Pity and sympathy are another pair of feelings that we often do not distinguish between. And, as with shame and guilt, this prevents us from expressing one of them, in this case - empathy. At first glance, these feelings seem to be similar and interchangeable. After all, they arise in relation to the same type of situations and states. We feel sorry or sympathize if we see ourselves or other people in a vulnerable state: illness, fatigue, experiencing unpleasant emotions, difficult events, loss, confusion, etc. Quite often, when describing such states, clients talk about pity, even if they use the word “ sympathy". Why does this happen? Let's talk about the difference. To do this, we compare these feelings in four parameters: attitude towards vulnerability, assessment of prospects, focus of attention and the presence of an aggressive component. The feeling of pity suggests that we do not just pay attention, but “highlight” vulnerability and helplessness in a person. And these qualities outweigh everything else about him. If we think about the adjective “pathetic”, which is available in the Russian language, we will notice that it emphasizes precisely these features and has a clear negative connotation. That is, vulnerability, in this case, is assessed as something clearly negative. From the point of view of assessing prospects, we feel that there are none: the disease is incurable, the loss is irreplaceable, the situation is unchangeable, etc. We do not always assess the situation with rational positions. We are talking, rather, about an emotional assessment and a forecast made on its basis. The leading feeling is “nothing can be done.” That is why in its purest form we can feel pity when we see, for example, people or animals whose physical injuries are visible to the naked eye. On an automatic level, we not only see vulnerability in them, but, first of all, we see that there is no way to fix it. In terms of focus, it is more likely to be on ourselves than on a partner or relationship. In this sense, the feeling of pity comes quite close in spirit to the feeling of shame. When we feel sorry for someone else, at the level of fantasy, all vulnerability at that moment is concentrated in the other person: “I feel sorry for you, but it’s good that this is not all happening to me, that this is not about me.” Thus, we distance ourselves from both the person himself and his pain. But what happens if we feel sorry for ourselves? Surprisingly, distancing is present here too. In this process there is, at a minimum, an observing and evaluating part (the one that regrets) and directly, a “pathetic” part (the one that I feel sorry for). As a result, it turns out that one part of us is vulnerable and weak, it is “no good” and “nothing can be done” with it, and in this sense it is, as it were, “bad”. And the other part, the appraising one, remains “invulnerable,” strong and active, and, as it were, “good.” We see such a sad compromise when, in order to maintain at least part of the sense of self-worth and “goodness,” we have to sacrifice another part of ourselves. And pity in this process acts as a tool. And at this point, the presence of an aggressive component within pity becomes quite clear. On the one hand, it arises as an automatic response to states of helplessness and vulnerability as such. They are difficult to bear and frightening precisely because of the reduction or lack of ability to influence the situation. But aggression and the feelings that accompany it - anger and anger - for example, have opposite properties. They activate us, even if they are unpleasant to experience. Thus, they are called upon to balance the helplessness. However, when we are faced with situations in which our empathy and support are required, direct expression of anger becomes obviously socially and morally frowned upon. Although sometimes from childhood we can remember situations when we or other children reacted directly to vulnerability with anger, for example, we could come up and hit another child who was crying. As a result, in