Name: How empathy works - and sympathy can't
Uploaded: 2025-03-05T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 51 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Stuff goes wrong for all of us, and at some point, it's our turn again to land in the pit of despair.

But it's the conversations that we have whilst we're down there, and how we respond to them, that will determine just how fast we get back out again.

Adverbs of degree

Essentially, people will have one of two responses to us when they see us in pain.

Adverbs of manner

The problem with sympathy is that it's based on the three things that worsen and prolong the bad situation that the person is in.

When we sympathize, we add our own sorrow, fear, annoyance, our pity to the other person's feelings.

And whilst they now feel less lonely, being joined by another person confirms that the pit is real.

When we treat people like victims, they behave like victims.

And agreement just makes the walls of the pit all the more intimidating.

Sympathy always ends in the same way, with a bungled rescue attempt, which almost always fails, because deep down, we don't want to be rescued.

Okay, everyone, take two, quiet on set, roll camera, and empathy.

When we empathize with someone, we have the power to change the game.

By reflecting back the feeling that we see the person having, we show them that they have been understood.

By reflecting back their circumstances in plain words, we help them to step back.

And regain perspective, and importantly, the belief that they can repair their own situation for themselves.

When all said and done, sympathy can actually feel nice for a bit.

But when it comes to getting to a solution, only empathy has the power to get someone up and running again.