green tree frog which is dying of thirst, finds some in a bucket, but can't get out and drowns. So sad.

I know. I understand the translation, but English doesn't have an exact equivalent saying, so I was just thinking what the nearest equivalent would be.

A good post Monica but what on earth do mean by psychopaths. Do you know what a psychopath is?

The friends who could not empathise with you have never been told how to speak to the newly berieved.
We all feel let down sometimes when berieved.

Daphne - a good translation but the German is only about doing good

By the way, I'm sorry for what you went through. Hope that doesn't sound patronising.

I agree with you, MOnica. When people say "I know how you feel" I just want to burst into tears - even more tears than I'm already shedding. I want them to ask what they can do for me and/or recognise that I'm grieving, not tell me they know how I'm feeling, because they don't.

I have always understood 'empathy' to mean 'walking in someone else's shoes'. In other words being able to share another person's feelings entirely at a time of trauma. I cannot see how anyone in any circumstances can do that.

I hope I can offer a person in distress support and understanding ie sympathy and, possibly, understand how I would feel in their circumstances, but I would never ever be so arrogant, or self-deceiving as to believe I could enter exactly into everything they are feeling - and what good would it do them if I did?

When my sister died, what I needed was people prepared to listen, to put an arm around me and make me tea, ie provide sympathy and understanding. The last thing I would have wanted was someone believing they could feel as I felt, and thinking that by being consumed by the grief that consumed me they could be doing anything other than adding to my woes. Empathy, at its best is patronising, at its worst..........

If a lack of empathy, means that all those that were so kind and sympathetic to me in my grief were psychpaths, they should be proud to be called so.

I guess the English equivalent is 'Actions speak louder than words'.

MissAdventure I think there are people who don't empathise without being psychopaths. I think the opposite and it's almost impossible to put oneself in somebody's else's shoes. Whenever we try, our thoughts are always coloured by our own experiences and beliefs.

MargaretX's example is a good one. She experienced what it's like to be in a foreign country and not speak the language, but she hasn't had the experience of fleeing a war torn country and experiencing prejudice and discrimination (well, maybe she did - to be fair, I don't know).

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.

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..

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 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.

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 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!

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 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.

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

Although according to my dictionary,

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

Sympathy means understanding between people; common feeling.