What Is Compersion? Therapists Break Down the Opposite of Jealousy

We recently asked a sex therapist about the words that she wishes people would use more often, and one of her answers was a term we'd never heard before: compersion. “Compersion is about feeling love for your partner as they enjoy something or someone else,” Rosara Torrisi, PhD from the Long Island Institute of Sex Therapy, told us. In other words, it’s the opposite of jealousy. And it can be seriously beneficial to your relationships, as psychologist Joli Hamilton, PhD explains below.

• Rosara Torrisi is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. She graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science in Social Work. She earned a Master of Education in Human Sexuality from Widener University and her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality. She is a tenure-track assistant professor at Widener University and guest lecturer nationwide, teaching courses about sexuality, sex therapy and disabilities.
• Joli Hamilton has a Ph.D. in Jungian and archetypal psychology and is a certified sex educator. She uses her experience becoming consensually non-monogamous as well as her graduate studies and research into the archetypal experience of jealousy in her public education work and individual therapy practice.

Compersion is a form of sympathetic joy in which Person A experiences positive thoughts and emotions when they know about Person B's positive experience, even if Person A gets nothing out of it for themself. According to a UC Berkeley publication, the term's origins date back to the 1990s in the now-disbanded San Francisco polyamorous group the Kerista community. Thouin points out that although the neologism is relatively recent, similar concepts of selfless love have precedents in world religions, such as Buddhism's state of mudita and Christianity's agapé.

“Jealousy is normal,” says Hamilton, who's also a brilliant TED-talk leader. In fact, psychologists can see it from the age of six months (cue Junior wailing when mommy holds another baby) and it only gets more complicated as we get older. “People feel it more or less strongly, more or less frequently, but no matter where you are on the jealousy spectrum, it’s not a moral failing to feel jealous,” she explains. “It’s what we do with jealousy that matters.”

Fighting jealousy or trying to get rid of it is not the solution. In fact, this will just lead to even more feelings of jealousy. And here’s something else you should know about the green-eyed monster: There doesn’t actually need to be a real threat in order for jealousy to exist… jealousy can attack through the imagination. In other words, jealousy can invent a problem or rival (like that time you got upset that your S.O. was playing video games with his friends all night instead of spending time with you). This can trick us into thinking that our relationship is in danger. But remember, jealousy itself isn’t the problem—it’s what you do with it.

When jealousy tries to take over (“He doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore” or “She’s totally flirting with that waitress”), rather than let the fear of losing your partner overwhelm you, Hamilton advocates moving toward compersion.

Hamilton says that "polyamorous people do their best to treat jealousy as a valuable teacher, an indicator that they care deeply about someone, then then they take steps to move away from the fear and move instead towards jealousy’s opposite." She explains that "compersion isn’t about destroying jealousy, it's about turning toward joy and turning toward each other, instead of turning away, which is the result of jealousy."

"Evolutionary psychologists explain that jealousy is a natural and even necessary way of protecting our DNA lineage and hoarding the resources that a partner may provide," Hamilton says, in what is usually taken as biological justification for possessiveness and sexual fidelity. "I don’t think this is the whole picture, because as humans we also excel at overriding our instinctual drives—we donate organs to strangers, we raise children who aren’t biologically our own, we rescue people from burning buildings." The practice of aspiring toward compersion—while still honoring agreed-upon parameters of the relationship, from fidelity to a unique depth of emotional intimacy—can lead to greater satisfaction within the relationship.

• First, take a deep breath or pause. Do this when you feel a jealous rage coming on.
• Next, notice that you’re feeling something. Jealousy can often manifest itself physically (like a tightness in the chest or a scrunched up face). Look for those cues and relax through it, advises Hamilton.
• Admit that you’re feeling jealous. Allow yourself to own this uncomfortable feeling without judgement. Think about the other emotions that you’re feeling.
• Work on your self-talk. Here are some phrases that Hamilton suggests you employ: “I’m feeling jealous and I can manage my jealousy” or “I’m feeling jealous and I don’t need my partner to change something” or “I feel jealous and I’m a good person.”

By going through with the above steps, you will move closer to compersion and figuring out what would serve you in the moment—whether that’s more closeness, wanting to be seen or perhaps even some time alone.

Here’s an example of what that might look like: Let’s say that you go to a party and your partner spends the evening working the room and mingling with others. In fact, every time you look over, it seems like your S.O. is laughing and having a good time with an attractive and charming guest. Meanwhile, you’ve been stuck talking to Mr. Let-Me-Tell-You-About-My-Cats for the last 40 minutes. Do you A. start an argument on the way home about it? Or B. take a deep breath, tune into your body, notice that you’re feeling jealous and tell yourself that you can figure this one out?

If you go with option B, you’ll probably feel better about yourself tomorrow morning and you may even realize that seeing your partner having fun and being so engaged and desirable is actually pretty cool. Boom—compersion. 

“Compersion doesn’t ask us not to be jealous or accept whatever we’ve been presented without question” says Hamilton. In fact, she stresses how important it is to set boundaries and ask for what you want. (“Hey, when we go to a party, I’d really like it if we could check in with each other every so often.”)

It goes without saying that compersion works best when employed in relationships that are loving, communicative and consensual. (In other words, there’s no need to turn to compersion if you’re jealous because your partner is cheating on you and you’re not in an open relationship.) But as relationship counselors and researchers have found, in both polyamorous and monogamous relationships, jealousy need not be the bitter end point of a relationship, and moving toward compersion might be a beneficial goal for the individual and the relationships itself.

“But when jealousy plants a seed of despair, compersion says—hold on, let’s not water that,” explains Hamilton.