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Does trauma increase or decrease empathy for others?

Lark

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I know that trauma can cause people to become avoidant or radically change their expectations of others as a consequence but do you think it increases or decreases empathy for others?
 

ceecee

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I think it generally decreases empathy on the surface. Mostly because people aren't well equipped to recognize trauma in themselves and others and it's less common for people to get professional help with trauma of any kind.

There are people that do recognize and feel if they got through something without assistance, so can everyone else and generally those are the people needing professional help more than anyone. I think people should shoot for sympathy and start being vocal about mental health stigma and care and perhaps lessen the need for self-medicating. Because there can't possibly be a connection or anything, right?
 

Virtual ghost

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I would say it is situational, depending on the person, all circumstances and people around. This is very gray area in my book.
 

Z Buck McFate

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I was going to write out something similar to ceecee's post^. I think it only increases empathy when the trauma is effectively emotionally processed. (And more often than not, trauma is not effectively emotionally processed). When it's not, it causes background preoccupation with the self - and when there's some kind of pain/suffering causing a preoccupation with the self, others become little more than extensions of our own reality (instead of being able to view others as others in their own right, taking responsibility for how our actions effect them).

Or something.
 

Lark

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Good points, I know that if its acute enough people can have the appearance of being self-absorbed or oblivious or exhibit diminished awareness. Sometimes that can be a longer lasting thing too. I've encountered that and it's made me really sad because "time waits for no man" and while they're busy processing the minutia of mico-interactions life is passing them by. It happens though, personally I think that's pretty impervious to change by insight, including cognitive behaviourist ideas (I've been going back and forth in my own mind as to whether that can all, ultimately be said to be about insight or not, like psyho-analysis).

This train of thought/investigation has been triggered by discussions of desensitisation to traumatic events, principally the viewing of things online that you would not see broadcast on the news, like live uploads from floods, fires, war zones, that rash of uploading that happened after the NZ spree killing etc. Even some of the bizarre content you will find on youtube (I swear that some conspiracy theorists have created some truly bizarre videos based on things they've read about MK Ultra and other nonsense, maybe just the product of sick minds).

Desensitisation is maybe different from trauma, although vacarious and secondary trauma are that I'm thinking about. I dont know whether its possible to cause that through looking at images but I would imagine it is, like if is a live feed its probably like being a first responder and they DO suffer from vacarious trauma and secondary trauma.
 

Red Memories

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I think it is a double edged sword.

As someone who has some trauma, I do think there are areas in my life where my empathy is heavily diminished. For instance, with my extended family and other people previously in my life struggling with drug abuse or alcoholism, I have very little empathy for substance abusers. I try to be empathetic but it is very difficult for me.

Another time would be a friend I had, who had parent separating, and I felt she was using it as an excuse to not focus on her homework and do whatever she wanted. I told her the world and my homework didn't stop when my brother died slowly in my living room. Looking back I think it was pretty cruel of me to say that to her.

Other times I think it has allowed me to be far more empathetic to things than I was before as a semi-self absorbed teenager. I understood death, and whenever someone has a loved one pass away near me I respect their needs a lot more than I think I would have before. I have a lot of empathy for people who are or have been in abusive relationships. I know how difficult it actually is to exit those very unhealthy relationships. I empathize a lot with people with negative sibling relationships, as me and my brother have had an extremely negative relationship growing up. So in that sense I think I grew.

So as another person said, I heavily think it involves the situation, who it is, and what it is. Sometimes experience draws more empathy, other times it drives people farther away. It depends who is giving and who is receiving as well.
 

Lark

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I think it generally decreases empathy on the surface. Mostly because people aren't well equipped to recognize trauma in themselves and others and it's less common for people to get professional help with trauma of any kind.

There are people that do recognize and feel if they got through something without assistance, so can everyone else and generally those are the people needing professional help more than anyone. I think people should shoot for sympathy and start being vocal about mental health stigma and care and perhaps lessen the need for self-medicating. Because there can't possibly be a connection or anything, right?

Sometimes the available help is shite but, also, my opinion's grown to be distinctly mixed when it comes to provision of those sorts of services on a professional basis, as opposed to the dissemination of the knowledge throughout the mass of the population some how.

Plus there's a bunch of indirect interventions and non-therapeutic public goods and public services (not necessarily state provided/tax funded but most of the time they are) with "therapeutic" effects which all matter too, ie clean, safe environment, parks, libraries, amusements, a "civil society", you know, some of its intangible but some of it isnt.

I know you're not talking about doing it but I do think its actually possible that public needs like this could simply be exploited as a form of graduate recruitment and political constituency building, then everyone would just be practicing adjusting their attitude to an objectively worsening situation. Its just a thing I can see down the road. Especially if informal care and support are eroded and any (even a generous) professional alternative is asked to fill the gap left by that.

One of the greatest screen portrayals of that "not recognising it in themselves" idea I thought was the Hurt Locker, even someone with good resilence can have it over taxed and that was a good example of it, it was tragic what happened to that guy too as I actually think his own efforts to help others, as part of his recover and their recovery of some sort of resilence, is what I was talking about.
 

Yuurei

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In my experience, no.

Everyone is always in a competition over who's life is more pitiful so rather than recognize it they dismiss and invalidate as "Not as legitimate" as their own.

I swear the words " My trauma..." is about to become my trigger.
 

Earl Grey

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I don't think trauma is direct factor of empathy. It can influence it, but it does not itself determine whether or not you become more empathetic, it is just instrument in how you react to empathy and how you use it, if at all.

For example; There may be individuals that can look at others and reach out to them because hey! They went through the same thing, they can understand. There are enough evils in this world, I must not add to them. On the flip side, there are others who withdraw from and distrust, or antagonize the world, be it out of fear, retribution, entitlement, pain, whatever it is, letting the trauma shape and harden them.

It doesn't even matter how 'big' or 'small' it is, and 1) some people are inherently like either even without trauma 2) people react differently after all.


Desensitisation is maybe different from trauma, although vacarious and secondary trauma are that I'm thinking about. I dont know whether its possible to cause that through looking at images but I would imagine it is, like if is a live feed its probably like being a first responder and they DO suffer from vacarious trauma and secondary trauma.

Desensitisation is a form of trauma and a reaction to traumatic event, and can be one of the markers of trauma. It's possible to respond to secondary trauma through being say, a witness in a horrible event, but trauma from images is probably stretching it too far, it's like saying you can get traumatized from say, seeing a slasher movie. It seems that there must be some kind of more personal involvement. Being under the constant threat of possible danger, however, may cause trauma. For example, a war-torn land where news and pictures of houses getting bombed happen every other week.
 

Lark

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In my experience, no.

Everyone is always in a competition over who's life is more pitiful so rather than recognize it they dismiss and invalidate as "Not as legitimate" as their own.

I swear the words " My trauma..." is about to become my trigger.

Actually, now you mention this, I've definitely noticed that among a particular population.

Its kind of like a "significantly sicker than you..." instead of the "significantly richer than you..." which used to be a joke in comedy TV shows in the nineties or there abouts
 

Z Buck McFate

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On a related tangent (about compassion fatigue/secondary trauma), I like what Paul Bloom said (as a guest on a Sam Harris podcast) about the difference between empathy and compassion: empathy is something that exhausts in supply when used, whereas compassion only gets stronger with use. The way he defines these terms is at odds with the label "compassion fatigue" (this is what he'd label "empathy") - but the point here is that some ways to experience empathy are more productive (read: compassion grows instead of being depleted) than others.

I've been meaning to read Bloom's book about it (I think it's called A Case Against Empathy), but haven't gotten around to it.
 

Yuurei

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Actually, now you mention this, I've definitely noticed that among a particular population.

Its kind of like a "significantly sicker than you..." instead of the "significantly richer than you..." which used to be a joke in comedy TV shows in the nineties or there abouts

It is sad how in society it is more common to compete over how pitiful you are rather than strength or achievements.
 

Lark

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It is sad how in society it is more common to compete over how pitiful you are rather than strength or achievements.

The people I've seen do this dont really have much in the way of strengths and achievements to talk about instead but I know what you mean, it is better when people can and they should, but it is mad, I think the "having" culture applies to this as much as anything else, people want to have more, more, more of whatever the hell it is.
 

ceecee

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In my experience, no.

Everyone is always in a competition over who's life is more pitiful so rather than recognize it they dismiss and invalidate as "Not as legitimate" as their own.

I swear the words " My trauma..." is about to become my trigger.

But if help was more available, if there was less stigma attached, less blowback for reporting it to and so on, my trauma would have less of an impact overall. Including on you and their ability to use it as a weapon on you and everyone else.
 

Betty Blue

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There are going to be strong arguments either way on this depending on the lens you are looking through, how it is approached and measured.

First you have to define what trauma is (and there will be many interpretations). Then you have to look for evidence in research and studies (of which there will also be many) and come to some kind of conclusion whilst acknowledging the possible short comings of the findings.

The Grenfell tower fire and twin towers catastrophes may be a good place to start as you have a large number of people affected by the same events, though of course you also have the mass panic and media spiral to content with. With events such as those I think a large area can be drawn out much like a diagram of a bomb and the shock waves radius with varying levels of impact. Of course there will be many other contributing factors of individuals to consider too. But with larger scale numbers of people it is possible to see larger patterns (at least at large scale trauma level).

Then it may be possible to for longitudinal studies to be carried out to assess something like compassion/empathy. And also numerical data to be collected regarding the services created to support those affected.
 

Yuurei

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But if help was more available, if there was less stigma attached, less blowback for reporting it to and so on, my trauma would have less of an impact overall. Including on you and their ability to use it as a weapon on you and everyone else.

This sounds reasonable, and I’m inclined to agree but everyone I know who has ( or claims to have) trauma issues has at least one therapist, a social worker and God-knows how many support groups.

Do you think it’s that while treatment is available, it is just not effective? Do they use too much of a “ standard-issue” one -size fits all” approach”? Or, do you think it’s more that the ones who really need help don’t ask and aren’t offered it? .
 

ceecee

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This sounds reasonable, and I’m inclined to agree but everyone I know who has ( or claims to have) trauma issues has at least one therapist, a social worker and God-knows how many support groups.

Do you think it’s that while treatment is available, it is just not effective? Do they use too much of a “ standard-issue” one -size fits all” approach”? Or, do you think it’s more that the ones who really need help don’t ask and aren’t offered it? .

It depends but I know the right therapy is effective for the vast majority of people. That said, I've seen people that really need therapy become unhinged at the very mention of getting some help. One thing I see more and more is people using faith based "counseling" by pastors or minister. This is due to little to no cost or waiting time or ease since it's generally aimed at existing prisoners. But they often have little to no experience or training that often make things worse with the addition of religious bullshit on top of real emotional and mental issues often accompanied by dysfunctional living environments. Those require group therapy and a couple episodes of Dr. Phil is enough to make people say - fuck that. And not even discuss it again.

One size fits all can't be applied to mental health care but, you have to start somewhere. Also people dismiss care due to cost or have no idea there is coverage, such as older people with Medicare.
 

rav3n

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It really depends on the individual. An example of diversity is that a lot of people continue the cycle of abuse. And yet, there are a lot of others who break the cycle of abuse.
 

Jaguar

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From Childhood Trauma to Adulthood Empathy? | AllPsych Blog

If there’s a good side to suffering, it might be that it can make you more attuned to the suffering of others. A new study from researchers at City University of New York, University of Cambridge, and University College London suggests that traumatic experiences in childhood might be linked to heightened empathy in adulthood.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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It can bring one to a crossroads to make the decision whether it increases or decreases empathy. In general people empathize based on their own literal experiences, so the broader the experience of pain the greater the capacity for empathy towards others with pain. Often if a person has not experienced pain, they will avoid it in others and feel awkward in the presence of it. People who have experienced pain and normalized the experience of it can be more helpful and connect better to others with that pain because they are past the initial shock, awkwardness, and paradigm-shifting nature of it.

One perfect example are homeless people - how many look and say, "they should get a job". That is a perfect example of how privilege eliminates empathy and results in absurd assumptions.

I know people with chronic physical pain who are constantly dismissed by people without that issue. Many people will respond with "oh, I hate it when I get headaches, but I just go to work anyway".

Mostly when people witness pain in others, they quickly formulate a way it is the person's own fault and define in some way that it won't happen to them personally. I remember a funeral where a loved one died of heart disease and people murmured, "well, did you see their diet and how much fat and sugar they ate?".

I've wondered if a certain combination of privilege (being spoilt) and pain can result in the least amount of empathy if it causes increased self-centeredness coming from both ends of the stick. However, I think some amount of experienced pain is almost necessary to have some level of empathy. I've rarely seen empathy in people who haven't suffered at all. Lots of smiles and 'chin ups', but no empathy.
 
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