empathy
- the ability to feel what a person is feeling
sympathy
- the ability to understand what a person is feeling
empathy vs sympathy
- When you are sympathetic, you are not experiencing another’s feeling. Instead, you are able to understand what the person is feeling. For example, if someone’s father has passed away, you may not be able to physically feel that person’s pain. However, you can understand that your friend is sad
compassion
- suffering together
- the willingness to relieve the suffering of another
- when you are compassionate, you feel the pain of another (i.e., empathy) or you recognize that the person is in pain (i.e., sympathy), and then you do what you can to to alleviate the person’s suffering
- its Latin roots, compassion means “to suffer with.”