by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: November 09, 2009

Sympathy for the suffering of another person is a part of a whole and healthy human emotional structure. Sympathy arises at the suffering of a person, whether we have empathy (or ability to actually feel the suffering) or not. A person can be empathetic while having no sympathy, whatsoever. A recovering alcoholic who has gone through binge drinking can have empathy when dealing with a binge drinker, but no sympathy for the binge drinker's suffering. A person can have sympathy when there is no empathy at all. A person who has never lost a parent can have sympathy for someone who has lost a parent.

Sympathy is considered to be a desired ability where we know that suffering comes from commonly accepted causes. We know to express sympathy to others who are suffering from certain sources of suffering: illness, death, loss, or general sadness from events that commonly cause sadness. This affinity leads us to show compassion, to offer support, care, and kindness, or to pay extra respect.

Sympathy can be abused, misplaced, or even used as an emotionally destructive act in social interaction. Sympathy is abused when an individual repeatedly seeks it for minor problems, or when they are repeatedly committing acts that are known to cause suffering or pain. Expressions of sympathy simply fail to educate or reinforce that the person should stop being the cause of their own suffering. Responding to chronic sympathy seekers with sympathy only serves to reinforce and to reward dysfunctional behavior, and causes the sympathetic behavior to lose it's effectiveness and meaning.

Misplaced sympathy can reward those who have done grave wrongs and who are effective at controlling and manipulating others. When a criminal is also a sociopath, his or her expertise in using emotional ploys for gaining sympathy are astoundingly effective. As a result terrible criminals can actually attract adamant supporters, even when it is clear that the person is guilty of horrific crimes.

The destructive form of sympathy occurs when a stigmatized, bullied or oppressed individual is given expressions of sympathy in ways that serve as excuses for the abuse. When there is "sympathy" for a person being of another race, being an illegitimate child, or wearing the wrong outfit, there is a deliberate effort at expressing sympathy in order to legitimize the illegitimate: racism, the unfairness of stigmatizing a child for the circumstances of birth, or bullying by way of demeaning someone for their perceived inferior status.

Destructive sympathy is actually an insidious and aggressive form of unacceptable behavior that is enacted through expressions of sympathy. The negativity or harm of "attack sympathy" can be so concealed within the socially acceptable glamor and noise of sympathetic posturing that the victim can be troubled and hurt for a while before identifying the cause of the suffering. As a result, destructive sympathy is an insidious process when deliberately used.

"I am so sorry that someone wasn't there to help you pick out a better tie."

"I am so sorry for you. Children should have married parents!"

"Your ethnic group has to work so much harder to get good grades."

Many times, showing sympathy as the result of prejudice, or to support for a stigmatizing process can be so ingrained that the person who is using negative sympathy is unaware that they are causing any harm.

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