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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper no.9: POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Module No and Title Module no.24: COMPASSION

Module Tag PSY_P9_M24

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcomes

2. Introduction
2.1. Compassion in Everyday Life
2.2. Definition: What is and What is not Compassion

3. Compassion: Connecting and Disconnecting

3.1. Requirements of Compassion
3.1.1. Severity of the troubles
3.1.2. Knowledge of self infliction
3.1.3. Identification with the sufferer
3.2. Compassion and Identification

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3.3. Disconnecting: When identification is

absent

4. The Essential Nature of Human Kind

5. Suffering and Compassion

5.1. Nature of Suffering
5.2. Knowledge about suffering

6. Compassion and its other realms

6.1. Compassion and Medicine
6.2. Compassion and Love

7. Summary

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Know the basics of compassionate behaviour

 Learn the requirements for compassion to evoke
 Identify the differences between compassion and other related terms
 Evaluate how someone else’s suffering is identified and
 Analyze the role of compassion in realms of medicine and love.

2. Introduction

2.1. Compassion in Everyday Life

When the terrorist attack happened in Mumbai on 26/11, our hearts went out for people who were trapped
inside the hotel, who got killed and all security officials who laid their lives to combat the terrorists. Our
previous generation may have felt in similarly when the Bhopal Gas Tragedy happened in 1984.
Likewise, we feel for people who are suffering in various ways, are fighting terminal illnesses or, as have
we all sadly seen, raped or murdered.

Our hearts often go out to people whom destiny victimizes, to those who are not being given the finest
treatment by life and the ones we see are in pain. And not necessarily in times of dire need, people search
for compassionate partners, caregivers, psychologists, therapists, physicians, and others who can meet
their need for comfort and peace.

So like it presents, compassion is the word most associated with sufferings of others, an emotion evoked
by the same.

2.2. Definition: What is and What is not Compassion

As we proceed to define compassion, we need to ensure that we do not confuse it with other related but
different moral qualities. Like compassion, often pity can be aroused when we see someone suffer. But
pity contains elements of disdain and a sense of interpersonal distance that is absent in compassion. It
involves a stance of superiority towards the object of emotion.

Qualities of benevolence and altruism again do not hold as equivalent to compassion, hold much broader
meanings than compassion and are not focused on suffering. Also, concern for suffering in compassion is
sometimes confused with concern for social justice, but like all the three other qualities discussed, these
two again are logically and psychologically distinct. Compassion is primarily focused on a particular
individual or situation, social justice can be very abstract, legalistic, and not involve any particular
situation. Social justice primarily involves problems of equality among humans, whereas compassion is
not paradigmatically concerned with these problems and may even be focused on animals (Pence, 1983).

Now when we sympathize with someone, we believe that what the other person is going through is bad,
but we do not see it as terrible or tragic event. When we feel compassion, we're usually more deeply

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affected by the other's condition. The more deeply we're moved

by the other's plight, the more intense is our emotional response
(Snow, 1991).

Compassion literally means “to suffer together”. Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling
that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering. It
is implied by a basic mutuality in experience of suffering, and be ‘in sync’ with their emotion.

Again, compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism as it might sound like from the above
definition. Empathy refers to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another
person, whereas compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Altruism on
the other hand, is a selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion. However one can feel
compassion without acting on it, and altruism may not always be motivated by compassion.

3. Compassion: Connecting and Disconnecting

3.1. Requirements of Compassion

Compassion is the word most often used in connection with the emotion evoked by the sufferings of
others. Compassion consists of three major requirements, as given by Aristotle (1984, 1386a 19-22):

i) Realizing that the troubles that evoke our feelings are serious
ii) Knowing that the victim’s problems are not self-inflicted
iii) Ability to picture oneself with the same problems

3.1.1. Severity of the troubles

No one stands as a judge to how serious are the troubles that have evoked feelings of compassion in us.
When sufferings occur from war, homicides, rape or natural disasters, there often isn’t question on how
awful things have happened. It is mutually understood both by onlookers and victims. But in many
situations, such as ones where children have grown up and lived through most of such sufferings, they
might as well get used to such situations so much that they do not see themselves as sufferers. In a similar
way, a person who is suffering from Alzheimer’s at times may not at all be aware of her/his difficulty
and even then evoke compassion from strangers. So to re-emphasize, compassion is a unilateral emotion,
and is most commonly brought forth in settings in which victims have no awareness of the feelings they
are evoking in others. Or as mostly is the case, the victims are not in proximity of the people whose hearts
are going out for them.

3.1.2. Knowledge of self infliction

The second requirement for the feeling of compassion to evoke is that the suffering should not be self-
inflicted, i.e. the victims should themselves be not responsible for the sufferings. When one is responsible
for the problems he or she is going through, blame centers around them and people do feel that they
deserved it for their wrong doings. However when sufferings happen without the victims themselves
being responsible for it, people tend to feel for them because the situation has been “brought up” on them
by an external force that they do not have control over.

3.1.3. Identification with the sufferer

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The third requirement for compassion and its associated

emotions to arise, one needs to identify with the sufferer. We sympathize with and pity those who are like
us in age, character, residence; race etc because sharing these similarities also means that we might have
to go through the same fate. What we fear and pray don’t happen to us evoke pity when it happens to
others. Compassion depends on how we identify with the person in question, i.e. how we get to know that
they are like us.

3.2. Compassion and Identification

Compassion at its core is a process of identification with another person and her/his suffering. Human
behavior of identification with others begins right when infants learn to imitate by mirroring facial
expressions and body movements of mother. They see themselves in the other and the other in
themselves. This, of course, shows the newborn infant to be more responsive to its caregivers and its
environment and places the onset of identification at the earliest age. (Meltzoff, 1985). Thus the child sees
himself in others and vice-versa.
(Image courtesy: www.heartsteps.org)

The “self” thereby arises and is developed through social experiences of others and in relation to others.
There is no self-definition or self without others. Our identities are framed in comparison to similarities
and differences with others, and not in a vacuum. We try to emulate what we see in others whom we
admire, be approved by them and be like them. But with that we also try to assert our uniqueness and
individuality. So the desire to be unique is in tension with our social needs, and its place in the spectrum
is decided by era, culture and personality. Within this spectrum, human behavior takes place both with the
availability of freedom and conspicuously governed set of rules. And we all live through it. This social
ubiquity results in a feeling of shared understanding of humanity and accounts for the fact that
identification is possible even with people from different nations and dissimilar cultures. A connection
thus exists between almost all; the pain of compassion can be brought about by the sufferings of any of
the earth’s inhabitants.

Another possible source of identification has been labeled spirit. Events sometimes reinforce the belief
that the connection that underlies compassion cannot be accounted for solely by universal identification
borne of the social forces described earlier. Rather, all humans are bound together by universal category
of spirit. Each human both shares and is a part, and this spirit, despite its immense complexities and
attendant philosophical disputes, provides a way to explain how all of us (unknowingly) actively
participate in a universal humanity that has concrete existence (Olson, 1992).

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Whether through spirit or through the shared experience of

living, we know others to be like us and so; when something happens to them, we can identify with their
sufferings. When it seems that there might be, at first sight, little conscious basis for identification with
sufferers, then the pure bodily source of the suffering pulls compassion from us because everyone has a
similar body. The sight of people whose dear ones die in accidents and terrorists attacks hold sad meaning
to all of us. Similarly, when children are involved, identification with the helplessness of a child or
parental loss is universal.

Here we come across another source of identification with others. i.e. through knowledge of the
human condition. The more we know about others, the less quickly will we assign blame on
others for their misfortunes. The frailties and failings of people can be seen in anyone so that when
people suffer from what appear to be their own actions, their fate nevertheless may have been beyond
their conscious control.

However the degree of compassion one feels for the other varies on the basis of the degree of
identification. Compassion, empathy, pity, and charity all require the ability to identify with another, to
see in the plight of another what might cause distress in oneself. But since compassion is often felt
towards strangers, this act of identification requires bridging the gap between self and another, when there
exists no obvious connection with the others, or for that matter, the connection is conceptual.

3.3. Disconnecting: When identification is absent

In the way that identification is required to understand compassion, a complete absence of it requires
disidentification- undoing or disconnecting the identification with individuals or groups so as to make
them strangers. In many societies the category of ‘person’ is extended only to members of the particular
tribe or social group. In some tribal languages, a person is someone who is a member of the tribe; others
are not persons and are not due the recognition due humans—an idea that may be exemplified in
contemporary African intertribal brutalities (Mauss, 1985). Compassion may not be extended to the
outsiders. When it is clearly marked as to who is, and who is not ‘us’, the process of disidentification
begins. The repeated brutalities by the Nazis during the Second World War period in Germany on the all
those who were not Germans, are the most infamous evidence of this. The facet of human nature that
includes them being solitary, poor, nasty and brutish is kept in check by self-interest and the universal
fear of death.

4. The Essential Nature of Human Kind

Compassion lies at the heart of being humans. As a social emotion that has to do with the relationships of
people to one another, it therefore raises philosophical, political and ideological questions about the
compassion often tells a lot about a person’s stances. In this regard, Adam Smith (1759/1976) in his 18th-
century Theory of Moral Sentiments very rightly quoted:

“How selfish sever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest
him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from
it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery
of others when we see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.”

In the modern era of democracy and capitalism, it was initially doubted if compassion would live up to
the news emotions of disidenitification that such economic processes were to develop. But as it turned out
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to be, compassion became one of the primary characteristic of

democratic societies. Communities and individuals of the
contemporary world mark themselves on the evidences of their compassion. Philanthropy strives on such
notions. A study by Skitka, 1999 found that attitudes toward public assistance for victims of severe
floods, the political ideology (self-defined) of the respondents was related to their answers to questions
about the appropriateness of monetary help. Even in the context of a natural disaster, respondents sought
out information about the victims’ personal responsibility (e.g., whether they had purchased flood
insurance).

The place of compassion as a motivation for individual or societal behavior, and as one of the foundations
for civil society, is a continual topic of debate (Brown, 1996). Whether compassion stands only as a
passion in opposition to reason, or is inherently a rational one is still a debate (Nussbaum, 1996).

5. Suffering and Compassion

5.1. Nature of Suffering

Compassion demands knowledge of the suffering of others and moves the compassionate person to
action. We have already discussed about the three requirements for compassion, but where does this
knowledge of what others are suffering, who they are and if they are responsible for it, originate from?
Suffering goes above a normal feeling of physical pain, and is highly personal- an affliction of persons. It
occurs when persons perceive their impending destruction or loss of integrity as persons, and it continues
until the threat of disintegration is passed or until the integrity of the person can be restored in some other
manner. It is a state of severe distress associated with events that threaten the intactness of person. It is
not only psychological, or social, or physical; it denies the utility of thinking only in all aspects of the
person.

(Image courtesy: inspiredlivingprojects.com)

A person is more than just a mind, a self or a body. They are the entire complex trajectory through time
and space of the wholes that are made up of their pasts and believed-in futures, their family and their
family’s past, their body and their relationships with their body, relationships with others, day-to-day
behaviors and activities, roles, inculcated culture and society, their political dimension, their secret life,

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their unconscious, and their spiritual dimension. Suffering may

occur in relation to any aspect of the person. And since
everyone is different and distinct from others, suffering always has an individual and unique meaning to,
often marked by self-conflict, profound loss of or change in central purpose, and resistance to the loss of
personal intactness.

5.2. Knowledge about suffering

Suffering is lonely. It happens within our personal spaces and is only physically available to the outside
world. The individualized and personal nature of suffering further adds on to the loneliness, and that only
aggravates suffering. The ones who are suffering may not completely be aware of their suffering and in
their early stages be silent about it. They become expressive and sulky later on as they repeatedly tell the
story of their victimization as though looking for someone to help in their search for a new story in which
they once again become complete (Reich, 1987). Or it might so happen that one knows the sufferer so
well that the roots of his or her suffering are laid bare. But given that we often don’t know ourselves that
well, it is quite improbable. We claim to know them well because of the compassion we have in
identifying with them. The cause of suffering is often so terrible that had it happened to us, we would
have also suffered and therefore our heart goes out to them. There exists no way of assessing suffering
when groups are involved or when those persons experiencing compassion are separated in time or space
from the victims. This leads to blind compassion. And it has two difficulties:

a) It may not appreciate that others suffer even if the onlookers do not believe the cause is great
enough, or onlookers may believe suffering is present when, in fact, victims have risen above the
injury—have grown through their experience and thus are no longer suffering.

b) The compassionate onlooker may not realize that the victims see the injuries as an opportunity to
identify with a larger cause, thus relieving their suffering by giving it meaning

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A compassionate person on an individual level can be aware of the situations the victims are going
through and also experience a direct transfer of feelings. In closer spaces, the compassionate and the
victim share the same universe of dark and light, air, gravity, noise and quietness. Common values, ideas,
beliefs and aesthetics also create our shared worlds and identities. Our knowledge of others is a central
and constantly expanding feature of life. In other words we share community—a “we-ness” where all are
joined—and from which the absence of the sufferer who is withdrawn into the suffering can be
recognized. Thus, compassion is realized through all these methods—identification; knowledge of
behaviors; the sights and sounds of suffering; the transfer of feelings; awareness of the change in goals
and purposes of sufferers; the sense of absence of the sufferer from the group—and through their mutual
reinforcement.

6. Compassion in various realms

6.1. Compassion and Medicine

“A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical services with compassion and respect
for human dignity”. This stands as the first item on American Medical Association’s Principles of
Medical Ethics (1981). The debate as to what is more important, a competent or a compassionate
physician, is still on, as though the two qualities are in conflict, mirroring the dispute over the opposition
between reason and passion. Most believe, however, that compassion should be an inherent part of
medicine and that physicians should be compassionate (Barber, 1976).

In general compassion evokes the desire to do something to relieve the sufferer(s). This wish to help is
not compassion itself, but indicates that it motivates behaviors that reduce the tension brought on by the
emotion. There can be no objection to someone feeling compassion, but there may be problems
associated with the action that might follow. This is why it has been said that unfettered compassion can
be as dangerous as an untrained scalpel. (Cassell, 2009)

Compassion should be desirable in all helpers— whatever their profession. For physicians it has come to
be treated as a virtue because it is directly related to the identification and treatment of suffering.
Physicians concerned only with the manifestations of disease or the exercise of their technologies may
fail to address the suffering that always has its locus in the person rather than only in the body. He or she
fails his duties if they fail to deal with the personal level of dealing with the suffering. The central duties
of physicians are the fiduciary responsibility to put the patient’s interests first, including the duty not to
harm, to deliver proper care, and to maintain confidentiality. And each of these aspects, compassion
increases the awareness of the patients’ interests, increases the probability that care will be tuned to this
patient’s needs and promotes the intimacy of knowledge about each patient that physicians require
(Dougherty & Purtillo, 1995).

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6.2. Compassion and Love

Love is marked by closeness of connection between the loving parties. Lovers might be capable of
experiencing the feelings of the beloved, or know what they are thinking. But here, it is a kind of love
whose desire is to help, to do things for its object, and to obtain the knowledge and information necessary
for right action. Schopenhauer (1969) quoted “All love (caritas) is compassion or sympathy.”

At one end, compassion is the emotion evoked by the suffering of strangers with whom some
identification is possible, and on the other, it is the feeling whose effects make it similar with personal
love.

7. Summary
 Compassion is the word most associated with sufferings of others, an emotion evoked by the
same.
 It is similar to, but essentially different from other related moral qualities like pity, altruism,
social justice etc.
 For the feeling of compassion to be evoked the person has to realize that the troubles are serious,
the victim’s problems are not self-inflicted and should be able to picture themselves with the
same problems.
 Identification with the sufferers is always necessary for compassion to evoke and this connection
can take place in numerous ways.
 As a social emotion, compassion raises philosophical, political and ideological questions and it
often tells a lot about a person’s stances on various issues.
 Knowledge and nature of suffering are important cues for compassion and often form the grounds
of sharing identification.
 In medical profession, compassionate understanding of patient’s problems facilitates the healing
procedure and also enhances trust.
 Compassion also makes bonds of love stronger as it helps in understanding the other person more
closely and with more affection.

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PSYCHOLOGY Paper no.9: POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

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