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Updated March 28, 2018
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.
Sympathy
Sympathy is a feeling and expression of concern for someone,
often accompanied by a wish for them to be happier or better off. “Oh dear, I
hope the chemo helps.” In general, sympathy implies a deeper, more personal,
level of concern than pity, a simple expression of sorrow.
However, unlike empathy, sympathy does not imply that one’s
feelings for another are based on shared experiences or emotions.
Empathy
As a translation into English of the German word Einfühlung
— “feeling into” — made by psychologist Edward Titchener in 1909, “empathy” is the
ability to recognize and share another person’s emotions.
Empathy requires the ability to recognize the suffering of
another person from their point of view and to openly share their emotions,
including painful distress.
Empathy is often confused with sympathy, pity and
compassion, which are merely recognition of another person’s distress. Pity
typically implies that the suffering person does not “deserve” what has
happened to him or her and is powerless to do anything about it.
Pity shows a lower degree of understanding and engagement
with the suffering person’s situation than empathy, sympathy, or compassion.
Compassion is a deeper level of empathy, demonstrating an
actual desire to help the suffering person.
Since it requires shared experiences, people can generally
feel empathy only for other people, not for animals.
While people may be able to sympathize with a horse, for
example, they cannot truly empathize with it.
The Three Types of Empathy
According to psychologist and pioneer in the field of
emotions, Paul Ekman, Ph.D.,
three distinct types of empathy have been identified:
While it can give meaning to our lives, Dr. Ekman warns that
empathy can also go terribly wrong.
The Dangers of Empathy
Empathy can give purpose to our lives and truly comfort
people in distress, but it can also do great harm. While showing an empathetic
response to the tragedy and trauma of others can be helpful, it can also, if
misdirected, turn us into what Professor James Dawes
has called “emotional parasites.”
Empathy Can Lead to Misplaced Anger
Empathy can make people angry — perhaps dangerously so — if
they mistakenly perceive that another person is threatening a person they care
for.
For example, while at a public gathering, you notice a
heavyset, casually dressed man who you think is “staring” at your pre-teenage
daughter. While the man has remained expressionless and has not moved from his
spot, your empathetic understanding of what he “might” be thinking of doing to
your daughter drives you into a state of rage.
While there was nothing in the man’s expression or body
language that should have lead you to believe he intended to harm your
daughter, your empathetic understanding what was probably “going on inside his
head” took you there.
Danish family therapist Jesper Juul has
referred to empathy and aggression as “existential twins.”
Empathy Can Drain Your Wallet
For years, psychologists have reported cases of overly
empathetic patients endangering the well-being of themselves and their families
by giving away their life savings to random needy individuals. Such overly
empathetic people who feel they are somehow responsible for the distress of
others have developed an empathy-based guilt.
The better-known condition of “survivor guilt” is a form of
empathy-based guilt in which an empathic person incorrectly feels that his or
her own happiness has come at the cost or may have even caused another person’s
misery.
According to psychologist Lynn O’Connor, persons who regularly act
out of empathy-based guilt, or “pathological altruism,” tend to develop
mild depression in later-life.
Empathy Can Harm Relationships
Psychologists warn that empathy should never be confused
with love. While love can make any relationship — good or bad — better, empathy
cannot and can even hasten the end of a strained relationship. Essentially,
love can cure, empathy cannot.
As an example of how even well-intentioned empathy can
damage a relationship, consider this scene from the animated comedy television
series The Simpsons: Bart, bemoaning the failing grades on his report card,
says, “This is the worst semester of my life.” His dad, Homer, based on his own
school experience, tries to comfort his son by telling him, “Your worst
semester so far.”
Empathy Can Lead to Fatigue
Rehabilitation and trauma counselor Mark Stebnicki coined the term “empathy fatigue” to refer to a state of
physical exhaustion resulting from repeated or prolonged personal involvement
in the chronic illness, disability, trauma, grief, and loss of others.
While more common among mental health counselors, any overly
empathetic person can experience empathy fatigue. According to Stebnicki, “high
touch” professionals like doctors, nurses, lawyers, and teachers tend to suffer
from empathy fatigue.
Paul Bloom, Ph.D.,
professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University, goes so far
as to suggest that due to its inherent dangers, people need less empathy rather
than more.
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