Nurturing Compassion and Empathy
by Dr. Elior Kinarthy
Psychologist
What is compassion and what is the difference between compassion, sympathy and empathy? The Psychological definition is “compassion literally means to suffer together. Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another's suffering and you feel motivated to relieve that suffering.” Sympathy is a general feeling of tenderness that you care for a particular group and involves an understanding of their situation from your own perspective. An example of sympathy is in World War II in the city of Warsaw, Poland. Jews were being deported and put into ghettos. Many people felt sympathy and a lot of compassion but being good-hearted is not action oriented, so most people did nothing to help.
Psychology researches emotions and generally define empathy as “the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Empathy is putting yourself in the other person's situation and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings.” When it is one person reacting to another, it is called empathy. It is individualistic-a one to one relationship. Experiencing someone else’s pain motivates you to a deeper understanding of suffering and can lead to genuine help. Empathy is personal, sympathy is social. Empathy can save lives, sympathy saves relationships. For instance, preventing suicide requires that a person “put themselves in the other’s shoes,”without judgement, to acquire the sense of desperation that the other person experiences. Empathy is more important than sympathy or compassion as it is action oriented. True empathy is very difficult to achieve. According to psychology it is not possible to have empathy for a large group, it can only be applied on an individual basis. For instance, when an individual has saved lives by hiding Jews in their basement during World War II-this is considered empathy.
Canada, for the most part has remained a peaceful country and that contributes to our reputation as a more compassionate society when compared to many other places around the world. As a society we never rebelled or “divorced” our original “family”. Having a Queen and King through the British monarchy, psychologically represents having a mother and father. We have solid roots! Canada is a large and sparsely populated country and we are not crowded; fighting for space or limited resources. Countries with cold climates also tend to have more stable inhabitants, and less conflict. Our system of social services and socialized medicine gives access to care for every citizen, and to temporary and permanent residents. When a society is peaceful and stable it becomes more sympathetic.
For many people the last two years of the Pandemic has brought more instability and the fear of disease. For others the isolation and health mandates have created loneliness and frustration. Neurotic fears demonstrate excessive worry, irritability and anger, poor responses to stress and an interpretation of everyday situations as threatening. If the general population in a society has a neurotic fear of disease, the consequences can be a societal loss of compassion and sympathy. Since the reactions of most people are primarily fear based, once health conditions improve and the fear is not there anymore, the society will revert back to being more benevolent.
As a comparison between compassion and empathy, one of the members of your group has a headache and then you remember you also have a headache-you have compassion. (It can also be an example of selfishness as you use your friend to remember that you have a headache.) But what if you say, “I take Exedrin for headaches, it works for me, would you like to try it?” This is empathy as you offered a solution through action. It is also empathy because you are getting involved by your action and you care enough to get rid of that person’s headache because it worked for you. You like your friend so it is also compassion.
To create compassion in children you start with groups in school that involve playing together, sharing toys and interacting with their peers. Children learn to interact positively and share food, toys and other items. Developing empathy is easier with a psychologist in the group as he/she can notice a child that is being left out, a black sheep. The psychologist observes that Mary is a very compassionate girl and sends her to work with Jane-who is sitting alone and needs someone to help her. This helps to create empathy. Compassion and sympathy are the seeds of empathy. In order to get genuinely into helping you need to grow through the surface emotions and go deeper to expressions of empathy.
Next time you feel compassion for families and individuals in need in our community, demonstrate empathy and help perform one mitzvah at a time by volunteering with Jewish Family Services of Vancouver Island!
Chag Pesach Sameach!
Happy Passover!