同理心是一種助燃劑, 能激發人與人間連結, 進而拉近彼此的關係.
同情心反之會抑制人與人的連結, 助長人際關係的疏離.
摘要如下:
Empathy fuels the connection while sympathy drives the disconnection.
Per Teresa Wiseman, the Nursing scholar's professional experiments where she came up with 4 quality elements of Empathy:
(1) Perspective taking (觀點/看法的取得)
(2) The ability to take perspective of another person (接受別人觀點/看法的能力)
(3) Recognize their perspective as truth (認可別人信以為真的觀點/看法)
(4) Staying out of judgement (No easy as most of us enjoy to do this most of the time !) (不下評斷)
In short, Empathy is to feeling with other people
When someone falls under the deep hole and shout "I'm stuck, it's dark and I'm overwhelmed !"
Empathy: "Hey, (climbing down) I know what is like down there and you are not alone "
Sympathy: "Wow, it's bad and do you want sandwiches now ?"
Empathy is a Choice and it is Vulnerable ! Because in order to connect to you, thus I have to convert myself inside the condition to connect with you.
The last statement you should use "at least" to comfort people:
e.g. I think my marriage is falling apart. "At least you have a marriage!"
e.g. John is kicking out from school ! "At least he is a A-student"
One of the difficult think we face is that we always try to make things better ! However if people share something very difficult with you, they would rather expect you to say "I don't know what to say now, but I am so glad that you told me!"
Because the truth is rarely "Response" to make things better, but the "Connection itself"
