Empathy versus Sympathy - The Critical Difference

The second question is "How do we show empathy?"

The answer to this lies in learning to distinguish between empathy and sympathy.

So, what's the difference?

Sympathy: the act of imagining and interpreting the thoughts, experiences, and perspectives of others from our own lens (e.g. our history, experiences, priorities and values).

Empathy: the act of attempting to understand the thoughts, experiences, and perspectives of others from their own lens (e.g. their history, experiences, priorities and values)..

Although subtle, the difference in effect between empathy and sympathy is significant. Following is an example, which magnifies the point:

• A woman in labor tells her husband she is in a terrible amount of pain. He says, "I know, I strained my back once."(sympathy - using his own limited lens).
  
  
• A woman in labor tells her husband she is in a terrible amount of pain. He asks her, "Is this the worst pain you've ever felt?" Then he asks her to describe what it feels like, where the pain lies, and if there is anything he can do to help ease the pain.(The key to empathy: There is no "I" in empathy).

In the above example, how might the woman respond in the first scenario? I polled several women and learned that they agreed they would most likely feel inclined to beat him over the head with the nearest object they could get their hands on. The point? The husband could not possibly draw from his own experience in this scenario, and yet, he put himself into the equation. Doing so, only magnified the gap in their experiences, missed an opportunity to show empathy, and likely made the wife feel alone and misunderstood.

Although in the second scenario, the woman might not exactly feel like explaining anything given her circumstance, his efforts to show empathy, to understand her experience would most likely be met with appreciation and serve as a perfect opening to an enlightening discussion, even if it took place at a later time.

What Empathy is not:

• An attempt to assert your opinion
• An exercise in convincing others of your point of view, or having them convince you of theirs
• Anything that starts with "I...."
• Automatic agreement with the other individual's perspective
• Acknowledgment that you are wrong in any way

What Empathy is:

• Listening
• Asking questions - for aid in clarification and understanding
• Temporarily suspending your own ideas, opinions, and emotions (particularly anger and resentment)
• Best when paired with validation

A few more important points about empathy:

1. In the context of race and culture difference, we must remember that although we may have formed opinions over time, on the basis of our observations, we have not lived the experience of another person of another race/ethnicity. For that matter, we have not lived the experience of other individuals who may be the same race, but perhaps come from a different class, region, ethnic cultural background, etc. This makes empathy -- refraining from judgment and attempting to understand how the other individual sees and experiences things -- all the more important.
   
   
2. Empathy must work both ways - not only must we make the effort to understand the other person's underlying knowledge, thoughts and feelings, but we must be willing to examine and share our own.
   
   
3. Empathy requires that we overcome obstacles to understanding, such as the harmful stereotypes we have all inherited about one another. All of us have them. No one is exempt. (An exercise I've repeated in workshops has shown this to be absolutely fact. In a very short period of time, a group is able to generate and agree on a very long list of stereotypes about specific groups of people, whether positive or negative attributes are assigned. This happens 100% of the time.)
   
   
4. Empathy requires that we be willing to question whether our opinions, especially those we dearly hold, are based on real knowledge and facts, or whether they are based on misinformation we've inherited or acquired somewhere along the way.
   
   
5. Empathy requires trust and that we temporarily suspend judgment. We must be willing to trust that the experiences shaping the perspectives of others may be very different from what we know and have experienced. If our immediate response is to attempt to invalidate the underlying knowledge, experience, and feelings shaping the other individual's perspective, then we enter a judging mode and fail at empathy.

The first step: many people believe they are demonstrating empathy, when really, they are showing sympathy. But in fact, empathy requires patience and practice, and oftentimes, that we adjust our attitudes in the interest of learning something new and creating peace with others.

The reward: Gaining wisdom about other experiences and perspectives; resolving conflict quicker; greater intercultural understanding; better relationships; racial harmony; peace.