Are there any empathics here?

[jutntog1]

I dont want to spend the time reading this entire thread, but im requesting that an admin consider moving this thread to either genneral or psudoscience becouse clearly it is not scientifily related (read above thread) thanks.

[Bettina]

I dont want to spend the time reading this entire thread, but im requesting that an admin consider moving this thread to either genneral or psudoscience becouse clearly it is not scientifily related (read above thread) thanks.

 

Since I started this thread, I have no objection to it being moved per semag68's request, or even closed if you wish.

 

Semag68..... could you please explain to me what you think science means?

 

Thanks...

 

Bettina

[5614]

im requesting that an admin consider moving this thread to either genneral or psudoscience

When this thread started off it was well suited to be in psychiarty/psycology.

[Glider]

I'm quite happy to move this thread to general discussion if the participants, particularly the thread starter is happy with that?

 

Discussion of the existence, function or nature of empathy as an observable phenomenon using empirical evidence for or against it might be suitable in Psychiatry/Psychology, but it has been a while since that was the case.

 

However, it's a popular thread and it would be a shame to close it.

[Thomas Kirby]

I dont want to spend the time reading this entire thread, but im requesting that an admin consider moving this thread to either genneral or psudoscience becouse clearly it is not scientifily related (read above thread) thanks.

 

I object to moving this thread to a ghetto where it will be labelled, in the minds of many, as nonsense. It has not degenerated into endless arguments about whether empathy is due to an actual sharing of energy or some sort of pheremone/biological/imaginary phenomenon. There is a real psychological phenomenon here that is worth discussion. Its implications are important.

 

My own life has been plagued with people who have misused my empathic abilities. They have pulled something from me by getting me into emotional situations then torturing me. This may even be called a sort of "negative empathy." They get pleasure from someone else's pain. It's like a drug. Some call it a form of vampirism. They achieve this by chucking someone's conscious mental processes down an emotional black hole, the kind that Bettina was talking about. Maybe all they get is that they get off on it, but it works pretty much the same. One goes up, one goes down. A lot of us who suffer from this are willing to do anything to ease the pain. People literally think that there is something wrong with me because I recognize that people use this to take advantage of me, and I tell them what I think of it. They go so far as to accuse me of being criminally insane, a liar, paranoid, or they use more colloquial terms that everyone is familiar with. These are universally the people who have been causing me problems.

 

Everyone here may have noticed that I have been treading very lightly here because I don't want to swamp this thread with that noise. This thread is worthwhile and it's going somewhere. For the most part it does better without my help.

[mike90]

Well I am sorry if my comments offended anyone. i'm not here for attention, or to lay claim to having superpowers. I know to the skeptical some of the things stated in here may sound like nonsense. But to people dealing with this who don't know where to go, it's nice to have somewhere to share experiences. And to know your not alone. Anything I;ve posted in here, for the most part, has been to help people like me who most liekly have no clue where to go for support. I know i still don't.

[coquina]

I wonder if any of you have had empathetic responses to the situation in New Orleans?

 

I feel sorry for those people, but I don't feel like them, and find it hard to imagine what it would like to lose everything, including members of one's family.

[mike90]

I get normal sympathetic feelings to global situations most of the time. I cant imagine surviving it if i could pick up pain on a level like that. Mine usually requires personal contact of some kind.

[Glider]

I object to moving this thread to a ghetto where it will be labelled, in the minds of many, as nonsense.

Do you think that this thread gains credibility by being in this forum? If you believe it would lose credibility simply be being moved, then surely its credibility is questionable to begin with. If the topic is sound, surely it will withstand the criticism of others?

 

It has not degenerated into endless arguments about whether empathy is due to an actual sharing of energy or some sort of pheremone/biological/imaginary phenomenon. There is a real psychological phenomenon here that is worth discussion. Its implications are important.

 

What real psychological phenomenon is being discussed? I see a lot of personal anecdotes, self-disclosure, angst and agonising (I don't mean this unkindly) but I don't see any clear definition of the phenomenon itself, nor do I see any evidence of psychology since Mokele and Martin posted (Nos 5 & 6).

 

I'm not sure whether it's the term 'empathy' people don't understand, or the term 'psychology', but reading this thread, I am prepared to say that it does not belong in this forum. However, as I say, it is a popular thread and I wouldn't like to close it, but I am happy to move it to general discussion.

[Bettina]

I don't think semag68 meant anything by his remark so go easy on him. I admit to a little sarcasm myself in my comment when I asked him what he thought science was, so I'm sorry for that. Semag68, if you could only be me one time.....but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

 

The situation in New Orleans makes me feel very sympathetic, maybe a little more than the normal person, but it doesn't trigger anything else. I have no abnormal problems with global chaos or death, and like Mike90 said, I would not survive that amount of pain if I took that on myself so rather than tempt fate, I don't read that part of the news in too much detail. I got that advice from my forum friends here.

 

With me its only animals, kids and old people that can trigger this "attachment" and it doesn't have to be physically in front of me as I explained with Jessica or the dozens before her. In a group of happy people I'm fine, but if I see a kid that isn't, and he is really in distress,...and....if I stare at him, I can lock on and become him in a matter of seconds. Sometimes its easy and I can actually feel the pain or distress he is going thru, but sometimes its very scary, especially if the other person doesn't let go or I can't. I've said all this before. Believe me, I never lie.

 

Glider, I don't know what to tell you and having thought more about it, I rather see it closed than moved. Although I got understanding here from my friends, I didn't get the answers I was looking for and the physco I go to isn't helping me either because he's operating out of a box of educated knowledge that he was taught and I'm somewhere on the outside looking in. I don't know what my outcome will be, but Thomas Kirby....you need to turn around and come back while you still can, your in way too deep.

 

Like I said before, and Mike90 too, I came here because I don't have anywhere else to go. Most of the other forums I went too, and I've been to all of them, eventually tried to tie magic or the occult into my problems, so I left. Some people on this forum understand me and it was great connecting with them.

 

The people in this forum are intellegent....a far cry from those other places. I have a lot to learn and plan to stay here anyway. but as far as this topic is concerned, I can see the handwriting on the wall and I will have to look for another forum to find people like me.

 

Bettina

[Thomas Kirby]

You're right, Bettina. Also, this thread isn't about me. I just thought it could help a lot of people.

[-Demosthenes-]

It would be cool to do some kind of empathic science experiment. Have a person claiming to be an empath try to feel what someone else is feeling or something like that.

[mike90]

Well this isn't my thread, but like i mentioned before it is nice to have some place to discuss things like this with intelligent, grounded people. ( people that don't claim to be able to levitate or use pyrokenesis, etc) I think it would be kind of a shame to see it go, but maybe i to will have to find somewhere more appropriate to go to talk about this. And to demosthenes idea, its a good one but theres a few problems. Oftentime whats going on has no visible effect except to the people sharing the bond. And many peoples empathy( like mine) is totally random, so its not reliable enough to scientifically prove

[The Spith]

I've been reading this thread a bit more and have come up with some ideas, but first just a quick question to the empaths on this thread:

 

Would you like to stop being empathic?

[SorceressPol]

I have pretty stable control over my empathy so I wouldn't want it to go away. Besides trying to remove empathy could bring about harsh consequences. How would you be able to control how much of the empathy that you want removed. During an incredibly stressful situation, I blocked it out, but that made me a very cold person. It took a while for me to get back my normal emotions.

[-Demosthenes-]

Could you feel how someone is feeling at will? Do you need to be close? If there are people who claim they can do it at will then it seems it would be easy to test.

[senexa]

There's was a really good lecture on cognitive science given by Evan Thompson at the University of California Santa Barbara, and he defines empathy as follows:

 

"As an intentional capacity, empathy is the basic ability to comprehend another individual's experience, a capacity that underlies all the particular feelings and emotions one can have for another.[vi] To exercise this capacity is to engage empathy as an intentional act and an intentional process. As a unique kind of intentional act, empathy is directed toward, and thereby has as its intentional correlate, the experience of another person.[vii] Although empathy so understood is founded on sense perception (of the Other's bodily presence), and can involve inference in difficult or problematic situations (when one has to work out how the Other feels), it is not reducible to some additive combination of perception and inference'after the fashion of the theory that says we understand others by first perceiving their bodily behaviour and then inferring or hypothesizing that their behaviour is caused by experiences or inner mental states similar to those that cause similar behaviour in us. Rather, in empathy we experience the Other directly as a person, that is, as an intentional and mental being whose bodily gestures and actions are expressive of his or her experience and states of mind. Finally, as an intentional process, empathy is any process in which the attentive perception of the Other's state or situation generates a state or situation in oneself that is more applicable to the Other's state or situation than to the subject's own prior state or situation."

 

He goes on to investigate the types of empathy and the ways to become more proficient.

 

He ends by saying,

"Put another way, I think that giving subjective experience an active and creative role to play in cognitive science through the use of first-person methods is as much an ethical step as a methodological one. My long-term hope is to see in my lifetime a flourishing contemplative, phenomenological, and experimental science of the mind."

 

There is an exceptionally good bibliography attached.

 

 

Having lived with an abundance of this for sixty years, I offer a couple of thoughts:

 

If you want to block an empathetic response that is threatening to overwhelm you, eat peanut butter. It is a quickly digested protein, and the process of digestion will pull your energy away from cognitive function.

 

If you want to enhance it, eat a lot of chocolate or a huge amount of meat (like a great big steak) or fast. All of these almost poison your system, enabling the cognitive process to accelerate.

 

Mostly, realize that you are not nuts and you are not weird. As has been noted, every being has this ability. Some folks are so afraid of it that they block it all out. Some folks cherish and foster it. Some folks want to make money from their skill. Some folks use it for religion. But for all it is a biologically necessary survival mechanism.

[Thomas Kirby]

Senexa, I just wanted to say thank you. I think that I will go and get some peanut butter tonight or tomorrow. Seriously.

[Bettina]

I delayed participating here because of the threads controversy and credability but I need to answer some of these for my own personal reasons while its still here.

 

I've been reading this thread a bit more and have come up with some ideas' date=' but first just a quick question to the empaths on this thread:

Would you like to stop being empathic?[/quote']

The answer is yes. I don't want to feel the suffering of another human or thing anymore. I don't want to become something else that makes me sick. So yes....Like I have repeatedly said, I would like it stopped. Find me a magic pill, whatever, but I want to keep normal sympathetic qualities that a normal person would have. I want to be normal. Ask Mike90 or some of the others here if there happy about what they have.

 

Please don't come back with some religious answer to my problems....if your coming back at all.

 

Could you feel how someone is feeling at will? Do you need to be close? If there are people who claim they can do it at will then it seems it would be easy to test.

 

Me?....No I can't. If I could, I would work for a doctor. Once I know its a test, or something not real, I would get nothing. People who say they can do it at will are much different than me.

 

There's was a really good lecture on cognitive science given by Evan Thompson at the University of California Santa Barbara' date=' and he defines empathy as follows:

 

"As an intentional capacity, empathy is the basic ability to comprehend another individual's experience, a capacity that underlies all the particular feelings and emotions one can have for another.[vi] To exercise this capacity is to engage empathy as an intentional act and an intentional process. As a unique kind of intentional act, empathy is directed toward, and thereby has as its intentional correlate, the experience of another person.[vii] Although empathy so understood is founded on sense perception (of the Other's bodily presence), and can involve inference in difficult or problematic situations (when one has to work out how the Other feels), it is not reducible to some additive combination of perception and inference'after the fashion of the theory that says we understand others by first perceiving their bodily behaviour and then inferring or hypothesizing that their behaviour is caused by experiences or inner mental states similar to those that cause similar behaviour in us. Rather, in empathy we experience the Other directly as a person, that is, as an intentional and mental being whose bodily gestures and actions are expressive of his or her experience and states of mind. Finally, as an intentional process, empathy is any process in which the attentive perception of the Other's state or situation generates a state or situation in oneself that is more applicable to the Other's state or situation than to the subject's own prior state or situation."

 

He goes on to investigate the types of empathy and the ways to become more proficient.

 

He ends by saying,

"Put another way, I think that giving subjective experience an active and creative role to play in cognitive science through the use of first-person methods is as much an ethical step as a methodological one. My long-term hope is to see in my lifetime a flourishing contemplative, phenomenological, and experimental science of the mind."

 

There is an exceptionally good bibliography attached.

 

 

Having lived with an abundance of this for sixty years, I offer a couple of thoughts:

 

If you want to block an empathetic response that is threatening to overwhelm you, eat peanut butter. It is a quickly digested protein, and the process of digestion will pull your energy away from cognitive function.

 

If you want to enhance it, eat a lot of chocolate or a huge amount of meat (like a great big steak) or fast. All of these almost poison your system, enabling the cognitive process to accelerate.

 

Mostly, realize that you are not nuts and you are not weird. As has been noted, every being has this ability. Some folks are so afraid of it that they block it all out. Some folks cherish and foster it. Some folks want to make money from their skill. Some folks use it for religion. But for all it is a biologically necessary survival mechanism.

 

Thank you very, very, much for this, and the chocolate idea. I haven't checked the link yet, but will do it tonight. I do eat a lot of chocolate and no peanut butter so I'm going to ease off on my candy binges now and see.

 

The article mentions "intentional". Mine is not. I don't seek it or want it and I try to stop it but fail almost every time. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what he's saying but I will look further.

 

Freak...Wierd...Nuts...are names that I've been called before but I've learned to keep quiet about my problems to almost everyone except my very close friends....and my friends here. Even the physco doesn't know everything.

 

I'm still looking for a place that has people like me and I will let you "wierd" ones know when I find one. Please return the favor if you should find one first. I've never had luck in the past though.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Bettina

[Thomas Kirby]

Bettina, I still think you're a lot more normal than your critics, if you don't mind my saying.

[The Spith]

Ok here are my thoughts on the subject, and ideas as to how this might work. Of course I have little education in psychology, so I’m sure there are more knowledgeable people here who may disagree with what I say.

 

To me it would seem that your ‘condition’ arises from three main things:

 

1) Good perception of body language/emotional state

2) A well trained imagination

3) A selfless personality

 

All of these are quite admirable qualities, however if you wish to control your empathy you will have to try and limit the effect of one of these.

 

I’ll begin with imagination.

 

Imagination is a skill that not very many people in the western (developed) world train, and as such a good imagination is quite rare. People are exposed to the media and television, which tends to provide entertainment for them without the need for any mental exercise. A good imagination is, in scientific terms, the ability to model a situation in your head. It is one of the major parts of having a good memory, as when you sense a stimulus in your environment, it is your imagination which will come up with ways that the stimulus is linked to a stored memory, and cause recall of a memory to occur.

 

In the case of empathy you are imagining the emotional state of a person, using the clues that they openly show through facial expressions, body language, tone of voice etc. This is where your perception comes in. Good perception of emotion is a trait common among female brains, something that is favored by evolution, as females will typically raise children, and so recognizing the needs of a person through expressions is crucial when raising babies unable to communicate by speaking.

 

These two abilities of perception and imagination provide you with a very clear image in your head of what a person is feeling.

 

The final part, which causes your feelings of nausea and sadness, is your selflessness. Simply put, you care so much for others that you can’t bear to see them in pain, and so you share the same emotions as them, perhaps even more so as there is no way for you to stop the source of the persons unhappiness (you may not even know what it is).

 

If you wished to stop your empathy, then I suggest the best way to do it is to stop or reduce one of the three traits.

 

Your perception of body language will be the most difficult to stop or reduce as it is something you do naturally. Trying to stop this would be the equivalent of trying to prevent arachnophobia by not looking at spiders (works in theory, but not so well in real life).

 

Imagination is also somewhat difficult, but there are ways. trying to occupy your thoughts with other tasks could dampen your ability to imagine. However I would advise against this, as if you spend too much time watching TV, and filling your mind with all the menial pursuits the rest of us follow, you may lose some of your individuality as well as a rare and useful skill.

 

Therefore the easiest option left open to you is to be less selfless. This is certainly something you don’t want to take to the extreme, as again selflessness is certainly something in short supply in the world. On the other hand, you should be able to keep a balance, and if feeling someone’s pain is causing you too much torment then there is nothing wrong with just stepping back a bit. Remember that a lot of the time people get themselves into trouble, and a lot of the time retribution will do them more good than sympathy.

 

 

Anyways, that’s my take on it.

[Bettina]

Ok here are my thoughts on the subject' date=' and ideas as to how this might work. Of course I have little education in psychology, so I’m sure there are more knowledgeable people here who may disagree with what I say.

 

To me it would seem that your ‘condition’ arises from three main things:

 

1) Good perception of body language/emotional state

2) A well trained imagination

3) A selfless personality

 

All of these are quite admirable qualities, however if you wish to control your empathy you will have to try and limit the effect of one of these.

 

I’ll begin with imagination.

 

Imagination is a skill that not very many people in the western (developed) world train, and as such a good imagination is quite rare. People are exposed to the media and television, which tends to provide entertainment for them without the need for any mental exercise. A good imagination is, in scientific terms, the ability to model a situation in your head. It is one of the major parts of having a good memory, as when you sense a stimulus in your environment, it is your imagination which will come up with ways that the stimulus is linked to a stored memory, and cause recall of a memory to occur.

 

In the case of empathy you are imagining the emotional state of a person, using the clues that they openly show through facial expressions, body language, tone of voice etc. This is where your perception comes in. Good perception of emotion is a trait common among female brains, something that is favored by evolution, as females will typically raise children, and so recognizing the needs of a person through expressions is crucial when raising babies unable to communicate by speaking.

 

These two abilities of perception and imagination provide you with a very clear image in your head of what a person is feeling.

 

The final part, which causes your feelings of nausea and sadness, is your selflessness. Simply put, you care so much for others that you can’t bear to see them in pain, and so you share the same emotions as them, perhaps even more so as there is no way for you to stop the source of the persons unhappiness (you may not even know what it is).

 

If you wished to stop your empathy, then I suggest the best way to do it is to stop or reduce one of the three traits.

 

Your perception of body language will be the most difficult to stop or reduce as it is something you do naturally. Trying to stop this would be the equivalent of trying to prevent arachnophobia by not looking at spiders (works in theory, but not so well in real life).

 

Imagination is also somewhat difficult, but there are ways. trying to occupy your thoughts with other tasks could dampen your ability to imagine. However I would advise against this, as if you spend too much time watching TV, and filling your mind with all the menial pursuits the rest of us follow, you may lose some of your individuality as well as a rare and useful skill.

 

Therefore the easiest option left open to you is to be less selfless. This is certainly something you don’t want to take to the extreme, as again selflessness is certainly something in short supply in the world. On the other hand, you should be able to keep a balance, and if feeling someone’s pain is causing you too much torment then there is nothing wrong with just stepping back a bit. Remember that a lot of the time people get themselves into trouble, and a lot of the time retribution will do them more good than sympathy.

 

 

Anyways, that’s my take on it.[/quote']

 

For someone who claims to have little education in psychology, you pretty much know me. In fact, imagination is what the physco docs have been saying all along only you have said it with more empathy than they could ever have. This is whats lacking in the guy I go to now. I get the feeling he rather be somewhere else instead of with me but I go because my dad wants me to and I can't say no.

 

I was born this way, and try as I do, I haven't been able to desensitize or control any of it. I can't look at just part of the hurricane damage so I've tuned it out completely. I'm trying to learn to pull myself away from bad events as some posters here suggested I do and I even stopped eating a lot of chocolate as another poster told me, but if I see something live and not on tv, I find I can't step back at all.

 

Sometimes, I sense there is a number 4. I don't know what it is or even if there is something else but I'm still looking.

I have to study now, but I printed this out to look at again later and I would like to touch on this again. Being understood helped me a lot.

 

Thank you very much for this.

 

Bettina

[The Spith]

Glad to see I could be of assistance.

 

There probably are more things that contribute to empathy. Like any other psychological trait it is likely to have a large number of possible causes and factors contributing to it.

 

One thing I thought up recently was the way in which you respond to a situation, and whether your response is emotional or analytical. This I think is one of the main differences between empaths and non-empaths.

 

If you wish to control your empathy through this trait then whenever you meet someone in some sort of distress, try to think of what the best thing you can be doing to help them is, the same way a medic doesn’t get distressed by seeing someone in pain. They just treat them the way they have been trained to.

 

 

If you want to learn a bit more about the way your mind works, particularly with regards to imagination, then I recommend some of Tony Buzan’s books. Although they are focused on memory, they have helped me understand a lot about how my mind works. A better ability to remember things has also proved useful for me as I’m naturally forgetful.

[Bettina]

Glad to see I could be of assistance.

 

There probably are more things that contribute to empathy. Like any other psychological trait it is likely to have a large number of possible causes and factors contributing to it.

 

One thing I thought up recently was the way in which you respond to a situation' date=' and whether your response is emotional or analytical. This I think is one of the main differences between empaths and non-empaths.

 

If you wish to control your empathy through this trait then whenever you meet someone in some sort of distress, try to think of what the best thing you can be doing to help them is, the same way a medic doesn’t get distressed by seeing someone in pain. They just treat them the way they have been trained to.

 

 

If you want to learn a bit more about the way your mind works, particularly with regards to imagination, then I recommend some of Tony Buzan’s books. Although they are focused on memory, they have helped me understand a lot about how my mind works. A better ability to remember things has also proved useful for me as I’m naturally forgetful. [/quote']

 

My response in any situation is always emotion based. That always comes first and usually instantaneous. My decision to act is final until some logical decision takes its place. (Like that bee in the window was pure emotion and nothing would change my mind)

 

Funny thing, my dad is sympathetic and warm when he needs to be, but is not emotional at all and acts on pure logic otherwise. My mother, wherever she is, could pass for an iceburg, so where did I get this from? I have no uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. So, why me.

 

I have been reading "mirror neurons" and "theory of mind" articles looking for some answers but I'm very careful about forming any theory of my own. My "doctor" mentioned to me once that he doesn't want me to talk to anyone here because I could pick up bad ideas. Yeah, right....

 

Thanks for those links. I will accept any and all kinds of help as long as it doesn't mention those crystal ball words. Here's one for example..I have a lot more.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7656021/page/2/

 

Bettina

[gib65]

My "doctor" mentioned to me once that he doesn't want me to talk to anyone here because I could pick up bad ideas. Yeah' date=' right....

[/quote']

 

Well, you'll certainly get a wide variety of ideas here, but they can't ALL be bad .