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Enneagram Main Board Archive Empathy = fear + identification?Posted by Tal on July 31, 1999 at 21:22:17: In Reply to: are 2's really?? empathic?? posted by bev on July 31, 1999 at 19:25:03: Hey Bev... 'Empathy' is one of those commonly-used but hard-to-define things. I agree with you, empathy is generally taken to mean feeling what another feels, when this can't really be the case. We can use 'sympathy' instead. But I think it goes deeper. Fundamentally since human beings are egotistic at root (bring on the arguments to the contrary)--in the sense that everything we undertake is done to fulfill a need of our own--empathy must also be centered around our own needs and not anyone else's. What this means is that when we feel 'empathy' we're generally just tapping into our own fears and desires, in relation to other people (since those other people are experiencing them and not us). We don't (never ever) feel empathy for a person to whom we can't relate at all. Just as you don't feel empathy/sympathy for a rock or a wall: you can't relate in any form or fashion. You find that people always empathise most with situations which they can identify with. Fearful people feel sympathy for other people who are scared; people with a tendency to be lonely sympathize with others who seem lonely too, and so on. Anyone who doubts this is so can prove it to themselves by asking why they take it more to heart when something happens to someone close to them than to an anyonymous stranger. It doesn't have to be a family member or friend; it may as well be someone living in our city we've never heard of vs. someone living in Kazakhstan. When you hear "accident kills 5 in Kazakhstan" that doesn't hit you nearly as hard as "accident kills 5 down the street from you." Why? Because you can't easily see yourself in Kazakhstan, but you know full well you could have easily been in the car just down the street. Hence, 'empathy' is an egotistic, selective emotion: you feel it to the degree you identify with the situation of the victim. You feel more sorry for the relatives near you than across the ocean because you can't readily identify with people 15,000 kms away. As to the question of Twos... I've always had a peculiar interest for the Two psychology. Don't know exactly why. I think it might be because Five and Two are complete opposites and Twos have always seemed like a completely alien world to me. I resent them (having had bad experiences with them, just as you have) and am fascinated by them concurrently. Empathy in the Two is, I think, mostly an illusion. Not just in the sense of projection--i.e. the Two projecting their own emotions onto you and sympathizing--because we all project our emotions and identify only with the familiar (see above). But Twos make it their business to know what you need. This is very different from genuine empathy (which, while fundamentally as egotistic as any other emotion, is hardly negative, and perfectly genuine). In Twos, empathy is usually a rationalization to cover up their need to be needed (and thus to know what you need). A Two's mind can work as follows: a) I want you to love me. At point e, the Two's psychological loop is complete: they have rationalized being needy by making themself feel sorry for you. Naturally, the conscious feedback seems completely genuine. Most Twos are 100% sure you really are miserable, and they really can help. This isn't projection, and it isn't really empathy in the sense of a reaction to identification; it's empathy purely as rationalization. Evil! Evil! Evil!
> anyway, my discord stems from experiences i have had with other types, in particular, 2's... experiences that were harmful to me and to which they, never gave any additional attention nor were upset by... two's are often described as empathic...whether healthy or not..empathy, to me is best described as being able to feel as another feels... to begin with i do not think this is possible as we can only feel what we imagine what others feel based on our own life experience of similar feelings,...i can never truly feel the depth of someone elses emotions.. i can only imagine.. i prefer to espouse a similar view as Carl rogers ..... empathic understanding...anyway.. in my experiences with these twos... one male and one female, neither actually were empathic but were attempting to impose/project their emotions on me... i should feel as they did about the situation... it was very artificial and felt dismissive to me.. which neither of them appeared to notice... am i confused in my understanding of the two type or is it my 4 haughtyness "how dare they not see my feelings as unique or different from theirs?" > some comments would be appreciated...it's one of those life mysteries i would like to understand... as i work with both these people...on a daily basis...
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