When we go to therapy, we often expect the specialist to sympathize with us, accept our pain as his own, take our side and tell us what to do. But does he have to do all this? Or, on the contrary, is it better for him to step back and not get emotionally involved in our problems?
I am sure that each of us at least once had to receive support and sympathy. When it is clear that the interlocutor is not just listening to us, but is participating, he sympathizes. Empathy is the ability to empathize with another without losing contact with oneself.
This happens, for example, when visiting a psychotherapist or psychologist. We talk about the experience and feel an empathic response from the specialist.
Often we go to a psychologist precisely for this sympathy, which is so lacking in life. But should the therapist take our pain as his own? This is a question I constantly asked at the beginning of the work.
When I first came to training as a psychotherapist, I was very wounded, and, to be honest, this greatly interfered with my practice. Internal hypersensitivity demanded to protect the person sitting in front of you, to protect him from what is happening in his or her life, to give advice on how to act to resolve the situation.
Something had to be done about this. Therefore, my request in personal therapy was to reduce the excessive influence of empathy in work.
Five years have passed since then. I work with clients who bring me different pain. Recently I have been wondering where does empathy come from? And is there anything stronger than this ability? And I remembered Van Gogh — this is one of those people whom I sincerely admire. He had synesthesia: he could taste color, see color in every day of the week. For example, Tuesday for him was with the taste of orange and blue.
My «mirror» captures the feelings of the interlocutor just enough to help him swim out. «I sympathize with your pain»
But there is also mirror synesthesia, in which a person feels what is happening with another. Many will remember how someone cut himself with paper, and we live all the pain of that moment on ourselves. These sensations are transmitted through a similar experience, which is deposited in the memory and allows you to activate the sensations once experienced.
I also remembered a story from an interview with Dr. Joel Salinas. He told how he did chest compressions. And when the patient died, he felt completely empty and began to slide down to the floor, as if life was leaving him.
Where’s the empathy in that? Many scientists view mirror synesthesia as a magnified version of empathy. Those with this property have the brain regions responsible for empathy working harder than most, and the expression “I feel your pain” is a literal description of what is happening to them.
Such hypersensitive, according to various sources, from 1,4% to 2,8% of all mankind. Should we psychotherapists fall into that percentage and «slide down to the floor» like Joel Salinas?
I was afraid that after personal therapy my sensitivity would disappear altogether, I would become callous. Reality turned out to be different. I was able to find the line where my feelings end and the feelings of another begin. I stopped drowning in my own empathic response, drowning in someone else’s pain, dragging the other with me into its depths.
My «mirror» captures the feelings of the interlocutor just enough to help him swim out. «I sympathize with your pain.» This wording is closer to me.