empathy and its limits

A contradiction about empathy I've been thinking about: to have empathy for someone or for a group of people, you're supposed to try and understand their perspectives, lives, feelings, etc. But on the other hand, it seems like a necessary component of empathy is recognizing that you can never really understand what someone else's life is like, you can never really feel what they feel; at some point you just have to accept what they are telling you about their lives instead of trying to, I don't know, absorb their lives into yours. It feels like there are so many people who are resistant to the second part, who feel like if they can't understand some aspect of someone else's life, it must not be real, because they are an "empathic person."

I think it's as much about making the effort to learn another individual's language so that you come as close as possible to understanding them (even while acknowledging that you'll never fully understand anyone).

The closest I've ever gotten to real empathy, I think, is realizing that I could never really understand how another person thinks or experiences the world. It's impossible to really "get it" ... we can guess at what emotions we share b/t similar experiences, and not everyone's even like that. What's empathy with one person is misplaced w/ another, even if it's accurate with a hundred others. Maybe it's just permanently self-reflexive.

say, because of our inherent limits of knowledge, we can only see other people reflecting off a mirror inside ourselves. and the degree to which we can empathize depends on how well developed that inner state is.

A contradiction about empathy I've been thinking about: to have empathy for someone or for a group of people, you're supposed to try and understand their perspectives, lives, feelings, etc. But on the other hand, it seems like a necessary component of empathy is recognizing that you can never really understand what someone else's life is like, you can never really feel what they feel; at some point you just have to accept what they are telling you about their lives instead of trying to, I don't know, absorb their lives into yours.

empathy vs sympathy, right? we empathize to the extent that we can relate, sympathize to the extent we can't.

the relation in empathy, i think, is about relating to, or especially creating, the shared space in a venn diagram of individuals

The subtleties and nuances of anyone's emotional life are not accessible to others, but empathy usually occurs at a different level. There are strong and universal signals that people broadcast when they are in the throes of a strong emotion and empathy not only reads these signals, but vividly recalls the experience of similar emotions. Crudely put, it is why, if one first grader vomits, all the rest feel nauseous. In a less crude form, a particularly empathetic person in the presence of a joyful person will vividly recall what it is to feel joy, or conversely feel the tears of a crying person, not as the other person feels them, but as they have felt tears themselves in the past.

Bill Clinton was consciously using the language of empathy when he famously said he felt somebody else's pain. He may have been faking it, but the phenomenon is not fake. The contradiction NA spoke of can only be defined and understood intellectually, but empathy itself is a very non-intellectual thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/29/does-empathy-guide-or-hinder-moral-action

jamil v paul

amazingly, the author of "against empathy" comes across as annoying

anybody else as annoyed w/ this video as me? I was forced to watch this at work today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

not watching that, but I very much relate to brown’s concept of the “vulnerability hangover”

maybe it’s not her concept idk lol

It's interesting that Branwell's idea that the only use for empathy is to keep men from beating up women is almost mainstream now.

It looks like Brené Brown did write about "vulnerability hangover."

I liked that video when I watched it, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

The video illustrates the difference between reacting with empathy, which according to Brown fosters connection, and reacting with sympathy, which according to Brown highlights differences. There is probably a relationship between the video and the concept of "vulnerability hangover" in that they both concern how to foster emotional connection and why it feels bad when that emotional connection is not present.

Thought these days people usually contrasted empathy with compassion. Maybe that’s what sympathy means here.

That's possible too.

There's another video I've seen (can't find it now) showing a father reacting to a child coming to him about some unfairness she experienced at school. It shows the difference between the dad immediately jumping into "fix it" mode without really pausing to sit in the bad feelings with the child, and the dad sitting for a while affirming and validating the girl's bad feelings for as long as the girl needs, then gently being open to the "what do you think we should do now?" type of conversation.

Both involve compassion. But that middle part - the sitting with the "wow, that feels really bad, that was really unfair" part without immediately going into action is maybe the "empathy" bit and is a little underrated I think.

I think it’s a cute video and explains the concept quite clearly. Empathy is hard though - perspective-taking, recognising emotion and communicating that emotion - these things take practice. I think the part about ‘withholding judgment” is maybe the easiest part, but it’s also quite hard?

Perhaps the video is judgmental about sympathy and that’s why it’s annoying? I know it’s just an excerpt from a larger piece, but I think what the video doesn't say and should is, “empathy is hard and it’s okay to get it wrong”.

And of course for some people logic-ing out a problem (“at least…”) is easier than thinking about feelings. Not everyone’s ready to think and talk about their feelings - it’s okay to stay cognitive.

I think the reason I was annoyed was a lot of reasons, and not all of them might be fair, because it also involves the context in which the video was used, which was not something that Brene Brown greenlit or authorized.

I think I took issue with the ridiculous, caricaturic way "sympathy" was portrayed, and the indication that it is essentially useless, while not really acknowledging that there might be contexts in which it may be appropriate. but also "I know what it's like down here" as an example of empathy rings funny as I literally just read two articles saying doing that is not a good example of empathy, not to impose your own previous experience unless it's sought out. and likewise, "I don't even know what to say right now", like...one of my friends has actually pointed this out as unhelpful when said.

I also don't think sympathy is always inherently judgmental or "perspective-tainted" (well at least xxx).

but mostly I objected to the way this was used in a lesson where the facilitator (again, not Brene Brown, so a bit unfair to do the guilt by association) pivoted to give pre-populated "empathy phrases" that we can use, and to me that struck me as the opposite of empathy, because it boiled it down to a template where "hey, here are some examples of things you can lift or modify and now you're showing empathy, congrats", while eliminating the actual work.

granted, it was a WORK presentation, so I guess that's to be expected.

ultimately, I tend to gravitate towards empathy when I help my friends - but there's a great variance between everybody in my life on the support they want. which is, of course, the work of empathy, being in the moment and not just having a cookie-cutter approach to support.

I recall one day having my autistic friend upset and talking to me about something that she was upset about. The example given above, with the father and daughter...this is a reasonable example! I actually was using that approach, active listening, asking questions to understand her feelings better, affirming, validating, and at one point, she got upset and said "I fucking know my feelings are valid, I don't need you reminding me of how shitty I feel right now, just because I have a right to feel that way!". and asked me to stop asking questions as it was overwhelming her. and stopped talking to me for a few hours.

that's ok, nothing is one size fits all, and the next time we talked, I tried a different approach and tried to truly hear her better. but other times...the previous approach was fine for her and it didn't make her upset - because all situations are different. And, weirdly enough, I don't make it a habit to insert myself into trying to solve the problem, but sometimes she actually starts to drop hints that she wants advice while being too shy to ask outright. People are complex, context matters! it's cool. my feelings aren't hurt, it's not about me. but point being...I learned all this over like, six years with the friend.

Whereas another one of my best friends, the approach felicity described above is pretty much the approach she wants every time, without variance.

Idk I guess my general feeling is sometimes there's a grand oversimplification of the 'right way' to do things when in reality life is messy and it takes a lot of trial and error, which I guess is also Brene Brown's point too, but sometimes it felt a little lost.

FIN

I do use preformatted empathy phrases myself, but I script most of my conversations with people since otherwise it would take too long to think something up and my hesitant speech problems are bad enough already.

oh I completely understand that. actually any time I make a phone call that's to a business or regarding a matter that's not easy to explain, or if I'm going into a tough meeting at work, I pretty much have to write out what i'm going to say.

my apologies if I was dismissive in previous post. it does illustrate everybody has to find what works for them in addition to the other person!.

brene brown to me basically _is_ west coast culture... i don't know if she's west coast or not, but the stuff she says, it's, like, so central to the west coast culture i know. i grew up on the east coast and had a strong suspicion of all this language of "compassion", which i perceived as something that was weaponized a lot

then i moved out here and said oh no actually i love this, i believe in this, this is so different from the east coast unrepentant asshole bullshit i grew up with

recently i've started to realize that it is something that gets weaponized a lot... not necessarily on purpose. i've done it, weaponized, like, being "understanding". sometimes being an asshole is just something a person needs to do.

the thing that can be challenging about empathy is... i am not on twitter but last year i did see a lot of memes making fun of people who identified as "empaths" and the bullshit they got up to. well, i don't know what those memes were about but it seemed like a whole big thing. the framing i'm aware of is what gets called in certain MH circles "highly sensitive person". like, my problem with empathy is that i have a difficult time telling the difference between myself and other people. and that _does_ cause problems. that, to me, that's one of the big limits of empathy.

I recall one day having my autistic friend upset and talking to me about something that she was upset about. The example given above, with the father and daughter...this is a reasonable example! I actually was using that approach, active listening, asking questions to understand her feelings better, affirming, validating, and at one point, she got upset and said "I fucking know my feelings are valid, I don't need you reminding me of how shitty I feel right now, just because I have a right to feel that way!". and asked me to stop asking questions as it was overwhelming her. and stopped talking to me for a few hours.

― never trust a big book and a simile (Neanderthal)

see, that's the thing, a lot of times empathy can come off as... condescending. i've seen people i know get upset at being called "valid", like, sometimes i _do_ need permission to feel how i feel and sometimes i'm very aware that "that's valid" is a great way to _not_ say "i agree", sometimes god dammit being _right_ is more important to me than being "valid". of course often i'm _not_ actually right during those times, and often that's why it pisses me off when someone calls me "valid" instead of "right"...

Yeah, "valid" implies judgment. I find that saying something like, "Yeah, that makes sense to me," and then saying why it makes sense to me if the other person wants to know, gets us much further.

Hearing "you're right" and "that makes sense to me" definitely feel very good for most people I think. Maybe it helps to know what the other person is looking for.

From my perspective, it's when it doesn't "make sense to me" is where the work or limit of empathy may begin. It's possible what the other person is feeling doesn't make sense to me (or possibly even to them) but that's ok, people are different. What they are describing doesn't have to make sense to me for me to treat it as important to the other person.

They're not me, that's the whole point, that's why empathy for people different from ourselves, not just people like ourselves, is needed. At least that's how I understand the particular definition of empathy in that Brown video.