双语：我想和你谈谈同理心和同情心

1. \ 1、”我完全明白你的感受，我也曾经历过这一切。”

Yes, you may feel as though you are expressing solidarity with someone, but what you are doing is, one, making it about _you, _and, two, marginalizing the uniqueness of the person’s experience. As a general rule, in a situation like this, if the first words out of your mouth begin with the pronoun “I,” the chances are excellent that you aren’t displaying empathy.

是的，你可能觉得自己表示和他站在同一阵线，但事实上你正在做的是（1）把焦点拉向自己（2）忽略对方经历的独特性。通常当你脱口而出的第一个词是“我”时，基本就可以确定你没有表现出同理心了。

2. \

2、”不幸中的万幸，说不定会更糟呢。”

You may think that this is a way of inducing perspective. It isn’t. Telling someone in pain that it’s really not so bad is undercutting and insulting. Fight the need to fill the air with words, and instead just grab a seat and listen, because that’s what true empathy looks like. No one needs to feel grateful that what happened was only a category-three hurricane and not a tsunami.

你觉得这是一种转移注意力的好方法？并不是。跟处于痛苦中的人说一切其实没那么糟，就相当于贬低和轻视他所受到的折磨。克服对沉默的尴尬吧，抓一把椅子坐下来安静的倾听，这才是同理心该有的样子。没人会因为只是遭遇了三级飓风而非海啸就心怀感激。

3. \3、“往好了想，也许这是命中注定。”

A true empath leaves their stash of positive-thinking magnets and memes at home. While you may think that this kind of cheerleading is exactly what someone needs to hear—\wrong. For most of us, the process of sorting out our feelings when something hurtful or destructive happens is a long one, and will need support. That support

does not include people suggesting that this is a trial which will make us stronger—or any other clichés of that ilk. If, at some point, a person decides that’s how he or she wants to view the experience, that’s different.

真正的同理心会收起积极思考的模因（译者注：此处meme出自《自私的基因》一书，指“在语言、观念、信仰、行为方式等传递过程中与基因在生物进化过程中所起的作用相类似的那个东西。”），你可能觉得诸如“既来之则安之”这一类振奋人心的话

是他需要听到的，很抱歉你以为错了。对大多数人来说，在发生了灾难性的可怕事件之后整理自己的情绪是一个巨大的工程，这时对方需要的是支持而非其他东西。如果此刻他对这段经历已经有了自己的看法，那么就不要再用“杀不死你的都会让你变得更强”之类的陈词滥调来表示所谓的支持，这绝不是他想要的。

4. \ 4、“你不觉得是时候该向前看了吗？”

Your inner cheerleader may think this is helpful, but the emotional distance implicit in sympathy becomes fully realized with this statement suggesting that grief, mourning, or recovery come with a use-by-date stamp like perishables in the supermarket, and that “wallowing” is bad for the soul. Unless you intend to make it clear to the person that you are sick and tired of their story—and you really don’t mind losing the

relationship—no one except the person suffering loss can decide when the moment is right to move on. Empathy is not judgmental.

你内心的拉拉队长又一次想到了好主意，但真正让你们在同情之下拉开心理距离的是这句话背后隐含的意思：像杂货店里的商品一样，悲伤、哀悼和恢复都应有一个时间期限，反复在这几个过程上打滚对灵魂可没有好处。除非你想向对方明确表明你已经听腻了他的故事，而且你也不介意失去你们这段关系，否则请不要这样做。除了正经受着痛苦的他本人以外，没人可以决定什么时候该向前走。同理心不做评判。