A key part of humans’ ability to survive has been our ability to empathize and sympathize. Empathy, sympathy, and compassion help us form strong relationships and communities with others. Many mental health disorders are marked by their unusual lack of empathy, sympathy, or compassion, which showcases just how important the three are to healthy human functioning.
But what is the difference between empathy, sympathy, and compassion? And how can we get better at showing them both? This article will look at empathy and sympathy and how they differ.
What Is Sympathy?
Sympathy is expressing real concern for someone’s difficulty or pain. The dictionary Merriam-Webster defines sympathy as “a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful.”
Sympathy is real and important, but it isn’t always that deep or long-lasting. Some ways we might show our sympathy to others include:
- Sending a condolence card to someone who has lost a loved one.
- Saying “I’m so sorry you’re going through this” when a friend shares a hardship.
- Giving someone a comforting hug when they’re upset.
- Attending a funeral to show support for the grieving family.
- Bringing food to a sick neighbor to show you care about their well-being.
These are all ways of expressing care and concern for someone's suffering, even if you haven't experienced it yourself.
What Is Empathy?
Empathy is the deep understanding of what someone is going through. You don’t just feel bad for them; you relate to them.
The dictionary describes empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another.”
Empathy is actively sharing in the emotional experience of another. We all do it to varying extents. Although some people might lack high amounts of empathy, others are considered very empathetic. Not an officially recognized term or diagnosis, an empath is someone who feels the emotions of others very acutely.
Empathy is often considered stronger and more powerful than sympathy. For example, when someone you love passes away, which one is more comforting to you: A sympathy card, or someone showing up to sit with you while you cry and relate to your experience?
A popular research professional and author, Brene Brown, describes four qualities of empathy:
- Perspective taking: “Walk a mile in someone else's shoes,” as the common adage goes. Try to view the situation not from your own perspective, but someone else's.
- Staying out of judgment: Instead of passing judgment on the situation, how they are handling it, and how you would have handled it instead, withhold judgment and instead just sit in that emotion with them.
- Recognize Emotions: Name the emotion you’re feeling and the emotion you think they are feeling. What does that emotion feel like to you?
- Communication: Communication can be more than verbal. Sitting with someone, being there for them, doing their dishes, or bringing them a meal are all ways you can communicate that you understand what someone is going through and want to help them through it.
Examples of empathy can include:
- Listening without interrupting when a friend shares something painful, showing you truly want to understand.
- Saying, “I’ve felt that way too,” to connect with someone’s emotional experience.
- Putting yourself in a coworker’s shoes to understand why they might be stressed or frustrated.
- Noticing someone is upset, and gently asking, “Do you want to talk about it?”
- Adjusting your behavior because you sense someone feels uncomfortable or excluded.
Empathy is about truly feeling with someone, not just acknowledging their pain, but sharing in it emotionally or imagining what it’s like to be in their position.
What Is Compassion?
Similar to empathy, compassion is a deep understanding of what someone is going through, but it is paired with the desire to do something about it. For example, you can have empathy without having compassion.
The dictionary defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it”.
Examples of compassion include:
- Volunteering at a homeless shelter because you care about others’ suffering and want to help.
- Bringing groceries to a sick neighbor without being asked.
- Donating to a relief fund after seeing people affected by a natural disaster.
- Comforting a friend who’s going through a tough time, and offering to help with tasks or errands.
- Standing up for someone being treated unfairly, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Compassion goes a step beyond empathy—it’s not just feeling with someone, but also being motivated to take action to relieve their suffering.
Empathy vs Sympathy vs Compassion
Empathy, sympathy, and compassion are all closely related. The difference is in how personal you take another person’s emotional experience and what you do with those emotions.
Sympathy is being able to understand that someone is having a difficult time. Empathy is feeling another person’s pain alongside them. Compassion is doing something to help alleviate that pain.
A common misconception is that sympathy isn’t as deep or authentic as empathy or compassion, but this isn’t necessarily the case. All three are important.
It’s true that empathy often leads to a deeper emotional understanding and care of a person’s situation, and that compassion leads to more action and community building, but sympathy is important too. You don’t have to fully understand what it’s like to be there for someone. Sympathy helps us support others without fully understanding what it’s like, an important skill given that you can’t possibly understand what every situation feels like.
Lacking any one of these three could be a sign of a deeper mental health issue. Some disorders, like Antisocial Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, are marked by an extreme lack of empathy. While these people may learn cognitive empathy or how to show sympathy and compassion, it is a skill that has to be taught.
Therapy can be a part of that healing journey. On the flip side, if you are someone who struggles with a lot of empathy and feels unable to control when and how you feel things or struggles with boundary setting, therapy is also a place where you can heal and grow.
Contact Lifebulb to be scheduled with a therapist near you today.
