Empathy and Its Discontents
Infinite feelings/needs
I could write for ages, and it's pretty unsettling because there's a chronic fear I have that sharing my thoughts and feelings will be burdensome to other people. I have a sense that if I were to ever start sharing, the desire to continue sharing and open up more and more would grow to infinite proportions.
It's like I'm a baby bird with its mouth open waiting for food. And if someone feeds it, there's a feeling of satisfaction, but also a feeling of, "Oh, you're going to feed me? Well that's really convenient, because I'm actually really hungry! Here's a list of all of the grocery items I would like for you to procure. [shuffles over to edge of nest, grabs spectacles from table, and pulls out humongous scroll of parchment from a drawer; opens beak 3x wider]"
Theistic myths as allegories for this infinite need
I relate to the heaven myths in Christianity that express something to the effect of, "There is a deep, spiritual longing for a perfect, infinite happiness and wholeness that cannot be fulfilled in this world/lifetime." Another allegory is this idea of a primordial paradise that existed in the Garden of Eden and was lost. Even if it can't be found, there's still a taste for it and some sort of unconscious memory. In psychoanalysis, it's this idea of an infantile or pre-natal womb-like state of bliss in which every single need was met and absolute dependence on one's surroundings was met with complete satisfaction (oral/holding needs).
Object relations theory and layers of interpersonal disturbance
There's something I remember reading in Fairbairn's "Schizoid Factors in the Personality".
1) There's one level of fears where it's like, "I don't want to depend on other people because I don't trust them and I'm afraid they're going to let me down if I depend on them."
2) But there's another layer below that one where it's like, "If it turns out someone does give me what I want, my basic self/desires/needs themselves are bad/poisonous and are going to hurt/destroy that person." If you're kind to me, I will punish you by depending on you.
If the first dilemma is, "Nobody understands me and everyone is unreliable," then the second dilemma is, "If someone does understand me, all of my repressed neediness/loneliness and my intrinsically bad deep self will pour out and I'm going to annihilate/ruin that reliable person by depending on them too intensely/fiercely." I'm really afraid that if I write, I'm going to expect or hope for people to listen, and that's going to create an endless stream of needs that impose stress on other people.
How I see empathy/helping
For me, empathy is like there are two people in the situation (myself and the other person), and I choose which person's thoughts or feelings I want to pay attention to.
1) Myself
If I'm empathizing with myself, then I really sink into my body, I let my own thoughts go where they want, I focus a lot on how things make me feel, and in concentrating/absorbing myself in this I naturally am not paying as much attention to other people.
2) Other person
On the other hand, if I'm empathizing with another person, I'm trying to focus on what they're saying, mirror/reflect their meanings, fully inhabit their worldview, hypothetically imagine what I'd feel in their situation, remember any situations where I have felt similarly and put myself back into that experience, and avoid introducing any foreign elements from my side that might distract from or deter a mutual immersion into the other person's intrapersonal world. Although there are all kinds of experiential and emotional connections happening here, the process as a whole involves bracketing off or temporarily ignoring my own experiences and reactions if they don't connect to the broader purpose of engaging with and being in harmony with what someone else is experiencing.
Is empathy dishonest?
I had a girlfriend who got offended/angry when I told her about the way that I experience empathy, because it made it sound like my empathy was a conscious, effortful, farcically dishonest act of labor -- rather than some sort of divine, natural, intuitive, heartfelt, sincere, sacred, simple experience.
I think I'm just very aware of the fact that even in the best-case scenario where another person and me seem to be completely in tune with one another and on the same wavelength, we're still different people and there's a difference between my experience/story and the other person's experience/story.
There is a contrast between what I will do if I'm sharing my own personal/spontaneous reactions and trying to fulfill my own needs... versus what I do if I'm really dedicating myself to understanding and appreciating another person's perspective and trying to listen, absorb, process, harmonize with them.
If I'm pursuing empathy, I am making a conscious decision to prioritize the other person's story over my own, and I'm deciding at that moment that it's more important for me to hear their story and for them to feel heard/understood than it is for them to hear mine and for me to feel heard/understood. I'm also deciding that it's more important than *me* hearing my own story.
Summary of problems of empathy/expression
Based on the above, the grim picture I have of human relationships is that they involve:
-Two people with infinite needs
-Existing in a zero-sum game where at any given moment, only one person's needs can be attended to and satisfied at a time
-Where any care one receives is necessarily temporary, impermanent, and imperfect (unless if one parasitically sucks the life out of another person and they consent to it in codependent fashion out of feelings of obligation/guilt/fear)
-And where giving care to help another person requires sacrificing some of one's own self-connection, honesty, or expression in order to relate to another person's milieu
By posting on here and expressing myself, I'm putting out content into the world that has a need associated with it of, "Please read me and respond in a particular way that helps me feel heard." I'm presenting and imposing a need, which possibly introduces feelings of strain or a sense of being coerced/exploited in conscientious people who have committed themselves to being responsive or helpful.
I am simply one in a sea of thousands of baby birds with gaping beaks clamoring for attention.
Possible resolutions?
I'm trying to imagine a long-term arrangement where it is possible for people to co-exist but still be in touch with their own depths both inwardly and through external expression.
Options I can think of:
1) Reciprocity
-I agree to mirror or listen to you for X amount of time and attend strictly to listening to you and inhabiting your perspective, and in return you agree to mirror or listen to me for X amount of time with a similar level of care. We are both able to feel heard.
-Problem: there will likely arise natural imbalances where maybe one person is better at listening/satisfying needs than the other, or one person has a far greater intensity of needs than the other.
2) Synergistic selfishness
-I express myself without any special intention of mirroring or empathizing with what you're saying. I simply respond freely to what you're saying. You respond likewise, just reacting out of your own spontaneity.
-Concept: Although we are to some degree ignoring one another or not fully reflecting/listening, if we are sufficiently similar to one another, it may happen that what you have to say is naturally exciting, stimulating, or validating and we derive happiness from hearing what the other has to say.
Blending of these two?
Maybe a free negotiation in which both people sort of sit down and decide who wants to share/listen at a given moment, and they flexibly move around between different arrangements based on how they're both feeling--with some kind of assurance in place that both people are safe and will hear/support one another equally?
This was the solution I proposed with my previous girlfriend, but she shot it down because didn't have the same needs I did for safety, she didn't have the same capacity for mirroring/listening, she thought it was a stilted/legalistic arrangement, and she felt like my proposing it expressed that I didn't trust her. (Which is completely accurate, but somewhere in the whole mix, my entire worldview and experience got thrown off a cliff and subjugated.)
Overall feelings
I'm just trying to understand the degree to which Rogerian methods (i.e. the active listening that is done in this site) is applicable or extensible to real-world relationships, or whether it's even possible to do there.
There is something extremely special and almost holy about it. But it almost feels like something unrealistic to expect. I'm unable to reach out and lean into it, and I'm also unable to give it.
I feel guilty at the thought of receiving it; to the extent that someone is meeting my needs, I am pressuring them to bury their own needs. That experience is why I stopped listening; from the listener side of things, I felt like I was an effective mirror, but I didn't have anyone to hear the things that I wanted to say and share.
The experience of listening also taps into a sensitivity that is so dissociated/estranged from my real-life relationships that it just increases a pre-existing sense of alienation/isolation to engage in listening. Listening creates an accumulation of just that many more new experiences/selves that are off-limits and have to be hidden.
***
I have the greatest admiration and respect for the people on this site who listen/empathize, are actually good at it, and yet are somehow able to retain their sanity while doing that. By "good at it", I mean people who actually mirror/empathize at a deep level and care about connecting with what someone else is experiencing... as opposed to people who chuck pre-fabricated solutions at the other person, see if any of it sticks, and then blame the Member for being too complicated/messed-up and not responding positively to their well-intentioned but misguided suggestions.
When I first started using this site as a Member, I was appalled by the quality of listening I received. Before that point, I was so doubtful whether I was any good at listening. Now I feel like I'm good at it, but I'm just incapable of doing it until my own needs are satisfied and I have enough inner clarity/space (and some reassurance of being able to safely/consistently maintain that) that I'm willing to offer some of that space to another person.
@frigidstars27 Interesting, not burdensome—to me, anyway—and I hope I may contribute some reactions.
Yes, sharing could, I suppose, grow to theoretically infinite proportions although in practice each of us is finite. I suppose that's how some of those authors who write book after book feel about it.
I don't know how to resolve "everyone is unreliable" vs "I'm going to annihilate/ruin that reliable person". My first reaction to the idea is that I have boundaries that limit the importance of everyone's unreliability to me, and boundaries that limit the extent to which I might ruin someone, so that within those boundaries it matters less, to the extent that I don't usually worry about it. Certainly, I think, boundaries are essential for listeners here.
On empathy, "fully inhabit their worldview" and "hypothetically imagine what I'd feel in their situation" are opposites! Again, my reaction is that empathy works best when it lies between those extremes. I like Rogers' explanation, which I quoted in this earlier thread: Forum Discussion - Can we teach Empathy ?
I definitely think Rogerian methods, or even just the bare active listening part, do work in real-world relationships, but are not sufficient to sustain real-world relationships. I agree with you that having unmet needs gets in the way of listening, and that's why 7 Cups encourages listeners to take breaks as necessary. All of us have times like that.
There's a strong sense of your separation from other people, I think, in your grim picture of human relationships, while myself, I have a strong sense that people are connected. Maybe that's a little Jungian of me.
I hope you will continue to write here in this diary.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
Thank you for reading and responding, for encouraging further writing, and for expressing that it wasn't burdensome.
I'm able to find agreement with your points intellectually/from the head up if I exert effort, but I have to confess it's not something I'm able to feel or deeply identify/agree with from the vantage point of my body. There are some statements that feel like they would be reasonable, pragmatic, teachable, and beyond fault. But on some non-rational level, it feels like if I try to engage with those ideas, the problem gets just pushed out of awareness. It's like the felt sense in my body goes into hiding because I'm chasing after a solution too forcefully, like a fawn intelligently and instinctively fleeing from an overzealous nature enthusiast. (Another analogy would be Darth Vader slaying Obi-Wan in Star Wars Episode IV, but then finding that the body has disappeared--and sort of just standing over an empty pile of clothes looking somewhat defeated and wondering whether he really succeeded.)
Maybe something that would help me is to try to form a picture of what it would be like to live through these ideas, as if I were an actor creating a character. I'm free to cast off the character afterwards and I can give the disclaimer that it is not essentially me and I am not personally agreeing with or identifying with that character. (This character also is not you, but rather me trying to assemble a plausible/possible version of myself that could hold some ideas that you have presented.)
Note: I'm not able to access the link you posted, even when logged into my Listener account. I get redirected to a page saying that the item has been removed.
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1) Change
People are finite, impermanent, changing, and exhaustible. There isn't any specific mood, feeling, thought, or desire that persists in a fixed way. Everything is oscillation between opposites. One state that seems permanent gives way to another opposing state that seems equally permanent but then returns to the first, etc. Everything exists for as long as it has fuel or need to exist, and then it disappears and is reborn as something else.
In light of this, even if there is a powerfully needy self, perhaps once that self has been indulged or received some satisfaction, it will have served its purpose and will be reborn as a different self with a contrasting stack of needs. The concept of a permanent/overwhelmingly strong self that is intrinsically needy does not accord with the reality that in actual everyday experience, things move around rapidly and don't tend to stay in one place forever. Dependence and independence exist on a continuum where one moves back and forth between the two according to one's present circumstances. Extremes are acceptable and do not need to be shunned or feared insofar as they exist temporarily and do what is necessary at a given moment, and then they go away once they have been incorporated and integrated.
2) Independence
With boundaries, I have independence so I am not bothered by the fact that others are somewhat flaky in providing certain things. These are not things that I am expecting or demanding, and they are not things that are realistically feasible for any person to provide. Therefore, it's something I've simply factored into my calculations; I can't ask for this type of thing, nor should I expect it. I simply shape my decision-making and planning around this reality. If it is difficult or unfortunate or pales in comparison to the beauty of deep fantasies, then my response would be that it is unavoidable. The world does not operate according to my wishes and whims. I will do what is necessary based on the circumstances and conditions that have been provided to me and my current skills/capabilities.
3) Limits of duty
With boundaries, I do not put myself into situations where I permit others to become so intertwined with me that I am capable of doing grievous harm to them. The expectations are very clear from the beginning: this is what I have agreed to do, this is how I conceive of my current role, and anything you wish or hope for that goes beyond this framework is not my responsibility. I have not agreed to give anything outside of this. If you become upset or angry that I have failed to give what you are seeking, but what you are seeking does not fall within my purview and the obligations I have noted, then it is unfortunate that you feel unhappy but it is not my problem.
I have stated my terms very clearly from the beginning. At that point in time, I received your agreement with those terms as a precondition for you remaining in contact with me. I have fulfilled my responsibility. I will not be swayed or coerced into providing something beyond what I have consented to give.
This is what gives me the safety to be able to empathize with anyone: the knowledge that any interaction is constrained and exists within certain known limits. I know exactly where those limits end, and I have complete liberty/freedom to end any interaction that disobeys or disregards those limits.
4) "Experiential" vs. "intellectual" empathy
a) Experiential empathy
To fully inhabit a person's experience is to become suffused with their thoughts and feelings with a vividness that is as if it were your own experience.
The direct experiencing has the benefit of being so in tune or in touch that it is as if you are able to predict things before they happen, and certain mysteries that would be impenetrable to a detached observer make sense from a first-person perspective. If I can sense your fears, doubts, and concerns, then I can also sense all the ways in which so many possible responses I might give could be hurtful. I am instinctively and effortlessly able to avoid these landmines; I cannot hurt another person because at this moment they feel the same as myself and whatever hurts them hurts me as well.
The direct experiencing has the flaw that if I am fully porous and sensitive, I am doomed to become afflicted with whatever suffering is presented to me. One would feel nervous if there were a medical doctor who received all of the illnesses of every single patient that they treated. Likewise, the ideal for a psychological practitioner would be to have some ability to engage with people without becoming sickened by them through emotional contagion.
b) Intellectual empathy
To hypothetically imagine being the other person is to stand at a distance and make inferences about a person's state of mind based on known information, as if it were an object of study. As an analogy, I am able to understand and explain how a knight moves on a chessboard, but that doesn't make me a knight or mean that I have the same thoughts and feelings as a knight.
The advantage is that I can simply approach people as I would a puzzle or a video game. There are inputs and outputs, and if one has the proper strategy and understanding, one can leverage one's knowledge of causality to produce desirable effects--all without getting one's hands dirty. My satisfaction is in the mastery that I have in that causal understanding, and the fact that I am able to troubleshoot people.
The disadvantage is that people do not follow strict models. There is no system, strategy, or scheme that works universally. Moreover, people are able to sense the cold tonality of this type of approach. "Am I merely a cog in a machine to you?" There are some things one cannot sense, predict, or respond to effectively without being in close contact with the actual experiences that are occurring.
5) Connectedness
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[breaks character] I can't currently identify in a straightforward or positive way with the idea that people are connected. I can come up with arguments and make them sound persuasive, but something about them leaves me feeling hollow or as if my feelings are at risk of receding even further backward.
If I imagine the arguments still persisting imperiously/undeterred through the character despite my reactions, then I start to have an emotional response that feels reminiscent of certain memories. I don't want to write it in this same post though, because the tone is so radically different--
--my body is back. There's a tension at the center of my chest and the peak of my neck. My breathing and muscles feel jittery, as if they are faintly vibrating or quivering. My chest feels like a skeleton spine held tensely in place like a family forcibly keeping a rattling/insecure vertical wooden beam of their home in place during a tyrannical wind storm. Like the feeling of being crammed into a bus that's standing-room-only and clinging on with a vice-like grip to a metallic beam to avoid losing one's balance. The skeleton is firmly stuck in place.
I know what I need to do, but I can't do it with people watching or put it into the same post as the character I've created above, so I'm going to call things off here.
I have an image of other people as stabbing knives trying to penetrate a steel plate armor--where the armor is only able to relax and become skin again when it is no longer in danger of being sliced through by knives. My understanding of connectedness is that my well-being is dependent upon other people having the courtesy and good sense to not stab me. (Or if that isn't possible or reasonable to expect, then dependent upon me constructing my life in a way that minimizes contact/depth with other people and builds up a sufficiently powerful armor that can deflect/repel all attacks.)
I'm sorry I didn't notice that the link I provided is for listeners only. 7 Cups lied to you when it said the content had been removed. The link works from a listener account if your browser hasn't recently cached the error page.
Charlie