Taken from her talk here

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by deedub81.

While I generally agree with what she is saying, trying to empathize with someone with whom you can't, can make you seem phony.
I've had the opportunity to spend some time with people stricken with quadriplegia over the last few years, and most people can not even begin to understand what it's like to deal with that.

I think this is stupid. She completely misrepresents sympathy.
Sympathy is sharing emotion. Empathy is the ability to share emotion.

*health

Adding video to channels (Health) - requested by brycewi19.

Though I don't think this is stupid, one does not get to simply make up new definitions of words.

That's what this lady is doing. She is wrong.

sym·pa·thy
[sim-puh-thee]
noun - harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.
or
the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.

em·pa·thy
[em-puh-thee]
noun - the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Sympathy does not imply disconnect as she is trying so desperately to redefine. Rather, just the opposite. Though empathy is a very important thing to convey to another, it is an effort to TRY to understand one's feeling. Sympathy is the ability to ACTUALLY feel the other.

In a career field of caring (e.g. mental health therapist), sympathy can be dangerous mainly because the over-identification of an emotion with someone can lead to enmeshment and lack of perspective along with a difficult time centering one's self and self-caring after the other has left.

As others have said, her examples of sympathy weren't sympathetic.She seems to be equating superficial/conversational sympathy with true sympathy.

I can't imagine what it's like to be a quadriplegic, but you can always listen empathetically and TRY to understand.