Empathy

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).

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The picures were lovely.

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.

Saying to someone 'How would you feel if someone did this to you' is not empathy, because you are not suggesting that the two people would feel the same. I mean to say, one child could be upset and cry if their picture was torn up, the other could be furiously angry if it happened to them.

In fact for that very reason it is probably not a good thing to say to a child. Penstemmon's use of the word emotional intelligence is much better. We need to teach children to understand in far broader terms that life works a lot better if we are considerate of other people and the fact that other people can be upset over items do not bother them does not mean that they should not show kindness and sympathy for them.

What I meant was that empathy, or the ability to imagine how one would feel in anothers' place is natural, surely?
It would help if we knew the absolute and proper definition, and the difference between empathy and sympathy, maybe?
Either way, both seem to be usual feelings, I think..

I think an example of empathy is when you say words such as ' I can only imagine what you are going through at this terrible time, but please know that I am here for you & will help/do anything I can to support you if you so wish it. Sympathy on the other hand is more of a thought about how terrible a certain situation is for that somebody.

Reducing myself to the lowest level of argument - the dictionary definition: The Oxford dictionary says: Empathy means 'the ability to understand and share the feelings of another' (as in both authors have the skill to make you feel empathy with their heroines), whereas sympathy means 'feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune' (as in they had great sympathy for the flood victims) The Cambridge and Webster's dictionary say something very similar.

The word exists and has a meaning but whether it is actually possible to ever have the ability to understand and share the feelings of another in other than the broadest of terms I doubt very much. For example: if a friend breaks a leg and has to cancel a holiday, you can understand that they are going to be pretty cheesed off by the experience, but can you really know exactly how they feel? They could be angry, or depressed, or secretly relieved, because they had some reason for not really wanting to go.

When I am in any kind of distress, it is sympathy I want. feelings of pity and sorrow for my misfortune. not someone thinking they can share my feelings. My feelings to them are usually very uncharitable.

But do you think empathy helps people behave with decency to one another? Without being able to appreciate how others may feel we might all be going round snatching what we want ,when we want it regardless of the hurt we would cause others. Or do we just behave civilly because we fear punishment/repercussions?

Surely we draw on our own feelings in order to feel empathy or sympathy though?
I posted here when I lost my mum, and was touched at just how many people left me beautiful, heartfelt messages
Most referred to losing their own mums, so whilst not knowing how I, personally felt, feeling that they may have some idea.

When I see a mum cradling her tiny, frail little child on my tv, and that child lacks even the basics, I feel empathy.
Of course I dont know the lady on my tv, I never will, and I can't even begin to think I know how she feels
I can imagine how it feels to watch your child fade away though, as a mum.

I am not denying that we can all, in broad terms, appreciate how others feel and show them we care about their plight - and that includes all the kind messages you had MissAdventure when your mother died, but the definition of empathy is very limited. It is share the feelings of another.

How many of those messages showed that the senders understood, how you, personally, felt. They could sympathise with you, they knew how they felt when their mother died, and those memories brought forth heartfelt messages, but did they share your exact feelings on the loss of your mother? If they didn't it wasn't empathy

As I said earlier, when my middle sister died, the two of us left shared our deep grief and supported each other, but we both expressed our grief in very different ways and neither could really understand the other's responses. It didn't diminish our sympathy for each other.

That , I would say, is empathy, MissAdventure but others may not!

To express sympathy doesn't mean you have experienced the same as the person you are sympathising with , you feel deeply sorry they are suffering,

Empathy ? No one knows what a person in distress is feeling but if one has experienced similar then they can feel empathy,

I lost two babies, when I hear or meet someone who has experienced the loss of a baby I feel more than sympathy, I remember the aching of the arms to hold the baby, questioning , did I do something wrong in the pregnancy , milk in the breasts, the years to come when you wonder how they would have grown.

I think as long as whatever is felt is genuine, heartfelt, and comes from a place of kindness, then the name it goes by isn't really that important.
The fact remains that very few people would be unmoved by another humans suffering, regardless of whether they themselves had any personal experience of that specific situation.