The person with excess empathy syndrome is like a long-range antenna that absorbs and envelops every emotion that vibrates in their environment, far from dealing with this burden, ends up diluting the needs of others, poisoning himself with excessive compassion until he feels guilty about the pain others experience. Few sufferings can be so exhausting.
Seeing these situations as a clinical problem may surprise a lot of people. Do we do too much when it comes to using the label? Pathological?For (apparently) “normal” behaviors obviously not and everything has an explanation. The Mental Disorders Manual (DSM-V) describes it as a feature of personality disorders, it’s for an obvious reason.
- Any behavior that interferes with the way we relate.
- That brings suffering and inability to lead a normal life requires a diagnosis and a type of therapeutic strategy that can solve it.
- Therefore.
- People who suffer from over empathy or who show a persistent pattern of discomfort and inability to function at the social level.
- Personal and professional.
- Will enter.
- In this case.
- Into a context of personality disorder.
All of this leads us to realize that it is not the same to be very sensitive and suffer from excessive empathy syndrome. For example, in the book “Women Who Love Psychopaths?”Sandra L. Brown, there’s an aspect that can’t leave anyone indifferent. In this psychiatrist’s work, we see that there are women who can understand and even justify psychopathic behavior.
Excessive empathy prevents them from clearly seeing the predator, murderer or abuser in front of them. Moreover, his intelligence to justify his wife’s acts of violence was incredibly sophisticated. A fact that clearly shows that an excess of empathy is a type of disorder that is not revealed, but must be considered.
Perhaps many think that if empathy is a positive, useful, and desirable skill, what’s wrong with having “too much empathy”?As always, in life excesses are not good and balance is ideal. we never forget to separate the others. In other words, the famous phrase “empathy is the ability to put yourself in the place of the person in front of us. “We must make it clear that we will do so while still being ourselves.
Similarly, it is important to remember now what types of empathy we can experience, those who are healthy, and those that can lead us to that border where, inevitably, discomfort occurs.
Describing the person with over empathy syndrome will help us a lot. First, distinguish between mere emotional sensitivity or pathological “hypersensitivity”. In addition, we will also examine how DSM-V identifies this type of behavior.
At this point, many of us are likely to wonder why, what makes someone feel so much pain when they get the emotions of others?Well, in recent years we have taken great steps on the subject and, in fact, we are already knowing the genetic and neurochemical bases that can help this situation.
Empathy spectrum disorders give us a lot of information about realities such as Asperger’s syndrome, overempathy syndrome or borderline personality disorder, certainly an interesting topic that will give us excellent responses and better therapeutic approaches in the coming years. .
On the other hand, when it comes to what to do if we have excessive empathy, the answer cannot be simpler: seek the help of a professional, if we are at the most pathological end it is always appropriate to learn a series of techniques define limits, have greater self-control over our thoughts, feed our own needs and define more strongly our identity and self-esteem.
We must not forget that excessive empathy not only generates discomfort, but also separates us from ourselves and the world itself, it makes no sense to anchor ourselves in a sphere of emptiness and persistent torment, we must take the first step to get out of this negative reality. ?