When you feel empathy for someone, does it mean that you literally feel their pain?

Question

Or does it mean that you are place yourself in their position emotionally? What are the differences between sympathy and empathy?

Answer 1

Empathy refers to the ability to perceive and directly experientially feel another person's emotions as they feel them, but makes no statement as to how they are viewed.

Sympathy, by contrast, implies a degree of equal feeling, that is, the sympathiser views the matter similarly to how the person themselves does. It thus implies concern, or care or a wish to alleviate negative feelings others are experiencing.

Thus it is possible to be:

Empathetic but not sympathetic, by internally experiencing another's feeling but not being motivated to alleviating action as a result (eg, a lust killer who is aroused by his victim's fear, or a con artist who knows how his mark feels but uses it to manipulate not support).

Sympathetic but not empathetic by realising (perhaps cognitively) someone is upset and wanting to alleviate that, but not experiencing their sense of upset directly and internally as an emotional state within themselves (eg, a person at a help desk who sees another in distress, does not feel distress themselves, but tries to find what is wrong and help them anyway)

Answer 2

I believe 'empathy' is when you put yourself in someone else's position emotionally, to the point where you can understand their pain. And 'sympathy' is when you feel sorry for the person and/or their circumstance.

Answer 3

Not just pain, but joy, sorrow, excitement. Empathy is actually "sharing" the emotion. (For lack of a better word). Sympathy is more like remembering a similar incident that you experienced compared to the other persons experience and feeling that emotion again.

Answer 4

There is a new study coming through that I read about. When you experience "empathy" for another person, there is actually a spike of activity in the pain center of the brain.

It still has a lot of research to go, but you might find this news article interesting.

Answer 5

it quite isn't any longer a modern-day --- it quite is a few thing that develops over a era of lifetimes, offering one is finding in that course. What to do with it? the assumption is to assist out people who're much less fortunate, yet finished empathy isn't the terrific element. some years in the past, the Spanish artist Salvador Dali pronounced, "Catholic love demands that throughout the time of the experience that your spouse has a soreness in her leg, you may sense that comparable soreness!" properly, you may sense it sufficient to understand how she's feeling yet there is not any element in taking over yet another's suffering except you're a Avatar like Jesus or Krsna or any of the Others. They took on others' karmas and have been able to as a results of fact of Who They have been/are. yet something human beings could artwork at coming up empathy yet barely sufficient to have the means to understand what others are dealing with and to then understand what to do approximately it. Paramahansa Yogananda replaced right into a variety of severe beings Who could tell how every person replaced into feeling basically by finding at them -- of direction He had the ability to maintain from being stricken by it. One has to understand the thank you to physique of techniques this ...

Answer 6

Empathy is understanding. I can empathize with certain people because I've been where they are.

Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone for what they are going thru. Like giving a sympathy card for someone who has lost someone.

Answer 7

Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to suffer with") is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another.

Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone.

Answer 8

Everyone would feel some degree of another's suffering if their perception were clear. Thus, they would then have sympathy for the human race, and all other living beings.

Answer 9

sympathy means that you feel for the person
empathy means you are able to feel as the person does. If they are in physical pain it does not mean you literally have physical pain though.

Answer 10

I am very empathic for people....at times. I think, that when a person is empathic that you almost 'feel' their emotions; or as you said....you put yourself in their shoes so to speak. When you're symathic, you may feel sorry for them, but you don't 'feel it'! I think the two can be very close....but empathy takes it further....I guess.