Selective empathy. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines empathy as projecting one’s personality into another’s personality to best understand the others emotions, thoughts and feelings. Generally, the expression empathic speaks to an appreciation, an acknowledgment of another’s experience. I recall a Native American saying, to paraphrase, you cannot really know someone’s experience well until you walk in his/her moccasins. I heard a follow-up to that sentiment, that simply stated, one cannot fit in another’s moccasins/shoes. Does that mean that we cannot possibly experience another’s emotions/thoughts/feelings? How close can we ever get to understand another being?

Now keep in mind the difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy usually defines a feeling of sadness or sorrow for another. We send sympathy cards not empathy cards to acknowledge someone’s loss as in a death of a loved one. ”Oh God, I feel so bad for him. He lost his job. I wonder what he’ll do?” or ”Her grandma died. I feel so sorry for her.”

Speaking of such, depending upon your perspective , the world is a place filled with joy and contentment or a place filled with suffering and pain. some folks with chronic, even with acute bouts of depression and anxieties, often subscribe to the latter sentiment. Living in a world with the stigma of mental illness/disturbance doesn’t necessarily receive a warm reception from people who claim not to suffer from mental-emotional problems. How can one possibly understand another’s depressed or anxious laden experience? I remember a client whose wife suffered from depression and alcohol abuse. He described his upbringing in a ”normal” home environment. No one drank alcohol, got intoxicated and depressed. No one missed work or experienced sleep disturbances with nightmares. His wife did, however. His plan for counseling was simple: ”You cure my wife and call me when she’s better!” As you might imagine, the marriage soon ended. He expressed no strong flavor or empathy for his wife’s suffering and pain. Her suffering was exponentially increased by grief over a marital end atop her chronic mental-emotional condition. He was able to appreciate basic life struggles and yet was at a loss to understand his wife’s struggles.

Essentially, the aforementioned gentleman had no experience (as he described) with pain and suffering outside the physical realm. He knew that broken arm or leg hurt and he could ”feel for” the person who needed help carrying packages or walking to and from destinations. However, when his experience fell onto the emotional-mental dimension, he was lost and unwilling to appreciate and acknowledge the others (wife’s) experience. Truly he wasn’t able to help her beyond ”curing her.” He lost a golden opportunity to learn about is wife’s experience through her suffering and to grow as a marital partner, a man. Best of health.

Marshall Greenstein holds a master’s degree in marriage and family counseling and is a licensed marriage and family counselor and a licensed mental health counselor in New York state. He has regular office hours at Hutton and Greenstein Counseling Services, 501 E. Third St., Suite 2B, Jamestown, 484-7756. For more information or to suggest topics, email editorial@post-journal.com.