Empathy: intuitive or rational?

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/07/when-it-comes-to-empathy-your-gut-may-be-failing-you.html?mid=twitter_nymag

The premise of this article is that empathy derived from reason is more accurate than empathy derived from intuition, especially when empathizing with unfamiliar people. This rings true to me. I remember very consciously observing when I first worked in a job that required empathy.  I learned how to read people in that setting. And I think about my clients a lot now, too, especially when I am not familiar with their patterns, yet. Why else do therapists case conference and consult with supervision? 

I'm good at observing and thinking about people (and other beings), and I think some empathy processes have become automatic for me. Maybe it's a way I'm hypervigilant, something I've learned to help keep me safe. How can I protect myself from automatically empathizing when I don't need or intend to without losing the protective aspects of my reflexive empathy? How can I use this idea to support my clients in empathizing more or less? Perhaps Buddhist ideas of mindfulness, discernment, and compassion apply. In that case, filtering the empathy takes practice just like developing it did. 

            

This method of managing over-stimulation is easy to learn, but not recommended in public after toddlerhood. 

"Springtime can really kill you" - Jolie Holland

Spring Passage
By, B/T Craig

Eating darkness, breathing light,
Making my heart
A broken mirror.

In the window, tearing walls,
Bricking myself in
For safety's sake.

Muscles weak, madly dancing,
Restless weather ignites
All my lusts.

Pounding fists, naked of calluses,
Destroy my walls.
I'm forced open.

Sore & eager, restless and weary,
I'm full of desires I can't fulfill.
Rebirth hurts.

---------------
How does spring feel to you?

Mental Health First Aid

I completed Mental Health First Aid training last week, and I'd recommend it to anyone. "Just as CPR training helps a layperson with no clinical training assist an individual following a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid training helps a layperson assist someone experiencing a mental health crisis, such as contemplating suicide. In both situations, the goal is to help support an individual until appropriate professional help arrives." http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/ 

In addition to providing tools to help the people around us when they are in distress, the course educates about mental health problems, normalizes them, and hopes to reduce stigma. The approach is intended to be empowering and encouraged harm reduction.

"My father was not an evil man. He was NOT EVIL. He was mentally ill. He was sick."

Through sharing her personal story of her family's struggle with her father's mental illness, my friend Jill has articulated some of what I've been thinking in response to the recent tragedy in Connecticut. In case you can't access Jill's facebook post, here are her words:

When I was 8 years old my father was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Some of my childhood memories include the CIA showing up at our house to discuss a death threat letter he'd written to the President of the United States... watching a news broadcast of a mass shooting and seeing a composite sketch flash onto the screen that looked like my father (thankfully, it was not)... seeing him parked outside my elementary school every single day watching me and the building and who knew what else... hearing him threaten my mother... accusing her of impossible, terrible things... knowing he had a gun... hiding for my life...

But most of all I remember the pain and anguish my mother went through just trying to get him help. Due to laws that are made to protect patients, my mother was never able to get my father the help he desperately needed. He lived and died on the streets thinking the mafia, the government, and everyone was after him. He died alone and afraid. I am so grateful that he never hurt anyone else... that he never shot up a school full of children because the voices told him that to do so would be saving the world. I remember him telling me he was God.

My father was not an evil man. He was NOT EVIL. He was mentally ill. He was sick. Before his illness manifested he was a gentle man. He was an artist. He was really kind and generous and sweet. He loved to play the organ and sing off key. He loved to do crafts with me. He worked hard. He took care of his family. And then his mental illness manifested and he changed so quickly and so drastically. From the time I was 8 years old until his death in 2008 I lived a life of looking over my shoulder, being careful to keep my whereabouts secret... I didn't even use my real name on the internet until he was dead.

When I hear people talk about the people who commit these crimes as evil and "of the devil" it breaks my heart all over again. No one believed my mother when she would explain our situation. No one believed that my father was capable of doing what he was doing to us. And it is clear to me that most people still really do not understand mental illness... especially paranoid schizophrenia. What IS evil is a world where mental health issues are not taken seriously until someone does something so terrible like shooting up a school, a mall, a government building. There is no hope out there for people with severe mental illness. And there is no compassion for them either.

So while I am praying so hard for those children who were killed and their families who have been left to pick up the pieces... and while we are arguing over gun control and improved security.... my heart is also breaking for the folks that people label as evil... for the mentally ill who can get no help... and for their families who live in fear and pain and KNOW that something like this can and might happen but can do NOTHING about it. 

ASAN Statement on Media Reports Regarding Newtown, CT Shooting | Autistic Self Advocacy Network

"Today’s violence was the act of an individual. We urge media, government and community leaders to speak out against any effort to spuriously link the Autistic or broader disability community with violent crime. Autistic Americans and other groups of people with disabilities persist in facing discrimination and segregation in school, the workplace and the general community. In this terrible time, our society should not further stigmatize our community. As our great nation has so many times in the past, let us come together to both mourn those killed by acts of heinous murder and defend all parts of our country from the scourge of stigma and prejudice."

ASAN Statement on Media Reports Regarding Newtown, CT Shooting | Autistic Self Advocacy Network