What is Compassion?

Compassion, simply put, is the emotion evoked in us by the suffering of others. It is being with someone who’s suffering, hoping that suffering will diminish or end, and doing something to try to alleviate the suffering. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology (2nd Ed, 2009), describes compassion as “an emotion experienced when individuals witness another person suffering through serious troubles, which are not self-inflicted and that we can picture ourselves experiencing” (p. 393). McKay and Fanning (2000) add that it includes acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness. In short, compassion is being moved by the pain of others and wanting to help. 

Compassion literally means “to endure with”; consequently, compassion doesn’t flee from suffering. It requires being able to see pain without aversion or attachment. It includes kindness and presence, is born of a brave consciousness, and requires a tender heart but also a tough mind. Compassion is learning how to wish everyone the very best. True compassion cannot be selective and is extended to all, since all of us suffer.

In the Buddhist tradition, the concept of dukkha is vital to the idea of compassion. Dukkha is roughly translated as suffering, pain, unpleasantness, or unsatisfactoriness—the struggle we all face in life. It is one of the most important ideas in the Buddhist tradition. According to Dr. Mark Muesse (2013), “Compassion entails the courage to face dukkha, the wisdom to gaze into it deeply, and the resolve to respond to it in a way that brings relief” (7:24:24). Dukkha is the suffering that compassion responds to. 

Loving-kindness (or metta) is another important idea in Buddhist thought related to compassion. It is general love and goodwill; it is wishing happiness for another person. Compassion is wishing that that person be free from suffering. Suffering is a prerequisite for compassion, and compassion is contained within loving-kindness. When loving-kindness bumps into suffering and stays loving, it turns into compassion. Compassion occurs when ‘the heart quivers in response’ to another’s suffering.

Compassion is social/communal in nature; we have compassion because we are social beings. However, it is also private and subjective. It doesn’t have to do directly with the people who are suffering, and is unique to the experiencer. This duality has been called ‘the paradox of compassion.’ For example, if I feel moved for a woman I know who is struggling, it appears that the compassion has everything to do with her and her suffering; however, in reality, it has everything to do with me and my reaction to what I see. It only exists because of the woman, but it has nothing to do with her directly.

Psychologist Paul Gilbert (developer of Compassion Focused Therapy; CFT) emphasizes that compassion includes two primary dimensions: the psychology of engagement and the psychology of alleviation. The psychology of engagement includes sensitivity and awareness to suffering. It notices, turns toward, and engages with suffering. It is willing and practices acceptance rather than avoidance. The psychology of alleviation includes the motivation, commitment, wisdom, skill, and capacity to take effective action in the presence of suffering. Sometimes this means direct steps to reduce suffering and its causes, and sometimes it might mean just being in the presence of tough emotions with compassionate acceptance. Combined, these two dimensions prompt a felt sense of compassion in action. In this module, we will dwell more on the psychology of engagement, because it is the first necessary step, and because alleviation looks different for each person and in each situation. We hope that as you learn to engage with suffering, you will be more equipped to alleviate it. Later in this module, you will find specific exercises that help you develop both of these skills. (Can you tell which are aimed at the psychology of engagement and which are aimed at the psychology of alleviation?)

Related Constructs: Pity, Empathy, Altruism

Compassion, pity, and empathy are sometimes used interchangeably in routine conversation; however, pity is markedly different from compassion, while empathy is very similar to it. Pity is feeling sorry for someone who is suffering; it keeps its distance from and resists suffering, and it fears pain. Compassion knows how to accept suffering, not resist it. Pity is the feeling of pain at misfortune befalling someone who doesn’t deserve it and the fear that it could be our lot, too. Aristotle says we are more likely to pity people who are similar to us, because then it seems more likely that their fate could one day be our fate. When what we fear happens to others, it elicits pity. Pity arises from the suffering of others, but past that, it bears no resemblance to compassion. 

Empathy is being able to put yourself in the place of others and feel what they feel. Being empathetic is paramount in almost all world religions. In western culture, we also call it the golden rule. Confucius taught the same concept: to never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. In the context of compassion, we know that we want to be free from suffering, and we can assume that others want the same (putting ourselves in their place).

Some people say that compassion and empathy are the exact same process, with both involving losing the distinction between self and other (we will address this shortly). Compassion requires us to identify with and feel for another person; otherwise, we would not know that they were suffering or what that feels like—and that is empathy. However, others differentiate between the two, and when they do, they often make a case for compassion over empathy. The idea is that if we are purely empathetic, then we are suffering as much as the other person, because we are feeling just what they are feeling. If you are now also depressed, distressed, or suffering, you aren’t in an ideal position to do good. These people argue that compassion keeps some distinction between the self and others—some space where we can work with the suffering instead of being overcome by it. In this case, we need empathy to know what’s happening to the other person and commiserate with it, and then we step into compassion to effectively alleviate. Specifically, the mindfulness dimension of compassion allows us to hold suffering in a healthy space so that we can deal with it without it bringing us down.

Altruism is often studied or discussed in conjunction with empathy and compassion. It is “behavior that is aimed at benefiting another person” (Lopez et al., 2015, p. 288). In other words, it involves acts of service or kindness. It can be motivated by empathy (pure desires to help another), or it can be motivated in some way by egotism, or some kind of personal gain. With the egotism motive, we help others because it in some way benefits us—it gives us good feelings or dissipates guilt, we get external or internal praise or rewards, it diminishes the distress that often comes when we see suffering, it helps preserve members of our ingroups, etc. While there are overlapping components of compassion and altruism, our focus is on compassion due to its inclusion of mindful awareness, empathy, and the willingness to act to relieve others’ suffering.

The Study of Compassion, Past and Present

“Compassion has been at the center of contemplative practices for emotional healing for at least 2600 years” (Tirch et al., 2014, p. 7). Specific ideas about compassion have been discussed since Aristotle and before. Like many of the topics on this website, compassion was an emphasis of study long before western scientists began to examine it empirically.

More recently, compassion has been an important idea in psychotherapy for the last 60 years or so, since Carl Rogers proposed that empathy is central to therapy. Empirical research on the topics of compassion and empathy has exploded since then. Today, there are several therapies that have empathy/compassion as a key component. These therapies use the cultivation of compassion as a process for enhancing psychological flexibility and emotion regulation. Two examples of these are Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT); this module provides an introduction to many of the compassion-related concepts and strategies offered in these therapeutic approaches. Among other concepts, ACT deals with the issue of emotional avoidance and fosters a willingness to experience things as they are. CFT emphasizes that the healing qualities of compassion come from states of mind that create physiological responses (like the release of oxytocin and other “feel good” hormones) that evolved alongside attachment and altruism.

Today, there is compassion research associated with social work/social services/social policy, job performance/satisfaction, politics, mental health, leadership and management, economics, morality, meditation, biology/neurology, and a host of topics in positive psychology (happiness, well-being, gratitude, positive emotion, etc.). Our emphasis will be on the research showing how developing compassion helps people and boosts their well-being, including research under the category of ‘compassion training.’