This is the transcript of Brené Brown's RSA Animate video on the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Brené draws on the work of nursing scholar Theresa Wiseman, who studied professions where empathy is essential and identified four qualities: perspective taking (the ability to take the perspective of another person or recognise their perspective as their truth), staying out of judgment, recognising emotion in other people, and then communicating that recognition.
Empathy fuels connection. Sympathy drives disconnection.
Empathy means feeling with people. Brené describes it as a sacred space: when someone is in a deep hole and shouts from the bottom, empathy is climbing down with them. Sympathy stays at the top and says "Ooh, that's bad... you want a sandwich?"
It is a vulnerable choice. To connect with another person's feeling, you must connect with something in yourself that knows that feeling.
A common response that blocks empathy is the "at least" silver lining. "I had a miscarriage." becomes "At least you know you can get pregnant." "I think my marriage is falling apart." becomes "At least you have a marriage." These attempts to make things better actually create distance. Rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with "At least."
What makes something better is connection, not the effort to reframe the pain.
The source is the RSA Animate video "Empathy vs Sympathy" featuring Brené Brown. This transcript supplies the clearest public articulation of the four-qualities framework and the hole metaphor that now anchor the wiki's treatment of empathy.