Empathy and Simpathy
It is really empathy or sympathy helps you to assist students better?
Latico ,
Using empathy and sympathy can be very powerful when building a relationship with anyone. Empathy helps you to understand the situation, but not join the person where they are. Sympathy means you join them in their situation and you share their feelings. Empathy allows you to stay emotionally out of the situation so you can better assist them and bring them to a better place.
Dr. Jean Norris
Empathy helps you to assist your student better because you are understanding and sharing their frustrations and the ability to put yourself into their shoes.
Cindy,
Very true! How does empathy differ from sympathy and which do you feel is more effective in working with students?
Dr. Jean Norris
I truly believe that having empathy for students will improve the relationship that you have. Showing interest in the situations of students and showing that you care will make the student feel more comfortable with you. This comfort level will allow the student to be more open with you when future problems may arise. The student will not feel as if they cannot come to you and this will help resolve problems quickly.
Empathy allows you to maintain enough distance from the person and the problem to be an effective coach or problem solver. If both parties in a communication are involved in "feeling" each other's emotions (sympathy), then both lose objectivity. Sympathy engages a different part of our response mechanisms (emotion, impulse, reaction) than does empathy (objective responses, unbiased responses, critical thinking and problem solving.) Empathy keeps me in the present, sympathy can put me in the past or future and less able to help a student with their present issue.
Shelly, great. I am glad that the course was beneficial. So, now that you have this new insight, what would be a good situation where you would use empathy?
Dr. Jean Norris
I completely agree with this statement. After reading the course work it really helped me to differentiate between the two. I really enjoy building relationships with others and empathizing with them and i am finding it easier to know when to sympathize, Thanks
Kelly, thanks for sharing your insight here. That's great awareness to have. So I wonder, what is your plan to work on this?
Dr. Jean Norris
Emphathy really helps to you connect with the student, without becoming to personal. This is an area I need to work on, as I tend to sympathize more, and I am going to work on this. It will help me to be able to communicate more professionally.
Paula, thanks for sharing this. You have some great insight here and it sounds like in most situations the use of empathy is more appropriate. Empathy allows you to express understanding without fully being there with the other person. Great job.
Dr. Jean Norris
This is an interesting topic. In general, I think empathy is better to use in your relationship with students because it helps to build relationships in a constructive and empowering way. Using empathy lets the student know that you understand what they are experiencing, even if you don't necessarily agree with it. Of course there may be times with sympathy may be more appropriate, as in the passing of a loved one.
Hi Ramiro. Thanks for posting this question. Empathy and sympathy are two different ways we listen and it's important to distinguish between them. Sympathy focuses on sharing or experience a person's news or feelings whether the sympathizer agrees or not. Empathy is when you focus on understanding a person's news or feelings without feeling sorry for that person. Which one do you think is better to use when assisting students?
Dr. Jean Norris
