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Sympathy is best used for all that's good whilst empathy is best utilized for the not so good. I have a little story, which explains the parts that sympathy and empathy play in a not so good situation. To me at least, this little parable sums up the abilities of sympathy in a bad situation.

Three characters were out on a stroll, they were Oops, Sympathy and Empathy, Oops accidentally fell into a deep hole, on seeing Oops's plight Sympathy jumped in after him and attempted to console poor Oops, after a short while Sympathy noticed that he was now in the same predicament as Oops. Along came Empathy and threw in some materials with which Oops and Sympathy could build a ladder.

Sympathy has a definite role to play in life, but obviously not in the above example. When things are going well all components are said to be working together in sympathy, whether those components are cogs and gears or hearts and lungs etc. So here sympathy is a good thing, in fact very little could survive without it.

Oscar Wilde made the following statement about sympathy "There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better."

In my view Oscar had the meaning of sympathy well and truly sewn up, because I have suffered from being the recipient of sympathy during a very stressful experience. I would go as far as to say that it was this sympathy that prolonged my suffering.

When a person is suffering from, let's say grief (as I was) there is a need to expel ones feelings, in an effort to get rid and gain relief, unfortunately the sympathetic approach tends to mirror back those feelings with statements along the lines of "I know, it must be terrible". What sympathy is doing in fact is keeping the motor running, by working in harmony with the poor unfortunates dilemma, when all the sufferer wants to do is turn this darned motor off.

On the other hand, empathy not only lets the sufferer expel their demons, but also assists them by extracting where necessary any such demonic thoughts in an attempt to allow them to build their own ladder out of the depths of their own personal hell.

The empathy approach maintains dialog under three main categories as follows. Please note that the statements used are for guidance. Although you could of course use them verbatim if you wish, adding on the information given to you where applicable (the three dots)

Queries

"Can you tell me more about that?"
"What has this been like for you?"
"How has all of this made you feel?"

Clarifications

"Let me see if I've gotten this right ..."
"Tell me more about ..."
"I want to make sure I understand what you've said ..."

Responses

"Sounds like you are ..."
"I imagine that must be ..."
"I can understand that must make you feel ..."

The aim should be to allow the sufferer to be aware that it is they, not you that is solving their problems.

As dear old Oscar Wilde said, sympathize with all that's good, to which I will add, you can call on empathy to sort out the rest.

You may like to try the questionnaire on the following web page in order to assess your empathetic qualities. http://www.glennrowe.net/Baron Cohen/EmpathyQuotient/EmpathyQ uotient.aspx

The examples of Queries, Clarifications and Responses were taken from the following web page. http://xnet.kp.org/permanentej ournal/fall03/cpc.html

Learn more about this author, Keen Johns.
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