There is a range between those two extremes, and somewhere along that range you are able to be effective. Extremely high empathy does not contribute to being effective. It gets in the way. I tend to think that concern for social good might help social workers do their jobs, rather than feeling the feelings of every person they counsel.
Why wouldn't that be an ability that makes them better at what they do? It really does seem to me that you see deep empathy as a burden, rather than a help. Your experiences with empathy is that it's incapacitating, which is not necessarily true at all. You can still deeply empathize and develop coping mechanisms and strategies to not loose your mind in the process.
That has nothing to do with empathy. That is all about burnout and feeling overly responsible and possibly self-congratulatory. Not that you don’t deserve it. But what’s in that comment is “I do, and you sit around and enjoy the luxury of your feelings. If you were so empathic, you would get up off your ass and work like I do. Since you don’t, I don’t believe you have empathy.”
This has everything to do with empathy. How did they get burned out? There are studies on people in the caring professions being burned out from overempathizing.
Stressed Health Workers Fight 'Compassion Fatigue' - Mental Health Disorders on MedicineNet.com
How Compassion Fatigue Can Overwhelm Charity Workers -- and What to Do About It - Career Ideas & Advice - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas
SAGE Journals Online -- Search Results
And you are correct in your assessment of what's implicit in my thoughts on the matter only I'd take off the "like I do" part. I do feel like it's a luxury to sit and wallow in deep wells of empathy and be totally paralyzed by feeling. What's the next move? I do have more respect for people who empathize as deeply and STILL can help others and not be sucked in a vortex of their feelings. If this is channeled in a constructive way, deep (I'm not going to say extreme because it looks like that's a disorder) empathizers are uniquely positioned to be of great good. I think at some point you've got to move past that. Being frozen in empathy...yes it is useless.
Do you really? Because this sounds like posturing to me. Of course the weight of reacting to a person in a movie and reacting to a person in trouble in real life when you are a social worker is two different things. I think you have to get to a level that you’re comfortable with, and if you can’t stay at that level but head toward either extreme, you may suffer lack of effectiveness.
No posturing here. I have not made any claims about how deeply empathetic I am. I wouldn't even begin to know to assess that within myself and I would feel a little arrogant in doing so. I admit, when I read people saying how empathetic they are, I have a nagging thought in my head thinking is this person's perception of themselves accurate because I would think if I felt like I was extremely empathetic am I seeing myself clearly.
Like I said, questioning this offends people. Empathy has a cluster of associations with it and 95% of them are positive: emotionally intelligent, compassionate, kind, understanding, charitable. So when people say this about themselves I do interpret it as shorthand for saying they are those things. I'm not saying I believe they're not, but I don't necessarily believe they are either. No one is going to say I'm highly empathetic and the cruelest bitch you've ever had the misfortune of meeting. Psychologically, that's oil and water but those are flipsides of the same coin.
You’re confusing doing and being, and it’s a critical distinction.
Doing and being. Being leads to doing, but I can see how that's not the case for everyone. When I have strong feelings for a cause, I don't just sit deeply feeling it and not get up and do something although not everyone is like me. I have rarely seen people who have a heart towards something and feel compelled to that area totally ignore that feeling without it pulling it them back some way.
It appears to me that in your book, you don’t get to claim empathy unless you are doing something about it, being a teacher or social worker or some such. Everybody else is probably lying, either purposely for effect, or because they don’t know enough about themselves to tell the truth. I don’t see it as questioning my goodness, because you’re not in a position to evaluate whether or not I or anyone else here is a good person, whatever that means. But I don’t think that people describe physical reactions to other people so their audience will think they are good people, and the accusation is really jaded.
No that's untrue. You for example, didn't say you were just regular old run of the mill empathetic, which article said that all humans are hardwired to be. Your first post describes reactions similar to those described in the article as extreme empathy. I commented that's considered an neurological disorder and even asked if this is what people are claiming they have. Then I noticed a few other people were saying they were extreme empaths because they can't stand gore and blood. That's not extreme empathy. I don't think the people in the article are making anything up, nor do I think they're lying. If you're referring to the some of the comments made in this thread as examples of extreme empathy, yes I do question those because it seems to me people don't understand what it is in the first place by confusing reactions from sources designed to make them react in such a way, i.e. scary movies. On top of that, some people wanted to make this into a type thing which further compounds my skepticism of their understanding empathy or extreme empathy.
Yes, and what about it? Teaching burnt me out in 2 years. I could not be a nurse or a social worker. Whether or not I am able to act on my empathy or feel I must act on my empathy is different from challenging whether or not I have it.
Why am I not allowed to challenge people's claims of empathy? It's not some untouchable attribute I can't question. You put yourself out there to say you're extremely empathetic and I'm supposed to say "OK I BELIEVE YOU!" I also question expression of empathy...if someone doesn't have an extreme physical reaction or become incapacitated are they not as empathetic? The trend in the thread was that people were describing physiological reactions. If there's an absence of those reactions is there a perception they're not as empathetic? The standard that's being put forth here is that empathy is accompanied by a physical reaction and that's not necessarily the case, which is what I'm mainly questioning.