Discussing
The Empathy Exams’ call for courage

Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams reminds us that the act of empathy is both daunting and holy.

This is a neat post, Allison. Really teases out some of the "easy" confusions we make regarding the nature of empathy. I think there are a number of words in our Christian vocabulary of grace that tend to get collapsed into one big "warm fuzzy": words like "forgiveness" (too easily confused with "pardon"), or words like "compassion" (too easily confused with "sympathy"), etc.

I think empathy is one of those qualities that Christians really have to look to Jesus to understand. The word's roots suggest literal, vicarious suffering alongside another--very much like the word "compassion" in its denotation. I can't think of a better demonstration of real empathy than the Incarnation.

I try to distinguish between Sympathy and Empathy in that sympathy is feeling the same feelings as another, while empathy is being very close as someone else feels.

In other words, sympathy is the "I know how you feel", or "I had that once" sort, which sounds like an attempt to care, but the focus is on me instead of you. It's often not as comforting to others as we'd hope.

Empathy is more bearing close witness to another's feelings, wondering how they are, naming their emotions, letting them tell you how they experience life. As Jamison points out, I don't know how you feel, so I as a listener can only ask you about your experience. If you are mad, sad, glad, I want to hear about it and acknowledge your world. The listener enters into the speakers world, but more as a companion than participant. That's classic pastoral language.