Re: NEW ALEXA LITS: Re: See, I TOLD you UFOS were real!

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 02:22:38 +0200, Charles D. Bohne
<CharlesBohne@PasoSchweiz.de> wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:37:44 -0700, Aratzio <a6ahlyv02@sneakemail.com>
wrote:

Well to tell you the truth, I'd like to read Carl's explaination too.
Just as long as it feeds Alexa's paranoid delusion and is funny. Not
to put any pressure on Carl' or anything...

'Ratz
A Number 1, Grade A, Prime USDA 'Ratz
Accept No Substitute


*************************************************
Well RAT: that's the spirit of Abu Grahib!
*************************************************
... and the real reason why people all over
this planet (and beyond!) HATE YOU.
Being mean to others has nothing to do with
freedom and liberties - it just proves your
low-life meanness!
C.


Ratz, Carl, Flonkenstein, Ugly Bob and the host of other socks, all
demonstrate one undeniable trait:  lack of empathy.


  http://www.sli.org/page_108_understanding_empathy.html
  
 Understanding Empathy
Stephen Montana, Ph.D. 
Vol. VII, No. 3 May/June, 2003   
    
 Two psychiatrists meet on the street. One says to the other, "You're fine,
how am I?"

Empathy is currently one of the most discussed topics in psychology.
Parental empathy seems central in nourishing the development of
psychological health. Deficiencies in parental empathy are likely to be key
factors in creating risks for personality disorders, interpersonal
impairments and depression. In adults, lack of empathy is a contributing
factor in perpetrating exploitive and abusive behavior. Clinicians consider
empathy to be the most important element in the success of psychotherapy and
blame failures in empathy for negative therapeutic outcomes.

In psychiatric terms, having empathy is defined as one person's ability to
understand accurately the feeling state of another. This is different from
sympathy which is usually understood as the inclination for one person to
feel the same as another. Empathy is unique in that the feeling is not
necessarily shared; an empathic person simply appreciates the feeling state
of the other person. The origin of empathy seems to come from the physical
"mirroring" that parents and other adults do with children. The effort on
the part of the adult to mimic the child is the first stage of the ongoing
effort to put aside one's thoughts and feelings in order to recognize and
communicate understanding of what a child feels. As the author Alice Miller
says, "If a child is lucky enough to grow up with a mirroring mother�who is
at the child's disposal�then a healthy self-feeling can generally develop in
the growing child." Parental empathy generates a sense of self understanding
and self esteem which are crucial to psychological adjustment. When empathy
is persistently absent, the child must adapt. For example, a child may learn
to reject his/her particular feeling that resulted in crying when the tears
provoke anxiety in the parent. Frequently, we see the results of this in
clients who don't recognize their own feeling states - be it sadness or
anger or other feelings - but are hypersensitive to disapproval and other
negative reactions in others. 

We have all experienced frustration and pain as we interact with those who
spend much of their lives seeking what they did not receive from their
parents, in this case "seeking mirroring." When the need to be understood
takes precedence over mutuality in social situations, social interchanges
can feel like a one-way street patrolled by an angry police officer. The
need for recognition and understanding can be so intense that it may be
experienced by others as demanding and self-centered. Is it any wonder that
this stance frequently provokes discord and rejection and then becomes
another example of "not being understood?"

Hidden behind the anger in a person "seeking mirroring" is 
the child who fears that the search will be in vain. Herein lies the risk
for depression: the adult once again experiences the pain of not being
understood - of not receiving empathy. The loneliness of the moment may be
expressed as anger but the expectation of chronic disappointment will create
the risk for enduring depression. For those who have histories of being
raised by caregivers who lacked empathy, the pursuit of empathy as an adult
may be chronically in vain because even slight failures in empathy from an
important other are powerfully reminiscent of childhood and convincing
evidence that the possibility of an empathic friend, therapist, or spouse is
nonexistent.

Lack of empathy, when present in its extreme form, allows people to exploit
others without remorse. One client remarked that his counselee's resistance
to his sexual overtures seemed to him just a way of being "coy" and leading
him on. Sometimes clients who have been abused report how, as a child, they
were paralyzed with fear by the sexual touch of an adult while adult child
molesters have remarked that it couldn't have been so bad for the child
because "he didn't say anything."

Clinicians consider the role of impaired empathy in sexual exploitation
disorders so critical to the abuse, that empathy training is often a central
component in the psychological treatment of these disorders. Clients read or
hear testimony from victims about the experience of being sexually exploited
as a way of impressing on a client what it feels like to be victimized.
Although these techniques seem like useful methods of eliciting empathy for
the victim, some mental health professionals argue that the client can only
feel empathy for his victims if he has first experienced empathy for his own
past hurts. Thus, treatment often includes getting in touch with the
perpetrator's own pain. 

For those involved in ministering to others, empathy is a necessary skill.
Men and women in ministry typically have strong empathic abilities.
Nevertheless, there are pitfalls in practicing empathy. A common mistake
occurs when a minister assumes he or she knows how another person is feeling
because, "that's how I would feel" in a similar situation. "How I would
feel" may or may not be the same as how another person feels. Misassumptions
could lead to trying to rescue people who aren't in need and don't want
help. We have all seen how this can lead to frustration and even burnout.
Ultimately, accurate empathy depends on genuine curiosity about the other
person and recognition of their feelings; this helps establish the
groundwork for accurate communication and effective ministry.

Stephen Montana, Ph.D. is the Director of Clinical Services at Saint Luke
Institute