Compassion vs. empathy. Necessary distinctions in approaching medical care

The incidence of the fatigue caused by medical care brings to attention the emotional reactions to suffering and their possible effects on caregivers. In this study, we shall discuss empathy and compassion. Linguistic analyses and psychological evaluations fail to differentiate between empathy and compassion. We shall therefore make an inventory of the contribution of neuroscientific studies that we consider important. We shall present some research and clinical studies that support the discrimination between compassion and empathy, at the psycho-behavioral level, in terms of vagal and cerebral patterns and in terms of the effects that these emotional states have at the psycho-emotional level. Unlike the interventions aimed at empathic training, cultivating compassion among caregivers produces beneficial effects, decreasing fatigue and increasing resilience. We believe that the differences found between compassion and empathy support the replacement of the phrase “compassion fatigue”, widely used today, with “empathic distress”. We consider the prophylactic and therapeutic capitalization of compassion in health care, by developing training programs to cultivate compassion for specialized staff for patients, to avoid fatigue (empathic distress) and to improve the emotional, humanistic dimension of the doctor-patient relationship, both urgent and necessary.