Jason R. Meacham
Professor Samah Elhindi
Interpersonal Communication COM 125 140
March 22, 2016
Dear Empathy, It is an understatement to say that we are unfamiliar with each other. On the rare occasion that we are in the same vicinity, I tend to become uneasy. It is not you in particular that causes the uneasiness, rather, it is the unfamiliarity that breeds skepticism. I have witnessed and spent a small amount of time in the presence of Sympathy. Though I do feel a fair amount of skepticism towards Sympathy as well, it is not nearly as deep. Whenever there is any misfortune, no matter how severe, Sympathy would make an appearance. Sympathy would accompany solemn faces, words of comfort and small acts of kindness meant to soothe and show support. You, Empathy, however, have been a rare sighting. Soothing words and soul-healing bundt cakes are fairly easy to say and do. They take little energy or commitment and are even easier to walk away from. Even if Sympathy is genuine, what I see lacking is the feeling, the understanding of the difficulties another person may be going through. If we have a sincere
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I recognize the value you would have, if only you had made your presence known for more than the briefest of glances, leaving me unsure whether I ever really saw you. The few people I have encountered that seem to have a close relationship with you make me uncomfortable. I simply do not understand them and have difficulty spending an extensive amount of time with them. I tend to describe these people as gullible and with phrases like, “Soft heart; softer head”. It has appeared to me that the very few empathetic people I have encountered have a tendency to focus more on everyone else rather than themselves. This initially sounds commendable, except that it seems to me that they may be neglecting themselves and their own happiness in favor of feeling for others. This self-sacrificing trait increases my
Beebe, Steven A., Susan J. Beebe, and Mark V. Redmond. "Understanding Self and Others." Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Boston: Allyn and Bacon/Pearson, 2009. 43. Print.
Human beings surpass other animals in the ability to vicariously experience other beings feelings. Two overlapping and interchangeable terms have been developed to explain human’s capacity to experience others’ feelings- sympathy and empathy. Though convenient, the interchanging has created some confusion. Burton, in his support, points out people always confuse the word empathy with sympathy, compassion as well as pity, which are just but reactions to other people’s plight (1). This paper discusses the difference between empathy and sympathy and analyzes the story “Every day Use” from the sympathy and empathy perspective.
Likewise, sympathy is welcome to all of us. There are a very few people in this world who at some time or other do not actively need the sympathetic touch from someone in whom they have trust, faith and confidence. The person showing it becomes attractive in their eyes, no matter what the external condition may be. A person who can touch successfully the inner strings of human feeling and emotions, has already found the secret of attractiveness and of Personality. People who leave us cold and humiliated, have no Personality in our eyes. To the contrary, people who encourage and stimulate us by their companionship possess the qualities that we seek in our
"This report . . . is concerned with the structure of social encounters--the structure of those entities in social life that come into being whenever persons enter one another 's immediate physical presence. The key factor in this structure is the maintenance of a single definition of the situation" (1959,
In conclusion, too much sympathy can be harmful to an individual. To our advantage, we have two branches in our nervous system. Although we may feel like we are helping others with our sympathy, when we choose to use the wrong branch too much, we are only hurting ourselves.
Sympathy is shown all over from tv shows, to books, to real life experiences. We begin to feel pity for these individuals because at times you can see the pain that they feel, you see what circumstances they have to overcome. In the show Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith is given a great amount of losses, from her mother passing away from alzheimer's, her step mother passing away from the hiccups, her sister dying from a plane crash, and her husband dying of a car crash. Us as an audience of the show, can feel what Meredith felt. We could see her pain and we could feel her loneliness after the losses she’s had.
This theory has been subject to many articles and studies in the communication and social departments. Indeed, studying this theory can help us understanding human relations in interpersonal communication. Each of us has been one day confronted to uncertainty, whereas in initial encounters, or moving to a new a new place, or beginning a new work.
Throughout the semester, we have studied numerous communication theories. Their purpose is to help understand exactly what happens when we interact with others. We might not necessarily agree with all of the theories, but the idea is to develop tools to evaluate situations we may encounter. Often, when the theories are explained in the readings or lecture, it is beneficial to apply the concepts to a "real life" situation. Using this approach, I will use a situation that many of us have faced, or will face, and analyze it according to a particular communication theory.
Steve A. Beebe, S. J. (2008). Interpersonal Communication. In A. a. Pearson, Interpersonal Communication, Relating To Others- Fifth Edition. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education, Inc.
Before reading these chapters, and listening to the lectures I had thought empathy was the same thing as sympathy. This brought me back to my first counselling session. It was about ten years ago, and I was telling the counsellor all about my problems at the time. When I looked over to see what she had to say, she was bawling her eyes out beside me. I had always assumed that is what empathy looked like, because I never understood the difference between the two, until now.
Edith Wharton, also known as Edith Newbold Jones, was an American writer born in January 24th, 1862 in New York United States but later died in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France. She is famed for a number of novels and stories which basically revolved around her upper-class society from which she was born. Edith had an established family in New York and part of her education life was in Europe where they lived for six years after the breakout of the American civil war. She owned a book of poems which were privately printed and as well contributed significantly to the Harper’s, Scribner’s among many other magazines (Edith Wharton, 75, Is Dead in France).
For the longest time my parents would ask me how I am doing, however I never talked about my feelings. Eventually due to a build up of stress and being diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, I sought help from a psychologist. She pointed out that when there is something going on in my life that troubles me, I never talk about how it makes me feel. I became use to not talking about my emotions and became numb to issues. Society now deems any feeling other then happiness as a weakness. The biggest problem that has caused the empathy deficit is how informal our communication is becoming. We are connected more then ever, which enables us to communicate effectively and quickly. Due to the development of technology, we mostly communicate through Facebook, texting, and tweeting; these are the most used applications of informal communication used today. Reading a persons tribute to someone that has passed away, it is very easy to not have the same emotions the person posting may be feeling. When you physically hear a person’s emotional reaction, it is easier to empathize with the person and the emotions they may be experiencing. In an article posted on theguardian.com by Mark Honigsbaum he states the following: “When we empathies, they argue, we mirror the distress of an “other” and, unless our brains are damaged or we are developmentally abnormal, we are moved to alleviate their suffering.” If you’re unable to see a person or hear a person express the emotion, it makes it difficult to empathies with them. If something happens, to one of your friends who gets into a car accident; you’re less likely to feel as bad if you read about it on a Facebook post. However, if your friends or family calls and you hear them crying and the sadness in their voice, you’re more likely to empathies with them and feel the same emotion. Not only is it hard to empathies when we don’t physically hear or see the
In interpersonal communication there are many theories that are similar yet different in many ways. The theories can be combined to describe people and how those people interact and communicate with each other. Many of these theories help explain how people in society form impressions of others, how they maintain these impressions, why people interact with certain people in society, and how people will use these impressions that they have formed later on in life. These theories also help people to better understand themselves, to better understand interpersonal communication, and to better understand people in general. There are two theories in interpersonal communication that, despite their differences, can go hand in hand. The first is interaction adaptation theory and the second is emotional contagion theory. These two theories’ similarities and differences and their relevance to my everyday life will be discussed in this paper. These two theories are very important in understanding how people interact with others and why people do the things they do sometimes.
Sympathy; what dangerous feeling to us Social Workers, yet it comes naturally without any warning and we have to make sure we convert it to empathy before its too late. We have to make sure we do not only agree with some aspects of the clients feelings, beliefs, etc. that he/she believe in which translates into sympathy, but above all we should involve experience, understand and tune into her/his entire inner world to represent empathy. If we Social service workers use empathy, we will respond more expandable to the client.
Careers, school, work, activities, and spending time with friends are only some of the reasons why people are becoming inconspicuous and are unable to show compassion towards the problems and feelings of other people. Having compassion and sharing the feelings and problems of another is called empathy. Displaying empathy towards another person’s stress and worries is an extremely important concept that more people should know about because it will help both themselves and the other individual. Not only does it help them, but it helps shape society. Even adolescent students