empathy n sympathy

Two different things

So their use should be determined by the meaning. (But lots of people don't understand the difference so use one when they mean the other)

You can look it up in a dictionary

but my definition would be

Sympathy. I understand your position and I agree with you
Empathy. I can understand your position but reserve judgement on whether I agree with you or not.


of the two empathy is probably more difficult for most people to get their heads round....so they use the word sympathy when possibly it would have been better to use empathy.

Hey

Have I just done your homework?

I could be wrong, but in general I think that people use "sympathy" more. We often use it as in an expression of pity or sorrow to the distress of another.

"I offered my sympathy when I learned that Jane's father died."

Empathy, on the other hand, is usually meant to indicate that the person who is empathasizing, knows what the other person is going through, and can identifies with the person.

"I can empathize with how Jane is grieving over her father's death. I know exactly how she felt, because I went through the same thing when my father died".

To me, the big difference between empathy and sympathy is that the person who empathizes can feel the distress on a personal level, whereas sympathy is less personal.

Sympathy is most used.

Empathy is most misused.

sympathy v. empathy
Sympathy: I feel sorry for you--you have my sympathy (sorrow).

Empathy: I understand how you feel--you have my empathy (understanding).

You use the term "sympathy" to convey your own feelings (almost always sorrow) for what someone else is going through (almost always a sad loss of some kind, e.g., loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a marriage).

You use the term "empathy" to convey your understanding of someone else's difficult situation or feelings (which encompasses a wide variety of sad-like emotions, e.g., anger, irritation, frustration, disgust, hate, disappointment, unhappiness).

Of course, you can express sympathy and empathy at the same time:

"I feel so sorry for you. (sympathy) I understand (or know) how hard all of this has been for you. (empathy)."

From www.reference.com:

The psychological state of sympathy is closely linked with that of empathy, but is not identical to it. Empathy refers to the ability to perceive and directly experientially feel another person's emotions as they feel them, but makes no statement as to how they are viewed. Sympathy, by contrast, implies a degree of equal feeling, that is, the sympathiser views the matter similarly to how the person themselves does. It thus implies concern, or care or a wish to alleviate negative feelings others are experiencing.

Thus it is possible to be:


Empathic but not sympathetic, by internally experiencing another's feeling but not being motivated to alleviating action as a result (eg, a lust killer who is aroused by his victim's fear, or a con artist who knows how his mark feels but uses it to manipulate not support).
Sympathetic but not empathic by realising (perhaps cognitively) someone is upset and wanting to alleviate that, but not experiencing their sense of upset directly and internally as an emotional state within themselves (eg, a person at a help desk who sees another in distress, does not feel distress themselves, but tries to find what is wrong and help them anyway).

In short:

Sympathy: I imagine your pain and wish I could help.

Empathy: I feel your pain; I know your pain.

I have more commonly heard people use sympathy in all cases as I don't think a lot of people really know the true meaning of empathy, so they therefore misuse sympathy (and most likely misuse empathy when they try to use it).

Empathy; a means by which one makes another feel better by, first, accurately perceiving or identifying with what the other is going through, and from this point, helping them ride their emotional distress without interrogation, suggestion, judgment or logic for these accomplish just the opposite. Helping them ride their emotional distress is accomplished by, in a sense, reliving what the other has gone through only in the span of seconds and then sharing your thoughts of this experience. Empathy is a skill that develops with time. If the person in emotion distress is displeased you are sympathizing. Logic is empathy's opposite.

Sympathy; Asides from demonstrating care and willingness to help, often the opposite of empathy due to miss use. Should be avoided unless properly used which I will describe. If the person is going trough emotional distress and you use sympathy, at best, the other person will think: "your a good man or woman but your useless." Better put, sympathy can and should be used when no or little amounts of emotions are involved. So on things that are not overwhelmingly negative and that you can say: "hey buddy, I hear ya and make a joke afterwards." Thats an incomplete example of good sympathy. Men tend to use sympathy and women empathy. When you use sympathy, you say "I've been there, but **** happens, in fact **** happen to me the other day(could say something worse happened to yourself to cheer the other.) In other words you identify with what they experienced and bring about some kind of positive light which you never do with empathy until after you empathized(until the other feels better) Women tend to dislike sympathy. Besides that, it tends to be beneficial to be empathetic with the opposite sex. It says, not only do I deeply care for you but I can help and support your emotions which usually amounts to everything unless the person whom you are being empathetic with has a null emotional range.