Sympathy VS Empathy

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Sympathy is a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Although empathy and sympathy are often used interchangeably, a subtle variation in ordinary usage can be detected. To empathize is to respond to another's perceived emotional state by experiencing feelings of a similar sort.[1] Sympathy not only includes empathizing, but also entails having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person.[2]

In common usage, sympathy is usually making known one's understanding of another's unhappiness or suffering, especially when it is grief. Sympathy can also refer to being aware of other (positive) emotions as well.

I think there's a big confusion because the popular definitions of empathy and sympathy are very broad and overlap. This is probably due to the general public not understanding the distinction in the original definition. The definition is going to vary between sources because some sources will only include the traditional "correct" meaning while others will try to accommodate common understanding by including additional meanings that are somewhat broader and extraneous to the original "correct" meaning. In that case it's a matter of philosophy, whether it's more important to conserve the precise meaning or to accommodate popular understanding. Some might argue the latter because language is fluid and meanings change over time, thus the only "correct" definition is based on how words are actually used, not based on what's said in a dictionary.

Anyways, I think neurologists use the more traditional meaning of empathy which has more to do with understanding than feeling. In other words, a person can have empathy without compassion or sympathy. For instance, a scam artist could have empathy in that they understand the emotions of their victims and use this understanding to manipulate them. However, few people in the general public would ever use the word this way. To the general public empathy implies both an emotional understanding plus some degree of sympathy and/or compassion.