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Empathy and sympathy are often mixed up, but they're totally different emotions. A psychotherapist explains the key differences between the two reactions:
Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. [1] [2] [3] There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others.
Emma Seppala distinguishes compassion from empathy and altruism as follows: "... The definition of compassion is often confused with that of empathy. Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person's feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another's emotion, like tearing up at a ...
Empathic concern is often confused with empathy. To empathize is to respond to another's perceived emotional state by experiencing feeling of a similar sort. Empathic concern or sympathy includes not only empathizing, but also having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person. [2]
This contrasts the affective aspect of empathy which involves joining in the patient's emotional experiences and feelings, which correlates closer to sympathy. [4] Empathetic physicians share understanding with patients, which serves to benefit the patient in their physical, mental and social well-being.
Accurate empathy on the part of the therapist helps the client believe the therapist's unconditional regard for them. Client perception: That the client perceives, to at least a minimal degree, the therapist's unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding.
Compassion fade is defined as terminology to describe the way in which an individual's compassion and empathy are reduced due to the amount or intricacy of the issue. [88] This also includes when the need and tragedy in of the world goes up and the amount of desire to help goes down (similar to a see-saw). [89]
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. [ 1 ] According to philosopher David Hume , this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need.