What is the difference between the word empathy and the word sympathy?

Answer 1

Sympathy is literally 'feeling with' - compassion for or commiseration with another person. Empathy, by contrast, is literally 'feeling into' - the ability to project one's personality into another person and more fully understand that person (think of an "empath". Sympathy derives from Latin and Greek words meaning 'having a fellow feeling'. The term empathy originated in psychology (translation of a German term, c. 1903) and has now come to mean the ability to imagine or project oneself into another person's position and experience all the sensations involved in that position. You feel empathy when you've "been there", and sympathy when you haven't. EXAMPLES: We felt sympathy for the team members who tried hard but were not appreciated. We felt empathy for children with Asthma because we had asthma as a child, and understand their pain.

Answer 2

Sympathy - you feel bad for the other person although you can't completely feel how they are feeling. ie/ you feel bad because someone's parent died. Empathy - You feel bad for someone but you know pretty much exactally how they feel because you yourself has going through the same thing or a similar situation. ie/ I know how you must feel because my parent died last year. I can empathise with that person. Compassion - Caring overall for someone's situation even though you don't feel sorry for them yet you can't know exactally how they feel but you care about them anyway. ie/ having compassion for the homeless.

Answer 3

you've felt the same way you haven't felt that way before, but you feel bad