They passed out the above article at work. I never thought of a difference between cmpathy and compassion. Anything that leads to respect and problem solving, sounds good to me.
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This subject has come up frequently on sites that I used to frequent. In fact I used to write about it. It’s a complicated subject. Empathy can become a trap for some people. It did for me because I would meet people who once they experienced kindness and what probably felt like empathy they were always trying to incessantly seek validation or dump and unload on me or treat me like I was a therapist. It felt invasive and so violating, which is why I’ve become even more guarded and focused on setting and enforcing strong boundaries. I think a lot of this problematic behavior is gender based as well.
I’ve recently been reading articles about toxic empathy–people who over identify with someone else’s feelings and directly takes them on as their own, which can create a lot of problems. Empathy can be misplaced as well.
I could see that – people taking kind words as a way to use the other person as a personal therapist! I also think the over emphasis on empathy can be enabling. I taught at a camp a few years ago and the director changed. That one summer it was all about – make every camper happy. Uh, that’s not possible. Sure, we can try to get campers to talk when one complains of bullying. But happiness isn’t an every minute thing. They even ended up letting me go because my son wasn’t happy. With his autism, it didn’t like the camp activities and stayed in my sessions and read quietly. So it wasn’t my fault or the camp’s fault. You can’t make everyone happy. I found it all ridiculous!