The dif between empathy and sympathy

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This is fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

Just a question: this sounds like a Ted Talk (or something similar)... was it?

I think the portrayal of empathy is accurate, but the portrayal of sympathy seems overly dismissive to me. Everything here portrays sympathy as complete superficial, which I don't think is accurate. One can care deeply about someone and be sincerely concerned for their feelings without feeling those feelings themselves.

Agreed.With that being said i can relate to the video. I can do sympathy, not that good at empathy. If someone feels bad about something, I have sympathy and feel bad for them, I may very well not understand it, but I can still have sympathy.

Here is a link to the page and lots of discussion> http://www.trueactivist.com/the-differe ... explained/

I agree but think you have understated it. The portrayal of sympathy is wrong.

If you google "sympathy" you'll get two definitions:
1. "feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. "they had great sympathy for the flood victims""
2. understanding between people; common feeling."the special sympathy between the two boys was obvious to all"

It's not shallow understanding between people, or distant understanding between people. The example isn't "the Special sympathy between the two boys obviously meant very little in the grand scheme of things"

The sympathetic nervous system was not so named because sympathy implies distancing!

"sympathy drives disconnection" is bull dung. Boos and hisses to Brene Brown for being dishonest to make a good soundbyte.

I see a good comment on Youtube by a person named Stephen Heron. That person gives the OED definition and goes into the roots.

Thanks for sharing. I find it hard to distinguish between the two

Thanks for the link!

Sympathy: I feel for you
Empathy: I feel with you

Dunno why people need to complicate things.

I think this is exactly the same false argument people try make about sociopaths and psychopaths. There is no distinction, they are one and the same, google it you'll get redirected to psychopath. Google both empathy and sympathy, they have very similar definitions. Both mean to share common feelings. Honestly if sympathy is distinct from empathy then it is more meaningful because you haven't experienced something but can still feel for someone in a real way.

"the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of men"

Not me. I think Aspies feel plenty of sympathy, but not so much the empathy thing. People not on the spectrum are very much into other people's daily stories. Their little ins and outs. Their love lives, their problems... their "SMALL TALK." And they remember what is going on in their friends lives, and can tell how they are feeling by their posture, little gestures, wardrobe, whatever. All sorts of things that we/us usually miss. It's really hard to fake too... it's like pretending that you are a fan of a sports team that you don't actually follow... as soon as you speak EVERYONE knows. We/us some of us wonder "Why dont they like us?" But really they think that we don't like them because we don't follow their story.

I don't want to be too dismissive here, but I think it's rather illustrative that a big part of the discussion here is about the definition and etymology of sympathy and empathy rather than what Dr Brown was trying to say about empathy. I agree that sympathy has its place and it's not a BAD thing. It IS distancing though if you think about it from another perspective - when you feel sympathy but don't display empathy you're not sharing the experience and you're generally quite happy you're not in that place. I learned a lot from that video and I really check myself on the 'at leasting' of people now. I see it now as a way of minimising someone's pain and not respecting their emotion - not really hearing them. It was a habit of mine because my mother did it to me all the time (still does!! !). There's a time to count your blessings, but sometimes there's a time to acknowledge your feelings.

BTW, the RSA is the Royal Society of Arts and I used to be a fellow. Not a bad place and they do a regular series of weekly and monthly lectures (this was one) and then they animate some of them.

Personally I don't think empathy exists.

Not for most people anyway.

I think you'd have to have telepathy for that

Austistics have sympathy, but no empathy.

Sociopaths have empathy, but no sympathy.

Austistics want to help, but cant figure out where you're coming from.

Sociopaths zero in on where you're coming from in a heartbeat, and use it -not to help you- but to manipulate and exploit you for their benefit at your expense.

A Zen Koan

Two Zen monks are standing on a little bridge in a garden, with their elbows on the handrail. They are watching the Koi fish swimming below. The first monk bursts out, "Look how happy the fish are swimming there!" The second monk pauses for a second and then replies, "You don't know if the fish are happy or not!" The first monk says back... without looking up, "You don't know, if I know, if the fish are happy or not."