Season 2, Episode 10: Busting Myths - Compassion vs. Empathy

BONUS EPISODE - Module 5, Lesson 1 from the Human-Savvy Medicine Course (HSMC) >>> (click here to access the full course)

IMPORTANT! This episode is accompanied by the visual materials that will help you enjoy 100% of the HSMC experience. Click here to access them >>> "Module 5 - Visual Materials"

Feeling drained from caring too much? The problem might not be what you think. In this special bonus episode, we share a powerful excerpt from our Human-Savvy Medicine Course that challenges everything you thought you knew about empathy and compassion, especially the term "compassion fatigue".

Whether you're a medical professional or simply someone who cares deeply about others, this episode provides valuable tools for sustainable compassion. You'll learn how to support others effectively without sacrificing your own wellbeing—a crucial skill in both professional and personal relationships. 

If this resonates with you, consider exploring the complete Human-Savvy Medicine Course, designed to help anyone who works with people become more confident, self-aware, and effective in building robust relationships.

What could you accomplish if caring for others actually energised rather than drained you? Listen now to transform your approach to human connection.

Transcript

Introducing the Human Savvy Medicine Course

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, our fantastic listeners. This week, Emma and I have a surprise for you. Instead of a normal episode where we tackle a challenge coming from one of you, our listeners, we will give you a bonus episode in which you can hear a segment of the Human Savvy Medicine course. It is a course that was designed for any human being out there who works with people. Really, whether you're a medical professional or you work in the mining industry, it doesn't really matter, because we still work with humans and that course is an entirely podcast-style design course where you can listen to those short episodes and look at the visual materials that we also send you and grow and learn and become more human savvy. So today we're going to give you a snippet which is, I think, my favorite part, which tells you about the difference between empathy and compassion. We bust some myths, especially the myth of compassion fatigue, and hopefully that will use something new, a new insight that you can use in your everyday life. If you enjoy that little snippet, there is a chance to join the whole course. It is always out there, available and you can join at any point and give yourself some grow, some cpd time but, most importantly, a chance to become stronger, more confident within yourself, understand yourself so much better and build robust relationships. Enjoy and let us know your thoughts. Welcome to the human savvy medicine course, module 5 understanding others and building relationships. If we ask a random person on the street what do you think understanding others truly means, they will probably say empathy, putting yourself in somebody's shoes.

Empathy Myths and Misconceptions

Speaker 1 2:18

Empathy has become a hot topic in the last few years, maybe even more, depending on the industry, depending on your role, depending on your role, depending on who you specifically are. You might have heard about empathy as something really important for medical professionals to take care of the patients, to be really, really good at their job, but also for the leaders to take care of their team, and that is completely right, their team, and that is completely right. We do need empathy, especially as medical veterinary professionals. We do need to practice empathy. However, there are many different types of empathy and there are many different misconceptions around empathy. There is also something described as a compassion fatigue, about which we'll talk more in a moment, but that is also a bit as a compassion fatigue, about which we'll talk more in a moment, but that is also a bit of a misguiding information that we receive that if we practice so much empathy. If we are very compassionate towards other people, especially as medical professionals, we will at some point potentially get to the stage of compassion fatigue. Get to the stage of compassion fatigue. That is not how it works entirely. So let's bust some myths about empathy and compassion.

Speaker 1 3:32

Firstly, like I said, a lot of people think that practicing empathy is putting yourself in somebody's shoes. As we know by now in this course, every single person in the world has something in common with other people. But also there are a lot of things that make us different Our programming, our programming that creates that bubble around us. We all see the world through our own bubble, extremely individual. So when someone says that try to put yourself in somebody's shoes, this is absolutely impossible. There's no way we can imagine the world through the eyes of the other person. We cannot do that ourselves. We can ask, we can try to understand when we get a lot of information from that person, but we ourselves cannot put ourselves in those proverbial shoes.

Types of Empathy: Cognitive vs. Affective

Speaker 1 4:33

Secondly, there are many different types of empathy. It's not just one type of experience, one type of exchange between people that can happen. There are many different categorizations, depending on a scholar. However, the categorization that I really like. Having spent a lot of time researching this topic and reading multiple different authors, I really like the division of empathy into cognitive and affective. Cognitive empathy is when we understand cognitively. When we look at the person, we see that there is something happening to them, either something very pleasant or unpleasant, something high energy or low energy. So, just like with emotions, when we try to kind of read the person in front of us, we can see those very broad categories of emotion, but there's no way we can discover what it is specifically without asking loads, loads, loads of questions. That cognitive empathy is basically saying I see that there is something happening to you. I don't know what it is, but I acknowledge that you are going through something either very difficult or something really pleasant. On the other hand, the affective empathy is the situation in which we start feeling with the person. We have those so-called mirror neurons within our brains. Again, it's a little bit controversial topic, but this is what some of the researchers say. Those neurons are responsible for picking up what is happening in the person in front of us. It's very often completely subliminal. We don't know that we're doing it, but we can pick up the mood of the other person in front of us and we kind of attune to them. That is a very important social mechanism that allowed us to live in society, to build groups of people, to work together, to navigate the world as a group and, as it often happens, as you might have noticed by now something that is evolutionary, really important to us and we wouldn't have survived without it.

Speaker 1 6:52

Sometimes, when it's taken to extreme, it's not serving us, especially when we're exposed to a lot of suffering, a lot of hardship. Like medical professionals are, we see the suffering of our patients, whether it's humans or animals. We are, can pick up that there is a lot of misery around us. If we practice the affective empathy, there's a very high chance that we will feel with our patient. We will feel that pain as well. We'll pick that up. And if we allow ourselves to dive into deep into that affective empathy, into deep into that affective empathy, that is why we get really, really tired. It's very draining. If there's someone suffering in front of us and we start suffering with them, there's a chance that we'll have no one left in this room who can actually help with the situation. And that experience is exactly what some people describe as that so-called compassion fatigue getting drained because we care for others.

True Compassion vs. Compassion Fatigue

Speaker 1 8:02

However, true compassion is something different. True compassion is the mixture of our cognitive empathy. So I see that there is something painful happening to you. I don't know what it is exactly, but I can see and I care enough to take action to do my very best to alleviate that suffering for you. In simple words, compassion equals cognitive empathy plus action. Compassion is not the affective empathy, it's not feeling with the person, feeling the pain alongside them. It's not Because, like I said, if we have two people suffering now, getting drained, their logical thinking is debilitated at that very moment. We will have no one to change the situation.

Speaker 1 8:52

If we want to help someone, we need to be compassionate towards them. We need to practice the empathy that acknowledges that is something happening, the curiosity when we want to find out more about the situation, and that takes us into the stage of action. We turn that into action. We don't allow ourselves to slide down into that very intense affective empathy. Of course, we might be on the brink of it, we might be nearly there, we might start feeling with the person, but that is the moment when we need to remind ourselves okay, I am here to serve a purpose to help that person instead of suffering with them. Someone in this room needs to be of help, and that has to be me. So I need to pause, take a breath, see what is happening within me. This is where the self-awareness, the emotional self-awareness, comes into play. Take a breath, realize what is happening for me and then make a decision. Okay, it's time to take action, rather than feeling with the person. And the simplest question that you can ask yourself is okay, what is the next step? Here I see that we are in this hardship. What next? What next?

Speaker 1 10:10

There is also a very big difference between compassion and empathy, but also pity. Pity is an emotion that doesn't connect us. Pity is kind of like saying oh you poor thing. Oh, I can see that you're suffering, but that doesn't concern me. I am not on the same boat with you, I don't go through situations like that. Oh, bless you. For you it's a little bit patronizing. To be fair, pity is not an emotion that connects us. It's not something that will create a strong bond. It's not something that we want to have. None of us, no one, likes to be pitied. It's not a pleasant emotion to experience from others.

Speaker 1 10:56

So how to practice empathy? The empathy that will be healthy, empathy that will be well-informed, empathy that will not assume. Empathy that will not pretend that I have all the answers. Also important thing empathy is not jumping right into solutions and trying to solve all the problems and I know that is really hard for us medical and vet professionals, because we are problem solvers. When we see a challenge, we are looking for the medicine for the solution to that challenge. Not in this case. That is not the situation where you need to reach for the solution straight away. It can be even harmful.

Speaker 1 11:35

How to practice empathy when you see someone suffering, when you can cognitively perceive that there is something happening, there's something wrong, the person is going through the hardship. Simply sit next to them, give them space, let them know that you are there. You don't need to say anything. You can just show them that there is a space for them, that you care enough to stay next to them. But you don't have any demands. You don't have any solutions ready for them. You are simply holding a space where they can be safe.

Practicing Healthy Empathy in Relationships

Speaker 1 12:17

One of the most beautiful gifts that we can give to another person is to make them feel safe, make them feel seen and important. This is what we're doing in here. We are not bombarding them with solutions. We are holding their space and, once they are ready, we can ask them what is it I can do for you? How can I help you? What do you need right now? Do you need to vent and tell me everything about it? Do you want me just to hold your hand or give you a hug? Do you want me to just sit still in here? Do you want me to leave but come back in five minutes? Or do you want me to go and punch the guy who hurt you? Do you want me to brainstorm with you over the solutions? Do you need some help? Do you need some strategy? What can I give you? And give them a choice. Let them tell you how you can help them. Empathy is holding space, being curious, being caring in a silent way. You