empathy as adversarial

Because YOU (stopdog) are impervious to csa?

MKAC - you could tell me to quitcher anytime.

No. Because she was over the top.

How do you define "over the top?"

yabbut I get the impression she can hardly say boo to you and she gets accused of reacting, never mind overreacting. dr john has whole disks dedicated to "she said that must have been awful for you and I want to kill her now" threads

are you sure you don't just have some form of no-itis? I would automatically say no to everything my T said, unless he (verbally) conked me on the head first. I once told the FOO, "You guys disagree with everything I say!" They went, "No we don't!" I said, "Aha!" They were like, oh that didn't count...

Told my t so many times, I CAN'T stand it when someone states the obvious: That must have hurt, blah, blah....I still do the eye roll.

Drama queeny and use of language/body response that was out of proportion to what was described.

I am not unknown to be appreciative of understatement. If this dr. john (who?) has whole disks of it - then others must share my sensibilities.
It is hardly an accusation to point it out if she is actually reacting and over reacting. Now if she wants to explain how the over-reaction is useful to me and I buy it - then okay. That might be different.

I don't understand you stopdog, so I won't try to comment about empathy. I like when people empathize with me so we are world's apart. About normalcy, however. I liked when my T said in response to what I thought was abnormal "what's normal anyway? Who said it was so good to be normal?" I've already forgotten her exact words but it helped more than if she had said "So you feel you're abnormal!"

Suppose you tell T of a painful incident. Let's say that the exact word for your feeling about the incident is disillusioned.

Here are two possible empathetic responses from T:

1. "You must feel so hurt."

2. "You must feel so disillusioned."

How (if at all) does your reaction differ between these two responses?

My reaction does not differ at all. Does yours?

As I understand it, the theoretical point of aiming for accurate empathy is that a person who is accurately understood might be willing to reveal more in therapy, and, that, it is hoped, can lead to a more productive discussion.

I would react differently to the two statements. My mental reaction to the first one would be very much like has been expressed on this thread: Obviously, I feel hurt. Anyone could see that. So what is the use of this T? Why would I want to discuss anything with her/him?

On the other hand, my mental reaction to the second response would be something like: This person understands exactly how I feel about this incident. Perhaps I can talk more with her/him about this incident, and about other painful incidents as well.

Bill3 -the books described what you are saying. It was the type of response the sample client usually gave and for that type of reason in certain circumstances.

I am not aware if my therapist does this. Maybe she does and I'm just insensitive to it.

My pet peeve question is "How does that make you feel?" I always feel like such an idiot because the answer is usually "bad" or "I don't know." And it also sounds manufactured. I guess I wish she would say something that give me a clue to how I should feel (I know, I know...no "shoulds). Kind of like the opposite of what you're talking about.

My T asked me that once, and I just stopped and looked at him. I finally said, "really, T? Really? You're a better therapist than that." He looked kind of sheepish and said he was really tired.

I read a book on ostracism this year that said after you've been ostracised enough times, you do stop feeling. so this is literally not a valid question for some of us. my T that made me feel like a doofus for not being able to answer this for 15 years is dead now, cos otherwise I would show her the study.

ETA: it then becomes t's job to restore feelings in us.

Still, if that doesn't work for you then a T should be doing something different.

stopdog--do you think you lack empathy towards others? you said you had to learn it by watching others' reactions. would you say you genuinely care for someone, or people? because i can't see how you can truly care for someone/something and not have empathy.

in response: i'm not a huge fan of it in therapy. i agree with what other people are saying, i think T's say it to make sure they are on track with what you are saying. if T says "that must have hurt," you can agree or disagree and go forward. my T doesn't do it too often, and i have yet to be like "YES, I'M HEARD" lol. I also am not a huge fan of normalization. I often think "Yeah...so what?"

I have empathy. I had to learn how to convey it to others in a way they understood that is what I was trying to convey. It is like the language fails me - not the empathy.

But the point of the thread was do others find it painful or irritating too? The painful irritation response was most often linked with dismissive avoidant attachment in the books.

You can genuinely care about someone even if you don't have empathy. My H claims to be non-empathetic (and from 16 years of observation, I believe this is true). He has shown me love like no other person in my life. He loves very few people and is ambivalent about the rest; but once he starts loving someone, it never dies.

Then my answer to your question is yes. But when I went into a further explanation, I didn't feel empathy from you, I felt the dismissive avoidance, FWIW.

i wouldn't say my reactions have ever been irritating for sure, and maybe cringe-worthy, but not painful.

Stopdog,
Does empathy feel too superficial to you? How do you do with empathy towards other people's situation? What about validation, would that feel differently or be useful? Do the books you read differentiate between the two and use examples of the context for each?

Hi Everyone,
Wow, 90 responses! I love it when we get good discussions going on on here.
I haven't read all the replies but will put my oppinion in anyway.
Taking stopdog's example if I say a situation happened and the therapist says,"that must have hurt," and I'm sure by their tone and just the feeling I have from them that they mean it, then it's useful. I have spent most of my life dealing with family who doesn't know the first thing about how to respond in a caring sensitive way to the things that upset me. So when therapists do this I really like it, because I do feel connected to them and heard.
Now there is this situation where (in my therapist search) every person I seem to come in contact with tells me how resourceful I am. Over and over and over again! and I'm so angry about this. I want to say,"Yeah it's a good thing too, or else I wouldn't be this far along," or "Yeah, good thing I'm resourceful since those that should be helping me/been honest about certain issues aren't really doing their job. I dealt with this crap in MA and I can do it here." Now I'm sure there response to me in those moments was thought up by something from a textbook. And maybe I'm a rare case in that situation! (smile) So I guess everyone's different.

I did not realize you wanted empathy from me-I sort of thought you were making fun of me. Expressing empathy is not the first place I go to - not in least because of how awful it feels to have it aimed at me - I don't want to do that to someone else. There are still some hitches in my knowing what others want.

I do for them what I find annoying when they do it to me if I know I am supposed to convey some emotional response to them. It seems to work. Validation is another tool they use. I find it just as frustrating or enraging usually.

The response, for me, is not contingent on my perception of their sincerity. Sincere but misguided attempts enrage, frustrate and baffle me just as much.

Stopdog, I too find the "canned" empathetic statements that a lot of therapists make to be pointless, annoying, and frustrating. I am currently in a support group, and every time the facilitator says "that must have been difficult for you" or "that sounds frustrating" I want to gag. I can't stand that style of engagement. It feels phony, cliche, pointless, and impersonal. It sounds like she's talking out of a Therapy 101 textbook and she's not actually listening to ME. If she actually understood anything about me, she would know that I'm not the kind of person who appreciates those kinds of responses. To me, those statements are conversation "filler" rather than authentic, personal responses. They just feel totally fake to me. It's like the T doesn't know what to say, so they pull a formulaic statement out of the T "grab bag" and drop it in. I personally find it insulting.

However, I have an entirely different reaction when my personal T practices true empathy. Fortunately for me, my T doesn't talk like a therapy textbook. She doesn't say pointless one-liners like "that must be difficult for you" or "you must have made you felt angry" or "I can understand why that would make you sad." She thinks those kinds of responses are just as annoying as I do. Instead, she just talks to me like a normal person. We just have a regular 'ole conversation about my experiences. I can tell by her facial expressions that she cares, and I can tell by what she does say that she's listening. For instance, when I told her today that my dad told me I should just "get over" a certain childhood experience, my T rolled her eyes and said "no you shouldn't. you don't just get over trauma. it's not that simple." That felt genuine. Had she said "hearing that from your dad must have been difficult for you" I would have wanted to toss a pillow at her from across the room. By saying "no you shouldn't just get over it" she ACTUALLY validated my experience. And it was the first time someone had over told me that I didn't need to "just get over it." It was a really powerful statement.

So, Stopdog, I'm not sure how similar my response style is to yours, but I can say that different Ts have different approaches (and different approaches for different clients). It may just be working with T to figure out what response-style works best for you. What are you looking for form your T? If it's not empathy, then what might be helpful for you? For me, I need authenticity above anything else. I'm allergic to canned bull**** and new-age-y kind of talk. I just need a T who's going to be real with me and tell me like it is. We swear. We eye roll. We make fun of stuff. She demonstrates that she's a human, rather than a blank slate, which is what I need.