Varegg wrote:
lowing wrote:
Varegg wrote:
Your link comes up blank ??
link works for me.
anyway, google: difference between empathy and sympathy and get back with me.......................or don't
I don't have to use google to know the difference ... that's also explained in detail before, but since you insist I will have a go at it ... here goes:
Difference between sympathy and empathy 1Difference between sympathy and empathy 2Difference between sympathy and empathy 3Was several more sources but they pretty much say the exact same as several of us have tried to explain to you lowing ...
In shortSympathy: Feeling sorry for someone without taking active part.
Empathy: Feeling sorry for someone and taking active part aka sharing/understanding the feelings/emotions.
Not one of the sources says it's necessary to have experienced the same as the one you empathise with ... so the two emotions are related but not equal ... on another note collected from link 3 it says ...
The long versionSympathy and empathy are separate terms with some very important distinctions. Sympathy and empathy are both acts of feeling, but with sympathy you feel for the person; you’re sorry for them or pity them, but you don’t specifically understand what they’re feeling. Sometimes we’re left with little choice but to feel sympathetic because we really can’t understand the plight or predicament of someone else.
It takes imagination, work, or possibly a similar experience to get to empathy.I highlighted the important part ... and colored a strange word in the highlighted part red ...
^^ All of this is the essence of what we have been trying to say for the last pages ...
1. Empathy on the other hand takes a little more imagination, work, or even similar situations to gain empathy for someone <-------from your first source.
2. "You feel empathy when you've "been there", and sympathy when you haven't." <---from your second source.
3. "The need for true empathy gives rise to many groups of people who are encountering huge losses. There are numerous “therapy” groups for battered women, rape victims, parents who have lost children, people undergoing divorce, children with significant illnesses. In such groups, people often have the opportunity to talk to others experiencing things in a very direct way.
In these settings, those suffering don’t get the sympathy of others, but instead get the empathy of others. There is often an implied understanding since all people in such a group are similarly circumstanced. Frequently, what a person in grief really needs to hear is “I’ve done that too," "I totally get what you’re saying," or "I had the exact same thoughts," from someone else: all expressions of empathy." <-------from your third source.
Bottom line Varegg, in order to have true empathy with a person you need to have experienced what they they are experiencing. Period. ( and your sources seem to back that up. Anything less is cheap talk,
Example. You claim empathy toward a person who just lost their 10 year old child, but when you leave their side, and go home to your own 10 year old child and laugh and play catch and eat dinner, or go to a movie, you are not truly empathizing because you have turned that emoption off once you leave and resume your own life, while the person who has lost a child, is still in deep grief mourning, loneliness, emptyness etc. and will remain so for the rest of their lives. There is no whay uo can understand the emotion of such a loss unless you have lost one. and quite frankly no one that has lost a child wants to hear how you know what they are going through, when you don't.
Last edited by lowing (2010-05-25 17:20:28)