When Empathy Hurts You

We’re told often that we should empathize with others. 

As empathy puts yourself in the shoes of another person in an effort to not only understand, but to feel their experience, it’s invaluable in building good relationships and helping others. 

While it’s an essential skill for therapists, healers, and other caregivers, there are times when empathy works against us — and can even hurt us.

Laura van Dernoot Lipsky outlines some of the dangers.

Too much empathy can lead to putting another’s needs in front of your own creating an imbalance in our lives. That imbalance can create secondary (or vicarious) trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout. 

Secondary trauma may present itself through — but is not limited to — these feelings, actions, or physical symptoms:

• Avoidance
• Cynicism (sometimes cynical humor)
• Anger
• Rage
• Self-righteousness
• Sleep disruptions
• Physical tension and illness
• Hopelessness, helplessness, excessive guilt
• Numbing
• Apathy

Feeding the Problem
When experiencing these traumas, some may numb themselves with drugs, alcohol, sugar, social media, or just plain shutting down. This numbness feeds the problem and we continue to lose our ability to gauge if we are doing harm to ourselves or achieving self care. 

How to Heal
The first step towards good self care is being aware of the situation, then taking the responsibility for your self care. There are many ways to achieve it, but it should include connecting with others, addressing your physical health, and taking time for rest.

How to Avoid
A main reason could be a disruption in setting and maintaining boundaries. We’ll unpack that in part 2 in a continuing discussion about too much empathy and its affects on caregivers.  

An estimated 600,000 US Women Experience this Depression...

On International Women’s Day, we’ll take a look at a mental health issue affects a large number of women: postpartum depression (PPD), or a depression that occurs after childbirth.

Counter to what you might think, PPD is fairly common.  According to the CDC, 11 to 25 percent of mothers experience postpartum depression.

Sadly, more than half of those affected by it (15 percent) do not seek any professional help.

There are multiple issues that keep women from seeking help for this disorder, most notably guilt and shame. It’s difficult for new mothers to come to terms with “the baby blues” – after all, isn’t having a new baby supposed to be the happiest moment in our lives?

Postpartum depression can be serious. Symptoms may include:

• Depressed mood or severe mood swings
• Excessive crying
• Difficulty bonding with your baby
• Withdrawing from family and friends
• Loss of appetite or eating much more than usual
• Inability to sleep (insomnia) or sleeping too much
• Overwhelming fatigue or loss of energy
• Reduced interest and pleasure in activities you used to enjoy
• Intense irritability and anger
• Fear that you're not a good mother
• Feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt or inadequacy
• Diminished ability to think clearly, concentrate or make decisions
• Severe anxiety and panic attacks
• Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide

Hormonal changes and the stress from sleep deprivation that comes with caring for a newborn are thought to be causes of PPD.

Left unaddressed PPD can lead to chronic problems with depression and anxiety. Mothers with PPD often have difficulty bonding with their children, which impacts their development and so can affect their own mental health down the road.  For your sake, as well as the sake of your child, it is important to seek help. 

Postpartum depression can lead to suicidal thoughts.  
Should you have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, it is critical to seek help right away.  Please ask for help from those who support you and your baby.  You may also contact:

• Your mental health care provider
• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).
• The Crisis Connection, at 612-379-6363, or 1-866-379-6363.
• Your primary care doctor, minister or spiritual leader
• 911
• The mobile crisis team in your county:
  • Anoka: 763-755-3801
  • Carver/Scott: 952-442-7601
  • Dakota: 952-891-7171
  • Hennepin: adults - 612-596-1223, children - 612-348-2233
  • Ramsey: adults - 651-266-7900, children - 651-774-7000
  • Washington: 651-777-5222

Please remember: PPD is not your fault. 

Your body has just undergone significant hormonal changes, and you’re adjusting to a very stressful new reality.  You are not alone.  In the United States alone, an estimated 600,000 women struggle with this disorder. Help is available. 

For your own sake, and the sake of your baby, please reach out.

You are NOT your problems.

It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. And, it usually takes a lot of time to muster up that courage. 

But, by the time you ask, you’ve most likely internalized your problems. 

Internalizing problems over a long period of time can lead to ‘absorbing’ the problems into our identity, meaning you begin to define yourself by the problems. This not only exacerbates your problems, but it also becomes a malicious adversary in our lives. 

When you realize this, it’s time to begin to view problems as being ‘other’ and therefore able to be influenced, challenged, changed, even eradicated.

Therapy can help challenge any preexisting internalization of the problem. That is to say, therapy can be understood, in part, as a process by which the individual can begin to be separated from his/her problematic symptoms. 

No matter how educated we may be and intellectually or emotionally sophisticated; in the quiet moments when our problem presents as overwhelming how long until some version of the internal message ‘what is wrong with me?’ enters into our consciousness.

We live in a society that relentlessly facilitates the internalization of our problems; intertwined into the habitual fabric of our lives. Some of us grow up in homes where shameful messages were ever present. ‘Something is wrong’ so often became ‘something is wrong with me’. If our problematic symptoms are indivisible from ourselves then we are condemned to being ‘less than’, ‘broken’, being ‘apart from’. 

But this is not true.

• You are NOT your symptoms. 
  • You are NOT your problems. 
    • You are NOT your thoughts.

Through Narrative Therapy, we can help you externalize the problems and affirm that you are not the problem, rather the problem is the problem. 

We are here to help.

Meet Kirsten Clark, MSW, LICSW

Kirsten enjoys working with a diverse clientele.  She is passionate about working with adults who struggle with relationship concerns, anxiety or depression, and also enjoys assisting teens and families in crisis. She has provided mental health services within family programs through Hennepin County, as well as in K-12 educational settings.  She is experienced in play and art therapy for children and uses a range of narrative, cognitive behavioral and mindfulness approaches. She offers a collaborative, welcoming therapeutic environment in which clients feel safe to tell their story. Kirsten graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, and has more than 15 years of professional experience. A mother of three, she understands the multitude of challenges facing working moms and is passionate about helping her clients get to the next level.

Meet James Mallon, MA, LPCC

For Jim, counseling is a second career path. He started out in film and television, and enjoyed working in that field for more than 20 years. After having experienced the death of his daughter, Jim reached out for help to work through the intense grief, and existential confusion that followed. Through his own therapy, Jim developed a strong interest in the field of psychology. In 2012, he graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a masters degree in counseling.  Since then, he has enjoyed working with a culturally and ethnically diverse clientele. His creative talents make him particularly suited for work with individuals who are involved with the Arts. His clients appreciate his warmth, compassion, wisdom and sense of humor. 

Meet Christa Surerus, MA, LPCC, LADC

Christa started out her career as a translator in Germany and moved to Minnesota in 1987. She raised two daughters while studying psychology at the University of Minnesota, and obtaining a masters degree in psychological counseling at St. Mary’s University.  She is certified as a pathological gambling treatment provider, and completed a certificate in Addiction Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Losing her mother to cancer at age 11 was a defining moment in her life. With the help of caring adults, she got through the dark years that followed. Her experiences peaked intense curiosity about the human spirit: what makes us resilient? How do we choose what we choose? How do we create a meaningful life? How do we access joy? How can we reach those who have lost hope? She enjoys working with people from all walks of life presenting with a variety of concerns, and is widely known for her work with singles who wish to be coupled.  

Politics and Cognitive Distortion

The 2016 election process and thinking errors

As a mental health professional and addiction counselor I am tasked with approaching political events, within the context of therapy, from an objective stance. Surprisingly this is not as difficult as it may seem, particularly if one is prioritizing the mental health of one’s client. A good therapist has the ability to establish an alliance with a client as a means to explore healthy change; a process often referred to as ‘joining’. Post graduate training, professional experience, and the wisdom of other more experienced clinicians has taught me to not only join with clients but also maintain a professional objectivity that helps identify discrepancies between client behavior and their own stated values. It is the identification and therapeutic exploration of these discrepancies that often leads to sustained healthy change.

What does this have to do with the 2016 presidential election?

Have you experienced the phenomenon of finding out from someone in your life, that you otherwise respect, that they are voting for the ‘other candidate’?

What is the ensuing feeling that you experience?

One process by which some people inadvertently engage in thinking errors is when an emotional response to a situation perceived as threatening ends up distorting future behaviors and views. Put simply; as soon as we feel ourselves becoming increasingly frustrated, angry, scared, or threatened: we are subject to thinking errors. And though it be anecdotal, there are few people I have encountered following the 2016 election process that have not expressed some form of frustration, anger, trepidation, even fear. This is where I have to tread very lightly because my goal in writing this is simply to use the 2016 election as an example of how cognitive distortions (i.e. thinking errors) can cloud anyones judgement when they find themselves experiencing a strong emotional response.

A heated debate or argument with a family member, a strong physiological urge to use alcohol or drugs when trying to moderate, the feeling of jealousy, and even politics are examples of triggers that can elicit our fight or flight (survival instinct) response. There are many names for this phenomenon including ‘emotional reactivity’, being ‘flooded’ (referring to hormones flooding our system), fight or flight response, survival instinct, lashing out, etc. The common denominator is that during this process our ability to think clearly is greatly diminished. . .why?

Think back to our ancestors: when being chased by a saber-toothed tiger; it is essential that one quickly obtain a narrow thought process: run!!! Stopping to evaluate multiple options or attempting to sympathize with the tiger’s plight would obviously lead to becoming a big cat’s meal. Thus, when the primitive parts of our brain (limbic system - specifically the amygdala) have determined that a given situation warrants a fight or flight response (often at times we would love to veto that decision . . . e.g. giving a speech, first date), the more evolved parts of our brains (cerebral cortex) are often compelled to make sense of it: which leads to cognitive distortions to bridge our survival response with our values and convictions. People typically do not like sustained inner conflict.

A few examples of common cognitive distortions that may be applicable to this November include:

• Polarized thinking
‘All or nothing’, often expressed as all good or all bad; particularly when attributed to people. If our emotional response is strong, subtitles and nuance can be lost and the person causing this response tends to become the hero or the villain. “She always does this, or “he never does that” is most likely unintentional hyperbole.

• Thinking with your feelings
“I feel unsafe, therefore I must be in danger”, “I feel angry, so somebody must be to blame”. This thinking error goes back to equating our feelings with objective fact.

• Catastrophizing
 “End of the world”. When future oriented, this thinking error can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you were anticipating this post to include specific thinking errors of particular presidential candidates, I am sorry to disappoint. The attempt is more reflective and exploring a phenomenon that we all fall prey to assuming we are capable of an emotional response (i.e. we are human beings). I do not call into question the political views of the reader and definitely do not assume the reader experiences thinking errors in relation to the 2016 election process. I simply submit the notion that some of what we are witnessing on the news channels, at political gatherings, and perhaps in our personal social circles can stem from cognitive distortion. Insight of this physiological phenomenon might help enhance empathy in what has thus far, in my nonprofessional opinion, been a rather stress inducing political season.