Empathy

As the Irish say 'A smile never broke a tooth'! I try and smile or say something friendly to people I see in the street or shops. It costs nothing and it might make others feel they are not invisible after all.

My son had a brilliant idea. When he was at University he told me that when he goes in to a supermarket he finds 'buy one get one free' items he needs, then gives the 'free' one to someone who is homeless. There are lots of those kind of people in UK now so it is a good idea I think.

Yes, I do empathise with others....to a point. When people get themselves in a mess I am there ready to help in any way I can. But when they continue to make the same mess over and over I lose patience.

I never say, and hate to hear other people say 'Cheer up it might never happen' because it may well have happened already and that is why the person looks and feels miserable.

Elegran I could easily have got it the wrong way round, that's just my memory of what I was told. Some days I am so deeply involved in both sympathy and empathy - whichever way round they are - that I have ceased to care. Most days I still like to understand but some are just about getting on with it.

Thank you Penstemmon, and for raising a thought provoking subject.

You are right to add compassion into the mix norose4 because without that people can empathise with a situation/person and then forget about it. Compassion is more likely to prompt a response.

I have just reread Penstemmon original question , which was 'do you think you find it easy to feel empathy ' I would say I think that I along with many others do feel empathy for other people's situation/suffering, but have found that alot do not have that much compassion &therefore do not 'feel for or understand another's suffering ' especially in the wider setting of today's unsettled political & economical climate

That in answer to *GG2" at 09:18:25.

I would put the two almost the other way round, not "Sympathy is getting in the hole with them and sharing the experience, empathy is working out how to get someone out of the hole by understanding their experience." but "empathy is sharing the experience and feeling it with them, sympathy is knowing how they feel and understanding why."

Working out how to get them out of the hole can, at a pinch, be done without the use of either, just common sense and logic and tact. Sympathy and/or empathy softens the impact of the logical and sensible advice on how to proceed, which is sometimes at odds with what is comfortable to do.

Haven't had time to read all the latest posts so apologies if I repeat. My feeling is that empathy has a much bigger dimension to it than straight sympathy. The latter is more intellectual & we can give sympathy for an event or loss without having or showing any true understanding of the emotions involved.
I think with empathy for another person, it is first necessary to have the empathy to understand you need to sit with them, listen knowing when & how to intervene, & understand fully from their viewpoint rather than just projecting one's own feelings on to a situation. As a bereaved mother I've learned that no bereavement is alike because the people & situation are so different but because of my experience I do have the courage to hear someone else's horror about what it is like for them. I also think it is something you feel in your body without even trying. Some people with certain neuro conditions, or on that spectrum, do not feel empathy & that lack is part of the diagnosis. You cannot engage with them by appealing to their emotions & they won't be affected by seeing or hearing about anyone elses's plight. I can think of one very big example of this in the news at present but also there are many in positions of power in the Boardroom & public sector. Lack of empathy means you can forge your career ahead regardless of others. The most useful empathetic people are those wise & skilled enough to assess when their empathy is too much about their own unreaolved experiences. I believe empathetic people are made that way but training & experience can help deepen & improve what empathy they have & know how to use it wisely.

It's very strange, when I worked with vulnerable people, sympathy was almost a dirty word, as far as supporting them was concerned.
We were always told that empathy was the way to go!
Its probably changed now, anyway.

As I understand it empathy is the imaginative ability to place oneself in another's shoes and sympathy is the positive way one responds to the hurts of another. Perhaps the difference between one and the other is connected with the point at which one's thoughts intervene in the spontaneous feelings which arise at others' trouble.

I agree with other posters on this thread who say that while one can empathise with others it is not always in their interests to offer unconditional support. To create a 'victim mentality' in the mind of an unfortunate often robs them of volition, resolution and the independence which will do them most good in the long run. I suppose I am talking about the issue of 'learned dependency'.

Additionally, there is a degree of contempt in the concept of pity (there but for the grace of God go I) while sympathy offered rationally is between equals.

Should say both are appropriate at different times.

I was taught that to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy you imagine someone in a hole to deep for them to get out. Sympathy is getting in the hole with them and sharing the experience, empathy is working out how to get someone out of the hole by understanding their experience.

I found it a useful way of looking at it.

Almost all of the messages showed me that others felt exactly what I was feeling, Monica, which was sadness. One spoke of a 'mum shaped hole' left when our mums die: spot on, for me, exactly how I felt, but above and beyond that, each and every person spoke of their own sadness, in response to mine. Sadness is something we can all empathise/sympathise with, although of course it is different to each of us.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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..

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.