I have come to know a person who told me he had little empathy.  It both shocked me and created a sense of doubt in his motives and his actions.  So, I did a little research on what empathy really means and what should be my reaction.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as:

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also :the capacity for this

Therefore, a person has empathy if that person can understand and share the feelings of another.  Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person.  It goes beyond acknowledgement of pain and suffering of others to a personal co-ownership of that pain and suffering.

So from there I had to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.  I have used them interchangeably.

Here is a chart:

Empathy	Sympathy
Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes.	Acknowledging another person’s emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
Personal understanding from experience of like circumstance or proportion of pain	Understanding the quantity and type of pain experience of others
The ability to sense the feeling of the other person by remembering or imagining themselves in the other’s situations.	The ability to measure and understand
I know it’s not easy to lose weight because I have faced the same problems myself	Trying to lose weight can often feel like an uphill battle
A doctor relating with a patient because he or she has been in a similar situation or experience	Doctors comforting patients or their families
Experience of emotion like the emotion of another person.
Empathy shares	Sympathy expresses
I feel your pain	I am sorry for your pain
Empathy is a mindset based upon personality	Sympathy is a mindset based upon learning
Empathy is a talent	Sympathy is a learned behavior
Empathy is exhibited in sharing	Sympathy is increased by repetition

Of the two, empathy is a deeper feeling, but sympathy can be just as honest and heartfelt. However, empathy can forge a deeper and more meaningful connection, thus serving as a bridge for greater communication between individuals or between a leader and his or her followers.  Empathy most often leads to sympathy.  But sympathy alone does not lead to empathy.  This study leads me to something else; the actions that come from both empathy and sympathy: compassion.

Compassion is the action that is motivated by either empathy or sympathy. Compassion recognizes the situation and does something with it. Both sympathy and empathy imply caring for another person, but with empathy, the caring is enhanced or expanded by being able to feel the other person’s emotions.

In my study, I found a remarkable statement: The capacity to sympathize and empathize are considered vital for a sense of humanity — i.e., the ability to understand one’s fellow humans and their problems. People who lack this capacity are often classified as narcissistic, sociopathic, or in extreme cases, psychopathic.  I don’t think the person spoken of earlier needs to find a psychiatrist. But I do believe that both empathy and sympathy are vitally important to our humanity. He should try and do all he can to develop a sense of sympathy through practice. A sense of sympathy that can be exhibited in compassion with a willingness to stop and listen carefully to other situations and pain.  Sympathy is a learned behavior and empathy is personal talent. You can’t learn empathy.  You can learn to be sympathetic.

What do you think, leave a comment?