Sympathy is the direct experiencing of someone else's emotion or suffering. Sympathy is itself an emotion. Sympathy is the emotional equivalent of the feeling of empathy - the difference is that sympathy directly experiences the emotion of the other, while empathy understands and has compassion for the emotional state of the other, but does not experience it. Because sympathy is often accompanied by compassion and/or understanding , it is often confused with these feelings, and described as a feeling, rather than an emotion.