Extreme empaths

[ajblaise]

What type do you think most 'extreme empaths' are likely to test as? It's an interesting condition.

We feel your pain: Extreme empaths

HORROR films are simply a disconcerting watch for the majority of us, but for Jane Barrett they are literally torturous. She writhes in agony whenever the actors on the screen feel pain. "When I see violence in films I have an extreme reaction," she says. "I simply have to close my eyes. I start to feel nauseous and have to breathe deeply."

She is just one of many people who suffer from a range of disorders that give rise to "extreme empathy". Some of these people, like Barrett, empathise so strongly with others that they experience the same physical feelings - whether it's the tickle of a feather or the cut of a knife. Others, who suffer from a disorder known as echopraxia, just can't help immediately imitating the actions of others, even in inappropriate situations.

Far from being mere curiosities, understanding these conditions could have many pay-offs for neuroscience, such as illuminating conditions like phantom pain. They may even help answer the age-old question of whether empathy really is linked to compassion.

There is a general consensus that empathy-linked conditions arise from abnormalities in the common mechanisms for empathy found in all humans: although few of us experience sensations as powerful as Barrett's, we all wince at a brutal foul on the football field and feel compassion for someone experiencing grief. Many studies have suggested that our capacity for empathy arises from a specific group of neurons, labelled mirror neurons. First discovered in macaque monkeys, they are situated in and around the premotor cortex and parietal lobe - regions that span the top of the brain near the middle of the head. These neurons fire both when you perform an action and when you see someone else perform that action.

Although the challenges inherent in placing electrodes in people's brains have so far made it difficult to prove convincingly that individual neurons also act like this in humans, fMRI scans have supported the idea that certain populations of neurons do seem to behave in this mirroring fashion.

Put simply, this means that at some level we mentally imitate every action we observe, whether it's a somersault or a look of disgust. The popular theory has it that this imitation allows us to put ourselves in the place of those around us, to better interpret their behaviour. This hypothesis has been consistently supported by numerous tests, with empathy scores strongly correlating with the behaviour of the brain's mirror-circuits. "How empathetic we are seems to be related to how strongly our mirror neuron systems are activated," says Christian Keysers, a neuroscientist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Yet if our brains are primed to live out every experience we observe, why is it that we aren't all wandering around manically imitating each other's actions and absorbing their feelings the whole time? It's here that hyper-empathic people, who do exhibit some of these symptoms, enter the picture.

We feel your pain: Extreme empaths - life - 15 March 2010 - New Scientist

 

[Night]

Not sure how this correlates to type, but I can't watch certain films because they leave a painful imprint on my consciousness. Movies like 8mm or Hostel tear at me. When I was watching No Country for Old Men, I literally had to leave the room when the sheriff was being killed in the beginning, because my rage to help was so strong.

It's a very peculiar reaction to fiction.

 

[yvonne]

that was an interesting article. i also have strong feelings like that... with fiction it's easier, but especially if i watch documentaries with people suffering in them i get sick to my stomach. i have a strong reaction to children crying. it's something i've worked on to control better.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I'm not sure about type either. There was also a thread about Sensors feeling physical empathy with people which might apply here. I lean in the direction of thinking it could be a Se/Fe thing because that takes in information as it comes.

I have something of an issue like the one described, although probably not as extreme. It came up once in a noisy restaurant I was in with friends where the waiters seemed anxious. I had to consciously reject the sensation to mirror that anxiety while in that environment. I asked those with me if they felt the sensation also, but they said "no". I avoid groups of people because there are too many signals and it is disorienting to me. I attended a professional meeting once where I felt a lot of subtext which I can't consciously define, but there was a general sensation of a negative undercurrent in which people felt unfairness, thwarted entitlement, and envy, but all buried under a lot of pleasantries. I went home and took a nap completed exhausted.

I also notice it when I teach one-on-one because the majority of students come into the room with anxiety or some type of emotional baggage from their day. I can generally tell what it is because I feel it also. This makes me skilled at dispelling it in others because I first feel it, then dispel it in myself and them simultaneously. Because of my role, I have to keep mine hidden inside which can accumulate over the course of a day.

I have physical reactions to movies including sweaty palms, increased heart rate, and then relieving it in my mind afterwards. If a serious violation or cruelty occurs, I experience it on some level and have sometimes cried hard enough in response that I quit watching. This is especially true if it represents the sort of thing that has occurred in the world. If the movie is poorly made it doesn't have the same impact, and I especially enjoy cheesy horror because I don't feel anything, which is a noticeable reaction for me and makes for a funny relief.

 

[Dali]

Methinks Fi users will dominate this thread.

 

[Amargith]

I'm not sure about type either. There was also a thread about Sensors feeling physical empathy with people which might apply here. I lean in the direction of thinking it could be a Se/Fe thing because that takes in information as it comes.

I have something of an issue like the one described, although probably not as extreme. It came up once in a noisy restaurant I was in with friends where the waiters seemed anxious. I had to consciously reject the sensation to mirror that anxiety while in that environment. I asked those with me if they felt the sensation also, but they said "no". I avoid groups of people because there are too many signals and it is disorienting to me. I attended a professional meeting once where I felt a lot of subtext which I can't consciously define, but there was a general sensation of a negative undercurrent in which people felt unfairness, thwarted entitlement, and envy, but all buried under a lot of pleasantries. I went home and took a nap completed exhausted.

I also notice it when I teach one-on-one because the majority of students come into the room with anxiety or some type of emotional baggage from their day. I can generally tell what it is because I feel it also. This makes me skilled at dispelling it in others because I first feel it, then dispel it in myself and them simultaneously. Because of my role, I have to keep mine hidden inside which can accumulate over the course of a day.

I have physical reactions to movies including sweaty palms, increased heart rate, and then relieving it in my mind afterwards. If a serious violation or cruelty occurs, I experience it on some level and have sometimes cried hard enough in response that I quit watching. This is especially true if it represents the sort of thing that has occurred in the world. If the movie is poorly made it doesn't have the same impact, and I especially enjoy cheesy horror because I don't feel anything, which is a noticeable reaction for me and makes for a funny relief.

+1

My most clear example is someone who's experiencing heartbreak. Especially if I'm close to them. I remember talking to a friend who'd just been through a particularly rocky break-up and feeling nauseous, feeling cramps near my heart and having a small head-ache all of a sudden. I asked him if he felt ok, he reported the same symptoms. And this was online, on msn. Hugging him irl made me wanna vomit on my shoes and felt like my heart was being torn out of my chest, followed by a wall of numbness.

The more information you get, the worse it is. Backstory of what happened, your personal history with the person, talking to them irl, and especially touching them, all contribute to the feeling. Touching someone magnifies what they're feeling and flooding you with tenfold, if not more.


I would actually be interested to see how this is experienced by people of different types..could be interesting to see what's universal and what's type-related and how.

 

[proteanmix]

Methinks Fi users will dominate this thread.

Why?

 

[Totenkindly]

And not just F either.

(I think as far as perceiving functions, N is an empathy function and S a sympathy function; N can project into a situation without having experienced it, making connections with other experiences, whereas S will resonate more easily with situations that have been experienced previously.)

T/F just cover how someone chooses to process the event, but it does not at all state how it will initially be experienced or perceived.


Here's an interesting difference though: I've noticed that a lot of my INFx friends cannot handle personal violence in movies easily, they identify very much with the person being hurt and cannot tolerate the experience, it's traumatic.

With me, I still feel the event very strongly (I can literally feel physical sensations sometimes, for example like watching someone get cut up on the screen such as in a movie like Hostel), but for some reason it doesn't make me need to turn it off or pull out... instead, it is a sensation to be understood, so I can fully understand what is happening in the story, and I'm immersed in it even if the feeling is very negative. It's a matter of processing, even if the stimulation is the same.

 

[Night]

(I think as far as perceiving functions, N is an empathy function and S a sympathy function; N can project into a situation without having experienced it, making connections with other experiences, whereas S will resonate more easily with situations that have been experienced previously.)

Interesting. Can you explain this further?

 

[proteanmix]

And not just F either.

(I think as far as perceiving functions, N is an empathy function and S a sympathy function; N can project into a situation without having experienced it, making connections with other experiences, whereas S will resonate more easily with situations that have been experienced previously.)

I agree with most of what you have said, but I don't see that as the case either.

Can you appease my S and give me example on how this can be so?

I can give you two situations to work with: a family member addicted to drugs and a loved with dying of cancer. I'm not quite sure I understand how S/N will affect sympathy and empathy.

I can tell you for a fact that nurses (which is a SFJ bastion) routinely suffer from compassion fatigue and empathetic burnout. Wouldn't their S interfere with this?

 

[yvonne]

i don't know if it's because of N/S preference, but i've noticed (seems to me) that a couple of my S friends can definitely empathize better with events they've previously experienced themselves.

 

[disregard]

Methinks Fi users will dominate this thread.

No.

The empathy being described is a physical response, much like fear. It is not a value. It is not concerned with morality.

It is neither Fi nor Fe.

 

[Phantonym]

I'm not so sure about correlation with type either. Some people just are more susceptible to such things.

I do experience it but I don't think it's anything extreme. It happens with fiction, listening to music, moreso with documentaries, real-life stories, watching or reading news, personal encounters, things like that. Emotional and physical pain. But it doesn't happen all the time. It definitely depends greatly on my involvement, whether I enter the kind of state of mind where it affects me to such a degree.

I do get a strong physical reaction, it's like a sudden intense sensation alike getting goosebumps, knots in the stomach and pressure in my ears and temples. It's just a general uneasy feeling of helplessness because there's nothing I can do about it but observe.

I can watch horror movies and whatever, I don't consciously avoid feeling so empathetic and I don't go out of my way to seek it out either but it does have quite a strong impact on me. I don't consider it as something negative, rather it's a way to learn from other people's experiences.

 

[Laurie]

Drama queens.

 

[Phantonym]

Drama queens.

Waaaahh...

 

[Laurie]

You know I love you!

 

[Lady_X]

Interesting article aj. I experience pretty strong empathy..I have the oddest reaction to watching drug use in movies..makes me literally sick to see someone use needles..I feel like I feel exactly how they're feeling..and the same with heartbreakingly sad movies and I can't watch realistic horror flicks...but in other ways being empathetic is really helpful with realting to people quickly..like at work..I can pick up on how people feel and then I know how to act towards them to get them to loosen up and relax.

 

[Tiltyred]

I get pain coming out of the palms of my hands so I open my hands up and rub the palms of them against the arm of my chair, my heart beats faster, I unconsciously hold my breath, and every time somebody gets punched or slapped in the movie, I gasp or shriek, and it's involuntary. I still remember the first violent thing I ever saw, at a drive-in movie with my parents when I couldn't have been more than 6 or so. It still makes me sick. I also pick up on people's stuff. It makes it hard to be around people who won't talk about what's going on in their lives, because I pick up the anger or sadness and it makes me tired but I don't know why, don't find out until later. If it's emotional pain, I get pain around my heart and/or in the pit of my stomach.

 

[Mole]

Empaths and Narcissism

We perceive by making distinctions. And the more distinctions, the more we see. And the less distinctions the less we see.

The Ancient Greeks made the distinction between sympathy and empathy where sympathy means to feel the same as while empathy means to feel with.

But today we seem to have lost this distinction and elide empathy with sympathy.

In part this is because of social pressure towards narcissism. Narcissism is inculcated in consumers to increase profits. And this has the effect of infantilising consumers. This is seductive and it works.

However narcissism keeps us in the role of infants and inhibits us from growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves.

So narcissism limits us and limits our perceptions. And in particular limits our perceptions by blinding us to the distinction between sympathy and empathy.

This is tragic because professional carers such as nurses, counsellors and teachers are at the mercy of their own feelings, just as infants are.

But to grow up in an infantilising society is difficult and requires organised and systematic practice.

But organised and systematic practice is something only a grown up can do, it is beyond an infant or a narcissistic adult.

So we have Catch 22 and there seems no way out.

And when we are trapped, we fetishise our situation. In other words we make our disability into a virtue.

And so we call a narcissist an empath.

This psychological deception is wide spread and the word 'empath' is now a buzz word. Just what we would expect if it were due to larger social pressures.

 

[yvonne]

that was an interesting post victor. i also feel that in the modern western world there is a growth in narcissism... it profits the system. there are so many sad people around who are feeding their wants and suppressing their needs. it is hard for a thinking, feeling individual to live in a society, which sort of "forces" us to think that things that aren't important, should be... i often feel like there's this pressure to believe that we aren't capable... that we need this and that to function and that fleeting pleasures are the only thing we should be seeking. i am sad that there seems to be this decrease in valuing life. everything is only to be enjoyed and to superficially feed our infantile egos... it's like we are pressured to find our little place and stay there, but not to question, not to really take part, not to grow... i don't know if i'm seeing this objectively at all, but i feel like there's an imbalance.