Compassion and empathy are related concepts, but they refer to different aspects of our emotional and cognitive responses to others.
Empathy:
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It involves putting oneself in someone else’s shoes, seeing things from their perspective, and experiencing, to some extent, what they are feeling.It’s often described as the capacity to recognize and understand the emotions of others without necessarily sharing those emotions.
Compassion:
Compassion goes beyond understanding and sharing feelings; it involves a desire to help alleviate the suffering of others. Compassion is the motivation to take action and do something to improve the well-being of someone who is going through a difficult time.
It combines the cognitive understanding of another person’s emotions (empathy) with a genuine concern for their welfare.
In summary, empathy is about understanding and sharing emotions, while compassion involves an additional step of actively wanting to alleviate the suffering or difficulties that someone else is experiencing. Empathy is a crucial foundation for compassion, as it provides the emotional understanding that can drive compassionate actions.