Jum'ah Journal--Sympathy and Empathy

.۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔۔ و خلق الا نسان ضعیفا" (Sura4, Aya 28)
.....And Man is created weak.
My full heartfelt sympathies with the unfortunate victims of the undoctorly and inhuman behavior of Major Malik Hasan.
The word Sympathy is described as "sameness of feelings or affinity between pesrsons-- agreement in qualities, harmony--mutual liking arising from sameness of feeling-sharing or ability to share another person's mental state or emotions etc. especially compassion for another person's sufferings or troubles." (Webster's Dic.)
Empathy is described as "the projection of one's own personality into that of another or into an object--intellectual or emotional identification with another". (Webster's)
Strictly speaking both words have one common aspect--COMPASSION which in Urdu we call "غم خواری-or -ھمدردی".
There is a fine line between the two feelings as you have guessed. I learnt to empathise with the patients during the one year I spent in training of psychiatry before taking up the love of my life--Neurology. Indeed I benefitted a lot from that experience.
A psychiatrist is in the "business of feelings and emotions" of the patients and he/she has to keep his own personality safe from being affected (which would be sympathy) in order to be objective in helping his/her patients and not losing the compassion. This is a tricky situation and walking on a thin line but essential for the psychiatrist because otherwise his/her goal to treat the patient's mental health is jeopardized .
I know all of us came out with "OMG, not again" when we first saw Dr. Hasan Malik's photo on the TV and all that media circus that goes with it including him being dead for many hours and then the Commander General coming on in the evening saying, "No he is alive" So much for the Journalism. But I understand that access to military areas can be limited and this mis-reporting can be forgiven perhaps.
It appears that this man has been trained by Army and he must have chosen Psychiatry as his line of action which is even more noble in my opinion for the kind of patients he wanted to help. How he turned into Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jeckle is beyond comprehension (but probably understandable)although they report he was irritated on deployment to Iraq, had some other attitude problems which seem to indicate he was unaware of his Muslim obligations or he was not fully aware of them. A Muslim physician is always ready to offer help to the patients no matter who and where and no matter he is remunerated or not because he is rewarded by Allah for the job and that he/she should always keep in mind.
The physician, however, is still human and that 'weakness' (S.4, Aya 28 above) is still there. I think that being overwhelmed may have caused the change - sympathising more than empathising -and he became a patient himself, only Allah knows the truth.
Although I had alreay decided for myself what I would pursue as my line of action I do remember one of the factors in NOT taking up psychiatry as my carrier was the headache I used to feel after my morning interviews with all kind of patients (general Psychiatry)
May Allah help us all, and give sabr to the bereaved families.