Empathy, sympathy and compathy

Empathy is a fashionable concept that is inviting itself into thoughts about relationship professions. The most common injunction concerns people in positions of authority. "The manager must be empathetic" "the teacher must be empathetic" one reads in the literature. What follows is a description of what empathy is, which is closer to compassion or sympathy than to a rigorous definition of empathy. Empathy and sympathy are not, however, two equivalent postures.

These two postures participate in the establishment of a relationship of influence and they hide another posture that is less visible but just as important, which we will try to name here compathy.

Sympathy

When a note is played (a C, for example) on a piano or any stringed instrument, all the Cs in the vicinity begin to vibrate without having been solicited. This is called a "sympathetic string". That is to say that "vibrates with" without having lived the same experience, without having been solicited.

In human relationships sympathy occurs when a person vibrates to the emotion of others, that is to say  that he feels the same thing, even if he has not lived the experience of the other.

Empathy

Empathy (1)  is not "vibrating with", it is being able to "put oneself in the other's shoes". That is to say, being able to change one's perceptual position in relation to oneself: for example, the empathic therapist is able to enter into the model of the world of his client. He is able to mirror his emotions and sensations without being carried away by them, without confusion of feelings.

Being able to put oneself in the place of the other allows one to understand the logic of his position, the reasoning associated with that logic and the emotions he feels, the beliefs that underlie those emotions, but without "vibrating with" them.  It is a matter of decentering oneself from one's own model of the world without abandoning it in order to synchronize oneself with the mode of thought of one's interlocutor.

This action is not so easy to conduct because it is with our own model of the world that we try to understand that of the other. It is difficult to understand the other without calling upon one's own sensory experiences and without evoking one's own life experience and emotions. Hence the inevitable risk of projection or transference, which is the main focus of the work of coach or therapist supervisors.

The project of empathy is to obtain a kind of synchronization of internal states and processes that shows that there is an agreement between the two interlocutors: "it resonates" it "echoes". This agreement is one of the conditions of an effective influence. It is because the interlocutor will experience that he or she is well understood that the relationship will be able to resonate.

But what happens when it is impossible to obtain this synchronization? When the other "doesn't respond"? Often because he or she does not know how to produce empathy. What to do when this need to share an emotion is not answered? What behavior should we adopt? What action will allow us to obtain from the other this vital empathy that gives us the impression of sharing and being understood?

Compathy

The words sympathy and empathy allow us to name the action that consists in seeking to tune in to the other intellectually (empathy) or emotionally (sympathy). These two notions allow us to shed light on the process that consists in seeking to agree with a state that already exists in someone, but they do not really exhaust the question of seeking an agreement, a synchronization between two people. These two notions tell us nothing about the strategies we implement to influence the position or the internal state of the other, they tell us nothing about what we do to bring the other into synchronization with ourselves.

Nothing helps us understand how we go about provoking a different state in the other and the strategies developed to modify the internal state of the interlocutor.

Yet this behavior exists: when a child who has just succeeded in a project runs to his parent by dancing or clapping his hands, showing his joy, he tries to make him feel the emotion of joy he is feeling at that moment. He needs in this moment that his human environment shares this emotion. He then produces a behavior which aims at triggering sympathy or empathy so that the other feels the same emotion. He becomes active in provoking an internal state of joy in the other and expects the other to sympathize and share his internal state.

This irrepressible need to share an emotion or feeling is often intuitive. The project of seeking to elicit a particular internal state in the other is as ancient and as widespread as empathy can be. These two concepts are intimately linked. The goal of the compathy approach is indeed to solicit the other's capacity for empathy.

Sympathy synchronizes on the internal state, on the other hand, compathy seeks to modify by a behavior, the internal state of the other for these same purposes of synchronization and sharing. It is a form of seduction if we take the word seduction in its etymological sense: to bring back to oneself.

If sympathy is the behavior adopted to echo and reflect the emotion of the other, compathy is the behavior adopted to bring the other to share his emotion. It is no longer the same actor and it is no longer the same recipient of the action.

Compathy should not be confused etymologically with compassion (2) . It is not a matter of sympathizing but of producing a specific state-of-being. We find in all cases the question of being affected but in the case of empathy the action is carried by the one who is affected whereas in compathy the action is conducted by the one who wants to affect the other.

It is easily understood in the project of sharing positive emotions as in the case of this child. But it is more difficult to discern and accept when it comes to wanting to share negative emotions.

This emotion can be joy as in our example of the child cited above, but it can also be sadness in the compathetic behavior of the depressive who seeks to drag the other person into his depressive state. We can make the hypothesis that it is the same mechanism that guides certain violent people who unconsciously try to make the other person live the state of unhappiness in which he is internally and of which he is not aware. This is the hypothesis that can be made for narcissistic perverts or perverts in general: to make the other person live his experience of being helpless and lost.  Some food for thought on this subject can be found in Searles' book (3)  "the effort to drive the other crazy".

However, this is how we can partly understand that an unpleasant, aggressive person needs the other to feel his internal state and the bitterness he experiences. It is not only "that she is unpleasant" but that she needs the other to feel what she feels. The result is undoubtedly random since the interlocutor will not necessarily react in the expected way to the stimulus sent. But this is partly the plan, even if the logic does not necessarily appear right away.

This compathy behavior can furthermore partly explain seemingly aberrant behaviors such as fear of the feminine, fear of the love of a child....

This notion of compathy can help, for example, to understand seemingly aberrant behaviors. One hears political commentators expressing incomprehension at the terrorist behavior of a "seemingly well-connected" youth. That a man who has a job, who went to school, who has a family that is not poor, should produce such acts makes no sense! But all human acts have a meaning, not necessarily conscious, not necessarily rational. His act is an act of compassion. He needs his environment to experience his own deadly suffering.

What we feel from his act is the same helpless despair he feels about the spiritual misery in which he struggles on a daily basis, despite all his material and intellectual resources. What does not make sense to us is a discourse on his life that does not make sense to him either. He invites us to feel his sense of helplessness in the face of a meaningless world. His compassionate behavior invites us to share his emotional experience. The behavior of these terrorists achieves its goal well: it provokes in each of us the state in which he feels: helpless, disoriented, frightened, not knowing by which end to take the problem, not understanding what is happening.

The question of compathy versus sympathy remains open. We can make the following assumption:

Sympathy and compathy can be seen as ways of producing empathy i.e. an agreement of states of thought and emotion. To some extent it can be assumed that empathy is the key to influence processes. It is easier to obtain commitment from the other when one has synchronized with his or her model of the world and has shown that one understands it.

For Hannah Arendt, on the subject of authority and influence, what essentially characterizes authority is to the exclusion of the use of coercion and persuasion, the presupposition of recognition and respect the only way to obtain a voluntary and active commitment from the other. The first condition of authority is the sharing of meaning. This applies very well in the field of education and the teacher-student relationship.

There can be no alliance without empathy. Thus one can see empathy as a way to have an effect on and influence the other. One can ask if at the bottom empathy is not in itself a strategy whose final intention is to conduct a relationship of influence that can be sustainable because it is respectful of the other.

Some elements of bibliography

Tisseron S. - Empathy and Manipulation - The Pitfalls of Compassion
https://www.decitre.fr/ebooks/empathie-et-manipulations-9782226424013_9782226424013_10029.html

Maletto, M.  - Empathy: How to better exert influence - Carrefour RH
https://carrefourrh.org/ressources/developpement-competences-releve/2019/04/empathie-pour-mieux-exercer-influence

Frédérique de Vignemont.  Mirroring Empathy and Reconstructive Empathy
https://www.cairn.info/revue-philosophique-2008-3-page-337.htm

Lauzier JP Motivation and empathy.  https://jeanpierrelauzier.com/bulletin_motivation_empathie/

de Vignemont F.   Empathy and its effects 
http://www.psychologie-positive.net/IMG/pdf/Empathie_et_ses_effets_definitif.pdf

Notes

(1) Empathy: From the English empathy attested in 1908 from the ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια , empátheia ("affection") and a calque of the German Einfühlung, created in 1858 by the German philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze (source wikipedia)

(2) While empathy functions as a simple mirror of another's emotions, compassion implies a feeling of benevolence, with the willingness to help the sufferer. Read: From Empathy to Compassion https://www.unige.ch/lejournal/numeros/93/article1/article1bis/

(3) Harold Searles  - The Effort to Drive the Other Crazy - 1977 - Publisher: Pierre Fédida
https://www.decitre.fr/livres/l-effort-pour-rendre-l-autre-fou-9782070427635.html