empathy as adversarial

I figure that its about the person's values. To some people, a nice comment from someone makes their whole entire day, and they are bouncing around for weeks. For others, they realise that this comment has been thrown around like hotcakes to everyone within a 5 mile radius, thus it is an empty and meaningless comment and therefore is unnecessary. It depends on the person really.

I find those sorts of comments to be redundant. Unless the comment somehow fixes or has some sort of effect on the issue at hand, then they are not necessary. Just like any other "technique" the therapist has... if it is not of any use then stop using it. I wish that a comment like "that must have really hurt" and nothing but a bit of empathy could have some kind of positive effect on my mental illness. But unfortunately they are more complicated than that !!

I apologise if this point has already been made - I'm a bit cross-eyed after reading the whole thread in one go. Logically, an empathetic response, as well as a feeling that "normal is good", must have had a specific function in that people who stayed outside the "flock" would have a lower chance of survival because they would not have access to common resources and others' skills, and would also lower others' chance of survival because they would deprive others of their own skills. If you are able to understand what others feel - which is what empathy is all about - it is more likely that you will modify your behaviour to be beneficial to them and not just to yourself. And vice versa, if others are able to understand what you feel. An evolutionary trait, plain and simple.

Personally, I find it both helpful and upsetting when I get a genuinely empathetic response. It's genuinely frightening that somebody might understand how I think and feel. It can still be comforting in a weird way - but the rote "that must have felt x" response is just annoying, both because it feels phony and tired and because it's usually either obviously true or not true at all. And I don't need a T to tell me how something must have felt - I need him to help me understand how something actually felt! Current T hasn't done the rote answer thing, and hopefully won't. Previous Ts did.

And I definitely do not want to be normal... but there is very little risk of that ever happening

OK, I admit that my concept of a "regular conversation" does not conform to this. Possibly because I do not talk about my experiences with people - or when I do, the result usually is not very good.

I can differentiate empathy from sympathy. Sympathy, in general, rather makes me grumpy. It's when the other person feels obliged to respond. and I am obliged to make the other person feel better or respond. Sympathy is the the "there there" response and can feel entirely dismissive and patronizing.

Empathy, on the other hand, is completely different. Most of the time empathy can go completely unspoken.

You do spend a lot of time look at the glass rather than through it. Imagine if you tried to drive while focusing on the windshield rather than the road.

I wonder what would happen if you took that analytical mind and looked objectively at your therapy and your therapist. I wonder what you would really see.

Stop Dog - for me the whole, "I'm sorry that occurred." or "That must have felt awful", statements illicit a combination of - No S H I T Sherlock , ugh thanks? WTF - irritated, (would have preferred silence)
As far as the over the top response to my CSA, see above response.
Intellectually I understand why they do it, they are trying to show me it wasn't as NORMAL as I have made it out to be. That is was a Bigger deal then I see it as.
Emotional it gets all over me and I want to punch them in the face. I think I became such an expert at removing the emotional effects of my childhood, that for them to try to bring that back makes me angry. I see no point in it, I am detached from it and have packed it away already.... and don't get me started on crying and how useless I think that is ( oddly enough only for me ). Apparently from what I read, I am to find those buried emotions and process them in turn I will be able to accept empathy and heal. I feel like my broken arm has healed and they want to re break it, just to set it and allow it to heal, Again! and somewhere in that whole mess I see any emotional reaction , other then anger as weakness.That's my 2 cents.

So stopdog, what if you were telling me about your experience, and I, as someone who went through something similar, just said, "good god, that sucks. I'm so sorry that happened to you, too." And you know that I am genuinely and truly sorry it happened, and I have some clue how you feel. Does that irritate you? If you and I were having a conversation in real life, should I keep those comments to myself?

Just to clarify, it was my first response in this thread that I felt dismissed, as if your first impulse was just to say "no" to me, no hankster, you got it wrong again. I think that's what triggers me to use "humor" in my later posts? - reacting as I used to with my mother. I see us as both having dismissive avoidant attachment, but we turned out differently because of factors such as birth order, culture (italian here), generation (I'm middle boomer, you're later), etc. I don't ever mean to make fun of you; I have tonnes of respect for you, and I totally value that when i make a joke, you get it; that doesn't come cheap. So yeah maybe I do tend to indulge myself a little more with you. But not because you can take it or deserve it; but because I think you'd appreciate it, as you say, our being playful. Maybe i'm not as subtly witty as I think I am.
So here, my point was not what YOU thought of my T's comment, my point was I did find it aversive, and you ignored - dismissed - my saying that.

You know - I see your point. It's a subtle difference. The problem is, it's a very slippery conversation. We would have to parse it out to reach some agreement.
00 - If condition is awful and comment is benign then how does that help me? 01 - If condition is awful and comment is heartfelt then how does that help me?
10 - If condition is good and comment is benign then how does that help me?
11 - If condition is good and comment is heartfelt then how does that help me?

So I think we can see, it doesn't matter wtf the conditions are, the question always comes down to, how can this r/s help me?

I am having trouble with this. Implies to me that the person making the statement does not feel it. I don't believe we can know what others feel, they have to tell us and I see no point in my saying to you, "I cannot tell you how sorry I am that this happened" if I am not. I would say such a thing so you know where I am in relation to you and your life/situation, to acknowledge that I am listening.

My feelings are mine and anything that arises from you as a result of my expressing myself is yours. The words are not as important as the relationship. If a child says, "I hate you!" and "means" it to his mother, that is probably perceived differently by her than if a teenager says it or a spouse/lover or friend says it. If I expressed my empathy here to you as a result of something you wrote, your response would be different than if your T expressed empathy as a result of something you said in therapy but your perception would be all yours, not a result of the other person's expression of their empathy.

Reading the therapeutic language/communication books is helping me (say this to the client for this effect). They are helping make the concept of what they mean by the process make a little more sense as well as their tortured use of language. So not an unuseful exercise for me.
This was one of them: by Paul Wachtel
Therapeutic-Communication-Second-Edition-Knowing What to Say When

Having them validated at all - that's what is important for me - as I learn to trust myself and learn the whole "me validating me" thing. I was brought up in a family that thought and still think that "feelings" and "emotions" are bad things. And it just so happens that feelings and emotions are what I am all about.
It's the poet in me, which I have found back thanks to my t. I had stopped writing many-many years ago and just locked up that part of myself and by working with my t we found the dungeon I'd locked my writer self up in, and opened it up and set it free. That's been a major high point of my therapy in the last 8 months is that I'm writing again, which all started with my t saying to me "what's wrong with that? You were feeling it." about something I'd told her. I don't know if I explained or not........ i tried!

Of course, when a complicated subject arises like the question you pose, Stopdog, my first reaction is to ask you to define the term 'empathy' as you understand it.

And then we can progress to the question 'is it empathy that is irritating or is it how empathy is expressed or is it the doubt that it's really empathy?"

For me, empathy is knowing I'm being heard and maybe even understood. Life is lonely and loneliness is lack of human connection. We are wired to connect to other human beings.

Difficult life situations and the subsequent result of difficult emotional states exist in our lives. Having another person empathize can take the edge off of some of the pain felt.

Now, for me, words might turn me off. I know words are cheap and easily used. Words can be irritating and words can grate against the sensitivity of my raw feelings.

I'm lucky because my therapist does not use a lot of words. I'm lucky because I feel her empathy. How is this helpful, you ask?

Simply and purely, just as a cry in the dark seeks a listener, the expression of pain yearns for at least one person on earth who can 'hear' it. We humans need each other. We are put on Earth, I believe, to help and support each other. Not just in practical and obvious ways but also in deep emotional ways.

We seek love, we seek connection, we seek the lightness of being, we seek that which is ineffable.

And empathy felt is one incredible powerful way to achieve that which we want the most - love. It can open our heart and allow us to give and receive freely.

The books on therapeutic communication are describing what I am talking about as empathic. That is where I am getting the term. My reaction is not the point of the thread - just wondered if others saw themselves reacting to it as aversive because it is always described as a rare or less usual response and I would not have thought it so. From the responses here, I guess it is not as much the usual response as I would have predicted.

I have about had it with empathy in real life right now. This board is the only place where it isn't making me homicidal. My husband keeps checking to make sure I'm fine after terminating. I apparently look like hell today because nearly everyone at work asked me various annoying questions to make sure I was ok.

I am good at self-soothing and it is interrupting my flow. I don't want the reminder that something hard is happening. I remind myself enough. Quit telling me it is hard, you know? Feeling bad on my behalf doesn't fix my crappy problem.

I don't know how this got to be such a long thread so fast and I freely admit that I haven't read it all yet, but YES! Oh my god, YES! ME TOO.

Ok, now that I got that response out of the way. I think it hit a nerve because I came from a therapy session today that really sucked, partly for this reason. Yeah, stopdog, I totally get what you mean. If I tell him something, and he responds "I think that's sad." or "You're in a lot of pain." or whatever, my response is just "So ****ing what?" And feeling irritable. What am I supposed to say?

I didn't realize this response was particularly uncommon, either. We went round and round today about why I feel this way, and I really couldn't figure it out, which is amazing considering I have so much perception about other people.

It is why therapy does not work for me. The therapist is the enemy.

That's how it's supposed to work - the T represents the person(s) you have unresolved anger towards, ie your enemy. The idea is, if you can consciously access and "process" those thoughts and feelings in T, you can release their hold on you, and then they won't unconsciously drive your actions IRL.

But of course you know that. We all KNOW that. Still I spent over 20 years yelling at, not working with, my T's.

You said you liked having pneumonia. It sounded like you got some alone time? No offense, but is your partner a good r/s for you, or is there stress? Are you getting put down, made to feel less than? I am asking cos that's how my mother made me feel, that's the kind of r/s I got in, and T only worked when I left my mother and any r/s. (there were overlaps with my t's and r/s, if I remember my ancient history )

Stopdog, have you ever just arbitrarily decided you wanted to believe something else, "try it on" and see what happens? As a child, I sometimes would climb on top of my dresser in the bedroom and look at the room from that angle, for example

Perception; this is good/this is bad, empathy is adversarial, the therapist is the enemy; is all ours and can be arbitrary, just based on habit rather than what we might be feeling. It's like what we expect to see and reminds me of those science shows about perception and attention, where they ask you to count how many times a team of 5 bounces basketballs and in the middle a gorilla walks through and you don't see it. http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/g...xperiment.html

So, sometimes I just "assume" the opposite of what I am having trouble with, see what things look like from there. I picture my therapist sitting next to me on a bench, like a friend might, instead of across from me like a judge/principal/teacher, etc. It gets much easier for me to talk to the person/T :-) Or I decide the angry person across from me is hungry, or frightened, maybe has too many stresses going on in their life at the moment; make up a story or not about them, and I don't mind their anger so much anymore, I'm better able to think and try to stay calm, reasonable, factual (repetitive in what I am saying so it has a chance to get through the unthinking anger and register with the other person) instead of letting the situation get out of hand.

What if therapy did work for you? What might that look like? What if your therapist (the specific one you see now) were not an enemy but on your side, how might that feel/affect you?

I liked pneumonia because I can sleep whenever I try to do so instead of my usual insomnia, nightmares etc. that I have had my whole life.

The times I have tried to view the therapist as a non-enemy, it has been worse because then when she attacks and mocks me-I have left myself open to it. But it is more that for some of us - the therapeutic parts that are supposed to be the nice ones - are not. It is not just me - the books have a category of us for whom this is the experience.

So sorry therapy doesn't work for you.

That's not empathy, that's potential smothering and can help cause those homicidal thoughts; tell him to knock it off or you'll go where he ain't! He can believe what you tell him (you're fine) or not but the "keeps checking" is for his own benefit, not yours!

Then we just have to find the NEXT book. now that a thing has been spotted, not necessarily identified, Shirley, someone else, has seen it too. This is why my apartment leans to the north

As to why I keep doing it, there are any number of reasons - knowing the enemy is useful, I may have other things I can learn from the interaction, etc.

The info in the books on communication itself have been very very useful to me. There is a segment of the therapy going world who do react like I do to their manipulations and machinations. I am not wrong for having the reactions I do.

stopdog, I almost hit the hugs button for you on the above post, but stopped myself. I am sorry that you got a mean post in response to just asking if other people ever feel the way you did. If hugs were okay with you, I would totally hug you. As it is, I'm sitting over here, on my side of the room, simply expressing my opinion that you get to ask a question without being judged, but NOT empathizing with you or anything like that.

And just to clarify what I said before, I initially did have a similar response to my T. I would get angry, upset and confused. My response was about not knowing what the price for his kindness was, and also just confusion. Why would HE be sorry about that particular thing? Or like you, what difference did it make how I felt about it? OF COURSE that was horrifying. Now what? How does acknowledging it was horrifying FIX anything. All I can say is that over the course of time, I trusted that he wasn't going to ask a price from me at all (beyond the payment for the session). I felt like I was not so alone and not such a freak when he empathized with me. So, eventually, for me the anger and fear and weirdness around the empathy subsided. I hope that eventually happens for you as well, and you can receive the kindness and caring without anger or fear.

I'm hugging you anyway. I'm in the throes of terminating, you have to be nice and just tolerate me. So neener neener.

I learn a lot about myself from your threads.

This puzzled me as a reason for going to therapy. If you did not go to T, you presumably would not have any contact with Ts. So I am not seeing in what way would it matter whether you knew them or not.

I still have some clients I represent where psychiatrists and therapists are on the other side. Sometimes I have to get one for my side. So I do come into contact with them as adversaries and sometimes as useful tools for my client.
Plus I have stolen some of their techniques and used them to success. Information is always good.
Plus it is good to know enemies in general I think.