EMOTIONS, FEELINGS, SYMPATHY, EMPATHY
“Seeing is believing – but feeling is God’s own truth” - Irish proverb
I believe, most people do not know what all these terms mean. Therefore, they are frequently used interchangeably. In this article, I shall try to define the meaning of these words and point to the subtle differences between them.
Emotions are the functions of primitive (limbic or reptilian) brain. Every living creature, with an organized central nervous system, are hard- wired from birth to have sudden formation of instinctive and subconscious emotions and emotion triggered behaviors in order to survive and to reproduce. These characteristics evolved by the Darwinian evolution and became a genetic makeup of every creature. Any stimuli, whether it be noxious or pleasurable, that originates from the internal or external environment, reaches the primitive brain via peripheral nerves where these stimuli are interpreted and converted to emotions such as fear, anger, feeding, sex, fight or flight and other adaptive behaviors. There is no cortical or higher mental faculties involvement in formations of emotions. Emotions trigger reflex behaviors.
Feelings are different. There are close relationships between emotions and feelings. Feelings to me, are conscious expressions of emotions with the involvement of higher mental faculties and thinking. Emotions and emotional behaviors sometimes could be irrational or dangerous. To control these dangers, a second set of mechanisms must come into play. That is when, the involvement of cerebral cortex and higher mental faculties come in. Cortical processing of emotions and conversion of emotions into feelings occur and thinking and cognition take place.
Feelings last longer than emotions. Feelings can send fee back to the mid-brain to suppress or enhance its somatic expression of itself. Feelings are controllable with higher mental faculties, thinking and will power. Some feelings could turn into permanent ideas.
Sympathy must not be mixed with empathy. Sympathy simply means feeling sorry for someone and expressing it.
Empathy, on the other hand, is an ability to feel someone else’s pain and suffering, show an understanding and do everything possible for them in order to end or reduce their pain and suffering. When we help the others, it makes us feel good about ourselves. Scientific studies have shown that the pleasure centers of our brain light up during the empathetic behaviors. Having empathy reduces stress, foster personal growth , friendships, success, maturity and resilience.
Therefore it is very important for everybody to have empathy. Even though the empathy capacity is inborn, empathy could be learned. Learning starts in the family and in early childhood. Empathetic parents are role models and teachers for their children. Many helpful books are written in these regards as to how to teach children empathy.
People with narcistic personality disorders lack empathetic feelings toward other people. They are egocentric; they don’t care about anybody else but themselves and they don’t ever feel other people’s pain and suffering. Some people with a narcissistic personality disorder could have cognitive empathy, in other words they are aware of peoples sensitivities, pain and suffering, but they lack of affective empathy. They know how make other suffer and cry with dehumanizing words and behaviors, to grab attention. These type peoples are afraid of but they are not liked in the community and in their leaderships.
