Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[BMO]

1. The difference. Could you give me examples? Especially ones that are sympathy or sympathetic but not empathy or empathetic in the sentence.

2. We empathize with students struggling to study vocabulary.

3. We empathize with students who are struggling to study vocabulary.

Are #2 and #3 the same? In #2, we empathize with only certain students, those struggling students, not all students. Right?


Thanks.

bmo

[bud]

Empathy comes from the brain, while sympathy comes from the heart.

A good psychotherpist has well-developed empathic skills. As her client tells her about some past trauma, the therapist is thinking about how that must have felt to this particular person, how it affected other aspects of the client's life, how current behavior is influenced from that past, etc.

If a friend suffers some bad experience in life, you will feel very emotional on your friend's behalf: sorrow, anger, whatever. You will want to comfort him or her. That's sympathy.

The world feels deep sympathy for the British citizens for their losses last week.

A sensitive movie director depicts his characters with great empathy.

It's not always easy to determine which should be the correct word. Often, as with the situation with your friend, both are present.

...

#2 and #3 are pretty much the same. In my opinion though, #3 is the one that seems to stress only the students who are struggling. #2 seems to (almost) assume that all students have to struggle with vocabulary. However, in everyday usage, probably not much thought is given to the underlying implications of the grammar. That is, I think both (without a context) are intended to express empathy to all students because they have to learn all that vocabulary.

[Bob S.]

[elinor]

I have found the information on the differences between sympathy and empathy. Hope these will be useful and helpful.

In #2 and #3, they could be sympathy and empathy.

sympathy: (同情他人的處境) You have noticed and heard how hard the situation the students have to be faced with, and say some words to comfort them.
empathy: (同理他人的心境) It means you can feel what they feel and carefully listen to what they say and be with them.

Sympathy and empathy could be represented one's action to the person at the same time. However, sympathy is easy to convey one�s feelings to someone while empathy is not. In other words, sympathy is easy to be pretended and empathy is coming from one�s keen perception and sincerely attitude to people.


http://www.bapca.org.uk/Approach/introduc.htm

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:oJVMmNYaJN0J:www.rodopi.nl/frameset/bbs/rightside.asp%3FBookId%3DVIBS%2B116%26type%3Dbrowse+Carl+Rogers,+empathy,+sympathy&hl=zh-TW

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Rx8NiqFhJ7kJ:www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/silverleigh69.htm+Carl+Rogers,+empathy,+sympathy&hl=zh-TW

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:4YN-cyKzEZ4J:www.elementsuk.com/peopleatthecentr.html+Carl+Rogers,+empathy,+sympathy&hl=zh-TW


elinor