What I Am Reading

I Just finished reading Trent Selbrede’s book The Myth of Empathy: Why your empathy has no clothes. Thanks thom h. boehm for recommending it.

Full disclosure: I like the idea of empathy. I think my upbringing, my training as an actor, the variety of service and manual jobs I had early in my career created an emotional awareness that helped my career. I never wrote this on a resume or client proposal, but I liked it when clients told me that I saw unintended consequences of their behavior that they didn’t see.

So I didn’t expect to like this book, but I did. I found myself agreeing with Trent more than I thought I would.

Trent isn't arguing for a selfish world. He just believes that empathy as gushed about on social medial is fake.

He maintains that it is impossible to truly understand someone else’s experience and feelings. When we profess to, when we share our own stories to "relate" we run the risk of not only being inaccurate, but of being really insulting and making things worse for the person your trying to help.

He shares some horrific stories to illustrate - telling a mother whose son' is in a vegetative state -"You may be his birth mother, but I loved him as much as you." Yuck!

I’ve never done anything like that. But I sometimes share stories of similar experiences I’ve had with people who are having a tough time. As a result of reading Trent’s book, I’m going to do that less and certainly be a lot more careful when I do.

I’m also going to resist my desire to “solve the problem” more.

Trent writes about the words we use for attending to the emotional needs of others: Sympathy, Pity, Compassion, etc. Some will say “Oh that’s just semantics!”

Semantics is a branch of the philosophical disciple of semiotics, signs, images and symbols that guide our lives. Semantics is the study of meaning.
So semantics is not nothing. Words describe and direct our behavior.

There are some humorous parts in the book. “What if I don’t want to put on somebody else’s shoes? What if they are smelly?”

Trent also shares his own personal history, which I have to say made his points well. But no, Trent, I don’t think I fully understand your life.

I had some difficulty with Trent’s treatment of “empaths” or people who earn their living through emotional intelligence. The humor seems little brittle and mean-spirited.

I'm still a believer in empathy. I know we can't truly understand another's experience, but it doesn't hurt to try. I agree with Trent that attending to the emotional needs of others is tricky. Carl Rogers said, “Help that isn’t asked for is usually perceived as interference rather than help.”

Being sensitive to others means offering and asking, but recognizing that even that can increase undue pressure.

I absolutely agree with the four behaviors he ends up with as alternatives to empathy.

A worthy read, a worthy topic for discussion.