How Sympathy Tricked Us Into Being Hurt

by Martin Palmer

Most of us think of sympathy as something wonderful. It’s what we needed when we fell on the playground. It’s how we were comforted after our first breakup. I want to share a perspective held by many therapists that shows how sympathy has also tricked us into being hurt.

Let’s start with a couple definitions that many therapists use. Sympathy is a responding to emotion that is reactionary and tends to have a matching quality. It often looks like an expression of misery or sadness.

A young boy gets hurt on the playground. The mother picks up her child and feels sad or says things about how awful that was. They’re both feeling some kind of negative emotion now. In addition to the physical pain, the child might now have strong negative thoughts about playgrounds or being brave. Additionally, if the mother responds with sympathy often, the child might begin to associate the mother’s care/attention with when he’s hurt. Commiserating starts to seem good, but with a dose of hurt.

Now let’s consider an example of reactivity to see how it is similar to sympathy. A husband criticizes his wife. She responds with criticism toward him. Now they’re both in angry, critical, and defensive emotion. He might now feel justified about his criticism; after all, she is so critical. She might feel like she needs to become more aggressive and cutting – something she never wanted to be. Both of them reacted to the other; that’s how escalation works. This isn’t sympathy, but reactivity and sympathy go together.

Lastly, a woman calls her friend to vent about something. Her friend agrees! That guy was such a jerk. Sympathy is expressed and appreciated, but without any growth or progress. These friends might feel a bond, but this venting woman has not had her thinking challenged. No additional perspectives have been explored.

Sympathetic Strings

There are some stringed instruments that have strings that don’t get played. An Indian sitar or various baroque mandolins have one set of strings that are strummed, but the other strings just sit there and vibrate. Guess what they’re called. Sympathetic strings. They vibrate because they are tuned to vibrate at the same frequency as the played strings. I think you can see the parallel.

In this image of a Hardinger fiddle, only 4 strings get played. The other 4 are sympathetic strings. Public domain image.

In this image of a sitar, the taraf tar kunti or tarab strings are sympathetic.
Some traditional sitars only had four strings that were played. Public domain image.

Sometimes we are too attuned to the emotional strings of other people. In music, a beautiful resonance can be made with sympathy. However, in people, sympathy can lead to hurtful patterns: feeling like your perspective is always right, not knowing how to get attention unless you’re in pain, and generally becoming emotionally reactive. Most of the time humans need something else instead, empathy.

Empathy is emotional understanding. Most of us understand that part of empathy, but there’s an addition to that definition that is very helpful for relationships. What if empathy is emotional understanding without responsibility? If you feel responsibility for other people’s emotions, that can look like feeling blamed when they complain. Or it can look like a strong desire to fix other people’s problems. You can probably see why feeling responsibility for other’s emotions can be damaging to relationships. In contrast, when we show that we care without trying to fix other people or defend ourselves, then people have some of the most wonderful human experiences:

• being joined
• feeling free to express more
• feeling safe to sit in vulnerability
• healing from past hurts
• enjoying space to explore or edit what they have expressed

The Trick

So, how has sympathy tricked some of us into feeling more hurt? When our mom responded reactively, perhaps in our defense or feeling hurt when we were hurt, two things happened. One, we may have felt seen or understood. Two, we may have been shown how to feel emotionally (not talking about the physical pain) before we even knew how we felt. If a young person experiences loads of sympathy from other people, later as an adult, she might:

• be unsure how she feels
• have an appetite for sympathy; being disappointed when others don’t react with sympathy
• feel drawn to being sad because people show they care when she’s sad

Being a Turkey

I’m not a hunter, but my brother invited me on a turkey hunt. I imagined a couple days of intense quiet and stealth. I was surprised when we got into the trees and my brother, at the top of his voice, made a sound like a crow cawing. How would this not scare the turkeys into the next state? Apparently, this technique works because when turkeys are startled, they often respond with a shock gobble. They can’t help themselves. They call out, giving up their location.

Turkeys respond to almost any noise with a “shock gobble.” I recommend using a brine bath and then smoking the turkey. Public domain image.

Don’t be a turkey in your relationships. Your relationships will benefit from a non-reactive demeanor. Think about what you are hearing. Show empathy on your face or with your body language; if necessary, with your words.

You might remember, just because someone lays something down, doesn’t mean you have to pick it up. If sympathy were a person, he would validate everything. If empathy were a person, she would try to understand others, but not validate everything. In fact, she might muster some curiosity and offer alternative perspectives.

Sympathy has its place; perhaps when someone is grieving or when you have similar shares in a loss or disappointment. However, too much sympathy can trick us into more hurt. When you can, take a non-reactive, caring position. You’ll create so much goodness in your relationships and allow other people to have some of the most beautiful human experiences.