Did you know that empathy has two sides? Dr. Marina West did not. She only shared other people’s suffering, but never their joy. She had gone into medicine because she wanted to alleviate people’s suffering, but she had gotten depressed herself. Dr. West learned cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and found her depression lifted as she began feeling both sides of empathy.
The definition of empathy is: “to understand and share the feelings of another.” This, of course, includes feelings that are “positive” and “negative”. Both joy and sorrow. Yet culturally we have tended to focus only on the sharing in other people’s suffering and neglected to focus on sharing in other people’s joy.
Sharing in other people’s joy has been given various names, including “positive empathy” or “vicarious joy”.
Dr. West realized that she was not feeling any of this when one of her good friends got married. She was having coffee with a third friend who said how happy she was for their mutual friend’s upcoming nuptials. Dr. West knew she was supposed to feel this way too, but the truth was that she, in fact, felt the opposite. She didn’t feel happy at all for their friend’s romance and wedding.
“Culturally we have tended to focus only on the sharing in other people’s suffering and neglected to focus on sharing in other people’s joy”
The method of CBT is based upon the understanding that the way we think about something is what causes the way we feel about it. We often don’t realize this though because our thoughts go by so quickly we don’t even realize what we are thinking. The method of CBT involves identifying our thoughts, in particular our stressful thoughts. If we discover a stressful thought that we have believed for a long time, this is called a “core belief”.
Dr. West discovered a core belief about joy and suffering that she had not realized she had before doing CBT. Her core belief was that there was an unlimited supply of suffering, but a limited supply of joy in the world. She thought of suffering like air, it was abundant, ubiquitous and everywhere. She thought of joy instead like a pile of gold, or a mound of diamonds. So, if one person got some there was less joy for everyone else.
This unconscious core belief explained to Dr. West why she was not happy for her friend getting married. Dr. West herself was single and wanted to find love also. With this core belief, she thought that her friend finding love and marriage meant there was somehow less for her.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”
Luckily, Dr. West used the CBT method to challenge this core belief, and found that upon investigation, it made no sense to her. The first question in CBT is whether our identified stressful thought is true? Is there evidence to support it? Dr. West quickly determined that the answer to this question was no! Why would pain be limitless and joy be limited? She further discovered that she had learned this from her family but she had never noticed.
Dr. West had always called herself empathetic, but in doing CBT she realized that she had been missing a great deal. She realized she had felt important calling herself an “empath”. She realized though that she had failed to see that it was even more important to share in people’s sufferings and their joys.
We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. “Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.” This is a Latin phrase that means: whatever is received is received according to the manner of the receiver. This is also called “confirmation bias”. Dr. West had only been looking for suffering, and had not been looking for joy, without realizing she was doing this. Now, after using CBT, she began consciously looking for joy. She, of course, found it everywhere, including in her patients.
“Sharing joy also strengthens our sense of connection with other people”
There are many health benefits from looking for and sharing in joy. So, Dr. West began to teach her patients about “positive empathy” as well. Her joy and their joy increased exponentially!
Sharing another person’s joy activates your own brain’s reward pathways. In other words, their happiness is rubbing off on you. Sharing joy also strengthens our sense of connection with other people. The neural pathways involved in empathy are modulated by neuroendocrine mechanisms. In particular, the neruopeptide oxytocin plays a very important role in joyful social interactions by reducing stress and anxiety, and, as a result, enhancing cognitive empathy (a happy feedback loop). The past decades have seen an explosion of studies on empathy in various academic domains, including neuroscience, psychology, economics, and medicine.
Do you notice joy in others? Do you share in their happiness? When another person is successful do you feel uplifted or find inspiration in their accomplishments and joy? If so, then you are experiencing positive empathy, or vicarious joy, and research has found that it comes with substantial benefits. By feeling your own joy and vicarious joy each day, you are doubling the amount of joy in your life.
As Mother Teresa said, “Joy is strength.”
Morelli, S.A., Lieberman, M.D. & Zaki, J. (2015). The Emerging Study of Positive Empathy. Social & Personality Psychology Compass. 9(2). 57-68.
His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams (2016). The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. Avery-Penguin Random House, New York, NY.
Dr. Robin Barstow is a psychotherapist, writer, speaker, and founder of MINDWELTH, a Holistic Mental Health private practice. Driven by her goal of helping people to suffer less, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the foundation of her social work. She also practices CBT on herself daily, and that experience informs her understanding of this profound, practical method. Robin Barstow holds a MA from Columbia University, a PhD from Yale University, and LCSW from the University of Maine. She has extensive training and knowledge from working inpatient and outpatient, with both children and adults. Her hobbies include swimming in the sea, knitting and traveling. Read More >>
Robin Barstow, LCSW, MA, PhD
MINDWELTH
207-664-4482
5 Fletcher Street, suite 201, Kennebunk, ME 04043
mindwelth@gmail.com
Website: https://mindwelth.com/
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