Adam Grant writes about empathic stress. This is the numbness that can manifest when you feel empathy for people who are in obvious distress whilst simultaneously feeling that there’s nothing you can do to help them.
There’s potentially a lot of that going around at the moment; the ongoing wars, the ongoing pandemic, the ongoing environmental destruction, the other ongoing catastrophes of everyday life.
It might look to an observer like the emapthicaly stressed person just don’t care - after all they’re not ‘doing’ anything. But it’s a perfectly normal reaction when the pain of real empathy meets the frustration of being unable to help.
Giving to charity feels like a drop in the ocean. Posting on social media is a hornet’s nest. Having concluded that nothing they do will make a difference, they start to become indifferent.
This phenomenon is one of the potential darker sides of empathy, a human ability that on the surface seems like it should be wholly positive (although many researchers disagree that it is, for a variety of reasons). But when empathy can’t result in meaningful action it can end up as distress, pain, depression.
Instead, Grant suggests we focus on compassion over empathy. What’s the difference?
Empathy absorbs others' emotions as your own: “I’m hurting for you.” Compassion focuses your action on their emotions: “I see that you’re hurting, and I’m here for you.”
Don’t try to feel other people’s pain, but rather overtly notice that their pain exists and offer some sort of comfort.
The comfort doesn’t need to be something that solves the problem, that stops the cause of the pain. It can just be an acknowledgment that it exists.
The most basic form of compassion is not assuaging distress but acknowledging it. When we can’t make people feel better, we can still make a difference by making them feel seen.
Exercising compassion as opposed to empathy, particularly in the face of helplessness is thought to be generally healthier for you - you might even come away feeling like you did something good - and better for the person in pain.