@P-Angel
21 Years25,000+ PostsPisces
Another impossibility .....
Nice post the last paragraph I disagree with.
-Waits for the lovely P-Angel fans-
Nahh... I'm pretty sure empathy is what I'm all about. It is the concept of sympathy that I never could understand.
What you're basically saying is that the word "empathy" shouldn't exist because no one can truly feel it since no one can really put themselves in another person's shoes. I disagree. Altough we cannot measure feelings and emotions, we all pretty much know what a heartbreak feels like, etc. Every human experience differs slightly from the other but the human heart is still the same.
That's why you'll never be a buddha, P. *shakes head*
Posted by M
Good food for thought.I'd always considered sympathy feeling for someone's position or feeling bad for them. So then empathy, as you posted, became putting one's self in their shoes. Some of us are pretty good at it and others aren't. So while you're right that you can't ever truly know another, I think it's more than plausible to draw upon equally similar feelings and get the gist. IE, you know how it affected you and thus, with a little translation, the arena the other person is dealing with.
+1
Yes, you can have the gist of how another feels, but, you can't know exactly how another feels.
Empathy is defined as one vicariously taking part in the feelings of another .... and the two people process feelings differently, so one cannot feel the same as the other.
People are actually feeling sorry for the other, attempting to care for another through supporting them due to a feeling of wanting the other to not feel as if they are alone and have to endure whatever it is by themselves ... that is sympathy, not empathy
Empathy is when you try your best to understand how someone feels because you've been through a SIMILAR, almost the same, event (losing a spouse to death, gone through a divorce, fired from a job, etc) and although you don't know EXACTLY what that other person is feeling, you can get an idea because you've been through it to.
Sympathy is for someone who hasn't gone through that event, however, you IMAGINE what its like and offer support for that person.
It is better to receive empathy than sympathy because someone who is empathic really does have the capability to actually TRY to understand what you are feeling. Someone who is sympathatic doesn't quite know what its like and has no idea how you are actually feeling because they haven't been through it.
Both are good qualities. And Empathy is possible.
Posted by M
Good food for thought.I'd always considered sympathy feeling for someone's position or feeling bad for them. So then empathy, as you posted, became putting one's self in their shoes. Some of us are pretty good at it and others aren't. So while you're right that you can't ever truly know another, I think it's more than plausible to draw upon equally similar feelings and get the gist. IE, you know how it affected you and thus, with a little translation, the arena the other person is dealing with.
+1
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+2
Posted by P-Angel
Yes, you can have the gist of how another feels, but, you can't know exactly how another feels.Empathy is defined as one vicariously taking part in the feelings of another .... and the two people process feelings differently, so one cannot feel the same as the other.
People are actually feeling sorry for the other, attempting to care for another through supporting them due to a feeling of wanting the other to not feel as if they are alone and have to endure whatever it is by themselves ... that is sympathy, not empathy
you need to actually read the definition of "empathy." you've taken parts of the definition and clearly do not understand the meaning of the word.
i find it ironic that you, as a pisces, claim that one can't empathize. i mean, how posts have you written where you've stated that pisces knows the soul of another person? that pisces feels others thoughts and emotions?
so were you lying to others then or are you lying to yourself now?
em??pa??thy (mp-th)
n.
1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. See Synonyms at pity.
2. The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.
@ P-Angel:
What you are talking about is 'pretence', and to me that's pretty much what sympathy is. I've never been good at it. Empathy however, I cannot shut off no matter how hard I try. I wish I could. There are things I don't care about nor do I bother to pretend that I do. Like if you told me your cat just died I couldn't care less because I don't feel losing a pet is that big of a deal, be it a gerbil a cat or a dog. I'm sorry but that's not where my empathy lies and as I said, I'm not good at sympathizing.
Sympathy is about social conventions, it's about how one SHOULD act at a given moment. Empathy or the lack thereof, is how one truly FEELS at that given moment. It's similiar to the difference between ethics and morals I guess. Sympathy is a distant cousin to ethics while empathy is a distans cousin to morals.
Posted by M
Good food for thought.I'd always considered sympathy feeling for someone's position or feeling bad for them. So then empathy, as you posted, became putting one's self in their shoes. Some of us are pretty good at it and others aren't. So while you're right that you can't ever truly know another, I think it's more than plausible to draw upon equally similar feelings and get the gist. IE, you know how it affected you and thus, with a little translation, the arena the other person is dealing with.
exactly
ie, my bff's mom passed. at the time, i sympathized with her. i'd never lost someone so close and therefore, i felt sorry for her...sorry for her loss. i did what people typically do. "are you ok?" "how did she die?"
a year later, my mother passed. at that time, i was able to both empathize and sympathize with her. where the circumstances of our mom's passing was different, i could now communicate with her in a more meaningful way and it is through our shared experiences that i was able to say, "i understand how you feel"..."i know how you feel" and mean it.
with that said, i think to fully empathize with another person, there does need to be similarities. ie, my bff and i are the same age, both taureans, grew up in the same area...and we lost our moms within a year of one another. where we can empathize with one another on a deeper level, juxtapose that to someone who lost their mom at birth, in their teens or when they were 70.
all loss isn't the same and simply having someone close to you die does not result in an ability to empathize. empathy means that you have indeed walked a similar path and where the road you travel may be different, you do know/feel/understand what it is like to be in that person's shoes.
empathy is why support groups exist. a group of rape victims may have experienced different levels of assault, but the notion that the women in that group don't truly feel the pain of the other...well, hey, it's easy for someone who lacks capacity of feeling and experience to allege that others are full of shit.
here's lots of definitions, from a lot of sources and there are other words too: http://robin.hubpages.com/hub/Sympathy_vs_Empathy
It's not really that complicated. There are some inherent differences between the two.
One is concrete, the other is abstract.
One is imagined, the other is real.
One is mutual, the other is exclusive.
One is psychological, the other is physical.
One is independent, the other is collective.
I recently facilitated a training seminar on "How to show Empathy" for some insurance industry professionals. The customer service reps were not showing "empathy" when a beneficiary called to report a death. While conducting my research I discovered that empathy was not what they needed to display but rather sympathy.
You can't fake empathy but you can certainly fake sympathy.
When people say, or falsely believe they are being empathetic, they are actually being sympathetic
sym??pa??thy
— —
noun
1. harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.2. the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions.
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.
4. sympathies,
a. feelings or impulses of compassion.
b. feelings of favor, support, or loyalty: It's hard to tell where your sympathies lie.5. favorable or approving accord; favor or approval: He viewed the plan with sympathy and publicly backed it.
Because a person cannot know, vicariously, how another person feels .. they can only know how they, personally, feel. It is literally impossible to walk in another persons shoes. Even if they experienced the exact same situation to the smallest details ... their perspective of how it feels is exclusive to themselves only, and they cannot then say to another that they know how the other person feels, since every persons perception is soley their own.
It's semantics...
There's a word for every ever so slight difference in perspective.
Even if they cannot know vicariously, it doesn't mean there shouldn't be a word to describe it.
Good, how are you DG?
"Every person is a new door to a different world."
The more i know someone, the less i think i know something about them. That's true for me even if that person and I share similar or even the "same" experiences. People perceive and react to things differently. On the surface, it seems we all "live" in the same world. However, if we go deeper we will find that people see things in another way and they make their own conception of the world according to that. One cannot assimilate another person's feelings unless one loses oneself. Right now i know I'm unable to do that because my own strong boundaries prevent me from losing my ego and relating too much to other people.
However, there have been time where i was confused, there was a fog surrounding me. I was lost and confused so i looked for help. But the more i looked, the more confused i became. Then one day i shut myself away from the world. I began seeing things from my own POV, i looked for answers inside myself. The fog began to disappear as i became more self aware. One day i knew i had found all the answers i was looking for. I looked inside myself for answers and i found them. That day i learned that it doesn't matter how hard someone tries to reach to me. They won't as long as they don't lose themselves, leave their own "world" and become a part of mine. They have to become "me". The other way around also applies.
I didn't want to get into semantics because i don't feel like arguing. Just wanted to share this for the sake of it.
Posted by spica
Good, how are you DG?Sorry bout that, had to get some real work done, I am good, thanks, long time, no postee...what up with that?
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Long time no postee means what DG? I dont get what u mean.. Long time no post?
Posted by ellessque
the brown dog jumped over the red fox.what did you see when you read this? what is in your head?
some people will see a big dog, some a little dog. Some will see light brown, some will see dark brown. Some will see a cute fuzzy fox, some will see a fox snarling at the dog. Some will place them in a meadow, some will put them in their backyard.
...at the end of the day the brown dog simply jumped over the red fox. that is "fact".
....attach that to feelings and emotions and you have empathy.
...someone dies, you empathize with the living loved one. you don't know what the person is feeling but you may have experienced the death of someone in your life. in your mind, you visualize what the person must be going thru = empathy
the brown dog jumped over the red fox.
For some reason I saw a big brown dog humping a little red fox. I need rest.
So, now this topic resurfaces in my mind.
A subject about relationships with mother has come up ... and when people use empathy to try and relate, thier feelings get hurt and so they project onto another that they were hurt.
So, in reality if a person tries to be empathetic .. this really means that they revisit their own pain, and then respond to the person declaring the meaning of the other persons situation according to their own sufferings, aka: projecting
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It's already been established that the unconditional love theory is a crock of shit .....
Empathy is also impossible.
When people say, or falsely believe they are being empathetic, they are actually being sympathetic
sym??pa??thy
— —
noun
1. harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.
2. the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions.
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.
4. sympathies,
a. feelings or impulses of compassion.
b. feelings of favor, support, or loyalty: It's hard to tell where your sympathies lie.
5. favorable or approving accord; favor or approval: He viewed the plan with sympathy and publicly backed it.
Because a person cannot know, vicariously, how another person feels .. they can only know how they, personally, feel. It is literally impossible to walk in another persons shoes. Even if they experienced the exact same situation to the smallest details ... their perspective of how it feels is exclusive to themselves only, and they cannot then say to another that they know how the other person feels, since every persons perception is soley their own.