Empathy is the ability to mutually experience the thoughts, emotions, and direct experience of others. It goes beyond sympathy, which is a feeling of care and understanding for the suffering of others. Both words have similar usage but differ in their emotional meaning.
Comparison chart
Empathy |
Sympathy |
|
| Definition | Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes. | Acknowledging another person’s emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance. |
| Example | I know it’s not easy to lose weight because I have faced the same problems myself. | When people try to make changes like this (e.g. lose some weight) at first it seems difficult. |
| Relationship | Personal | Friends, family and community ( the experience of others) . |
| Nursing context | Relating with your patient because you have been in a similar situation or experience | Comforting your patient or their family |
| Scope | Personal, It can be one to many in some circumstances | From either one to another person or one to many (or one to a group). |
Emotional differences
Sympathy essentially implies a feeling of recognition of another’s suffering while empathy is actually sharing another’s suffering, if only briefly. Empathy is often characterised as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes”. So empathy is a deeper emotional experience.
Reference: Dictionary.com
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