Sympathy Sy sym·pa·thy /ˈsimpəTHē/ noun

1. feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.

“they had great sympathy for the flood victims”

the formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else’s misfortune; condolences.

plural noun: sympathies; plural noun: one’s sympathies

“all Tony’s friends joined in sending their sympathies to his widow Jean”

2. understanding between people; common feeling.

“the special sympathy between the two boys was obvious to all”

3. support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
4. agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
5. relating harmoniously to something else; in keeping.
6. the state or fact of responding in a way similar or corresponding to an action elsewhere.

empathy noun em· pa· thy | \ˈem-pə-thē  \

1. the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner
2. the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

A few weeks ago, I explored the concept of Compassion. In it, I mentioned how compassion in neither “sympathy or empathy but the composite of both.” This isn’t the first abstract emotion(s) that have been explored and they won’t be the last. We covered “mystified” a few ago as well. Hopefully, by the end of that series, my argument for it as an emotion was made even more clear. If nothing else the importance both sympathy and empathy play in our emotional states is a worthwhile pursuit in understanding.

Many use “sympathy” and “empathy” interchangeably though they differ greatly. This is likely due to the fact that prior to the end of the 19^th century there wasn’t truly a word for empathy, so sympathy had historically been used to try and describe the concept for the two. Psychologist E.B. Titchener came along and translated the German concept of Einfühlung, which was famously coined by German philosopher Robert Vischer who was known for his “empathy theory.”

Sympathy is not necessarily about feeling what the other person is feeling, but in responding with an appropriate compliment to their feelings. In some instances, it is important to mirror that person’s emotions, and in these cases, it is indistinguishable from empathy. It is important to remember that the two are important in the ways that we respond to others just as much as they are in relation to how we respond to ourselves.