Emotional Boundaries & Empathy

[Certain Hope]

Still working toward proper boundaries over here, reading, researching...
and this caught my eye:

"Empathy does not mean we should take on the emotions of others.
We need to be responsible for our own emotions and let others be responsible for theirs."

But where to begin?
I'm thinkin it all begins with SOOOPH! (Thanks, Tweety  )  Stay out of other peoples' heads!!

And here's some more useful info, I think:

How do you know when there are issues with emotional boundaries?  Have you ever heard anyone say that they "were in a good mood until you ruined it"?  They are implying that their mood was affected by you.  Or consider a situation where you are in a meeting and someone gathers their stuff and walks out abruptly.  Have you ever looked around at the others in the room and said, "was that me or was that him?".

Individuals with boundary issues will play the victim, expect you to act in certain ways, or create other problems for you.

Here are some warning signs of individuals with emotional boundary issues:

Moods & Feelings - Individuals may take on the moods and feelings of others.  This is different than empathy which is the ability to understand the moods and feelings of others.  Individuals with boundary issues will become more vested in the moods and feelings of others and lose themselves.  As my mentor Rich says, they need to "take someone else's temperature to see how they are feeling".  They may also become so bothered by the moods and feelings of others that they try to "fix" the other so that they can feel better.

Pleasing Others - Those with boundary issues will sacrifice themselves to please others.  This could mean forgoing their choices or needs or it could become victim-like (see next item). 

As an example, consider when you have a small group going out to lunch or making some other group choice.  Some individuals will go along with a choice they did not want (and may even hate) just to fit in and please others.

Victim-like Behavior - Pleasing others can be taken to the extreme of becoming a victim.  Individuals with boundary issues often find that to please others they feel that they cannot say no.  They end up feeling victimized by others.  The reality is that they allow others to take advantage of them.

Cannot Express Wants and Needs - Though they cannot (or will not) express what they want and need, they believe others should anticipate those unstated wants and needs and fulfill them. 

A key concept of emotional boundaries is that we are responsible for our own emotions and only those emotions.  It is unhealthy for us to become too concerned with the emotions of others.

What is the difference between healthy concern and unhealthy concern for the emotions of others?  How exactly do we respect our own emotional boundaries and those of others?

From:  http://eq4pm.typepad.com/eq4pm/2006/04/applied_eq_43_e.html

More to come... gotta absorb this first.

[Overcomer]

Good stuff!  I love taking someones temp to access how we feel!

[Certain Hope]

Good stuff!  I love taking someones temp to access how we feel!

Yup, Kelly... and that's just what I've done, it seems like forever.

Here's step 1 in respecting our own emotional boundaries and those of others:

Respond appropriately. 

How we respond to the emotions of others is a key to our own emotional sanity. 
While we want to use empathy to understand the feelings of others, we need to be careful not to become "hooked in" to the emotions they are experiencing. 
We need to exercise our own self-control in emotional and stressful situations. 
We need to chose our response carefully. 
For example, if we can remain calm and steadfast when others are angry, we can help to defuse that anger. 
We don't need to ramp it up and get just as angry as the other person.

I'm noting here that when dealing with those who are full of rage, for instance the personality disordered, remaining calm often results only in an escalation of the other person's anger... because, above all, that person just wants to get a rise outta ya... doesn't matter if it's positive or negative, as long as you're twirling around in their whirlwind. So in this case, I'm thinking it's best to simply walk away.

[lighter]

::Sigh::

Thanks for that timely post, Hope.

[Certain Hope]

::Sigh::

Thanks for that timely post, Hope.

   yw

Well, Lighter... along with so many other discoveries, this is a totally new one for me.

To realize that empathy is NOT the sponge-soaking I'd imagined it to be... well, I'm amazed.

For a lifetime, this was all turned around in my mind as I considered my mother's version of "dignity", which appeared to me to be nothing but cold withdrawal from all emotion. Oh, she has feelings alright... I'd see them in her cold-shoulder sulks; nowhere else.
Resentment, envy, bitterness, anger, contempt, frustration.... all growing out of a root of pride - haughty disdain and arrogance.

So when I'd encounter people who seemed so emotional and full of feeling, I'd gravitate toward them, thinking that THIS was the essence of life. O good Lord, no.
Now I see how I wound up filling that mommy/therapist role with friends, time after time.
I didn't just recognize others' feelings and acknowledge them... I was feeling them FOR others, along with them, just like a sponge in the bottom of a sink full of dirty dishwater.
And I see how I became hooked into npd-ex and other N vampizoids, all demanding that I continue feeling for and with them, far beyond the point of sanity. They didn't want empathy... they wanted me to take responsibility for their filthy mess and sacrifice myself on the altar of their almighty feelings. Now I know - that is not what the God means when the Bible says to love thy neighbor as thyself.
Not even!
So I'm bound and determined to learn this stuff and not take that hook again. For me, that means identifying and naming my own emotions and not denying them for the sake of someone else's comfort or to appease... and then learning to express those emotions calmly and firmly without picking up the offenses which others may lay at my feet.

After "Respond Appropriately" comes...

Take Responsibility 

Our own response should include taking responsibility for our own feelings. 
When I take responsibility for my own feelings, I acknowledge that they are my feelings and that I have a choice about them. 
Before we can take responsibility we have to be self-aware enough to know what it is we are feeling. 

This could be as simple as saying "I feel angry when you come late to the weekly status meeting". 
Do you see how this is subtly different from saying "you made me angry"? 
That is the difference between being responsible for our feelings and being a victim of others. 
That feeling of anger is a choice that we made based on the circumstances. [/i]

[reallyME]

I could relate to a lot of this, but just to comment on a couple things:

"take your temp to determine how they feel" and "says they were in a good mood but then you ruined it"

Kay didn't take my temp, so to speak...she would just wait, without saying anything, waiting for me to say something, making me feel really creepy inside at the silence...and she had these eyes that could bore a hole through you or alternately look like the most compassionate, protective things you ever saw!

Kay DID blame me for "making" her feel a certain way.  She would say "I was all happy and now you had to go and bring that up and NOW LOOK AT ME!"

[Certain Hope]

I could relate to a lot of this, but just to comment on a couple things:

"take your temp to determine how they feel" and "says they were in a good mood but then you ruined it"

Kay didn't take my temp, so to speak...she would just wait, without saying anything, waiting for me to say something, making me feel really creepy inside at the silence...and she had these eyes that could bore a hole through you or alternately look like the most compassionate, protective things you ever saw!

Kay DID blame me for "making" her feel a certain way.  She would say "I was all happy and now you had to go and bring that up and NOW LOOK AT ME!"

Laura,

NPD-ex had those eyes.
They could bore a hole clean through you -like acid - or appear soupy, sickly sweet... but that wasn't compassion at all, I don't think.
It was pity.
Pity for the pathetic N-supply that he could manipulate and twist and turn inside out with one glance... and there was mockery and gloating in that look, too, just barely beneath the surface.
Ever see the absolutely blank look of N who is struggling to "read" you? I mean there is nothing there! It's like a satellite trying to aquire signal... so she'll know which mask may be appropriate for the moment... whether cold & intimidating or warm & fuzzy.
N struggles to get a reading when the supply is just beginning to gain strength and stops sending out such strong "stomp all over me" signals.

"Look at what you've done to me."
"Look at what you've made me do."
Yup... poor, poor N. Always a victim of other peoples' insensitivity - aka refusal to knuckle under.

[lighter]

"Look at what you've done to me."
"Look at what you've made me do."
Yup... poor, poor N. Always a victim of other peoples' insensitivity - aka refusal to knuckle under.

 

Poor poor N...... the truth is cruelty sent straight to his heart, lol. 

Poor poor N..... why do I make him fight me and the children so hard?

Why do I make him go to war with us?

Poor poor N......

[Lupita]

Found this that might be interesting.The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term "einfuhlung" (literally, "in-feeling") to describe the emotional appreciation of another's feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person's subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance.9 Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person's experience from within that person's frame of reference.10

Even more simply stated, empathy is the ability to "put oneself in another's shoes." In an essay entitled "Some Thoughts on Empathy," Columbia University psychiatrist Alberta Szalita stated, "I view empathy as one of the important mechanisms through which we bridge the gap between experience and thought." A few sentences earlier in her essay, she had emphasized that ... "[empathy is] consideration of another person's feelings and readiness to respond to his [or her] needs ... without making his [or her] burden one's own."11:p151

[Lupita]

Becuase we never recieved empathy from our parents, we do not know how to practice it. But we are teachable. We can learn. We just need to be taught.
Unfortunately, many physicians were trained in the world of "Find it and Fix it" medicine, a world where empathetic communication was only an afterthought--if this behavior was considered at all. Empathy was known as "bedside manner," a quality considered innate and impossible to acquire--either you were born with it or you weren't. More recently, greater emphasis has been placed on empathy as a communication tool of substantial importance in the medical interview, and many experts now agree that empathy and empathetic communication are teachable, learnable skills

Practical Empathetic Communication
Making practical use of an otherwise esoteric concept such as empathy requires division of the concept into its simplest elements. As outlined by Frederic Platt,19 key steps to effective empathy include:
recognizing presence of strong feeling in the clinical setting (ie, fear, anger, grief, disappointment);
pausing to imagine how the patient might be feeling;
stating our perception of the patient's feeling (ie, "I can imagine that must be ..." or "It sounds like you're upset about ...");
legitimizing that feeling;
respecting the patient's effort to cope with the predicament; and
offering support and partnership (ie, "I'm committed to work with you to ..." or "Let's see what we can do together to ...").
Being a psychiatrist or mental health expert is not necessary for using empathetic communication; the only requirement is an awareness of opportunities for empathy as they arise during the interview with a patient. This type of opportunity arises from a patient's emotion (either directly expressed or implied): This emotion creates the opportunity for an empathetic response by the physician. In a study by Wendy Levinson et al,20 116 office visits to primary care and surgical physicians were audiotaped and transcribed to look at the frequency of empathy opportunities or "clues." More than half of visits in each setting included one or more clues. In more than half of cases, patients presented these clues not overtly but in more subtle ways. Unfortunately, physicians responded to those clues in only 38% of surgical cases and in only 21% of primary care cases and frequently missed opportunities to adequately acknowledge a patient's feelings.20 Clues are often hidden in the fabric of discussion about medical problems and thus may be easily missed by physicians who are busy attending to biomedical details of diagnosis and management. In fact, when opportunities for empathy are missed by physicians, patients tend to offer them again, sometimes repeatedly. This phenomenon can lead to longer, more frustrating interviews, return visits, and "doctor shopping" by patients who feel dismissed or alienated.
After an opportunity for empathy has been presented, the clinician should consider offering a gesture or statement of empathy. Statements that facilitate empathy have been categorized as queries, clarifications, and responses.21 Examples of each are as follows:
Queries
"Can you tell me more about that?"
"What has this been like for you?"
"How has all of this made you feel?"
Clarifications
"Let me see if I've gotten this right ..."
"Tell me more about ..."
"I want to make sure I understand what you've said ..."
Responses
"Sounds like you are ..."
"I imagine that must be ..."
"I can understand that must make you feel

This is for doctors, but we can change it to friends instead of patients. And see if our friends do that to us or we do it to our friends.

[Lupita]

Pity describes a relationship which separates physician and patient. Pity is often condescending and may entail feelings of contempt and rejection.
Sympathy is when the physician experiences feelings as if he or she were the sufferer. Sympathy is thus shared suffering.
Empathy is the feeling relationship in which the physician understands the patient's plight as if the physician were the patient. The physician identifies with the patient and at the same time maintains a distance. Empathetic communication enhances the therapeutic effectiveness of the clinician-patient relationship.
 


 

[Certain Hope]

"Look at what you've done to me."
"Look at what you've made me do."
Yup... poor, poor N. Always a victim of other peoples' insensitivity - aka refusal to knuckle under.

 

Poor poor N...... the truth is cruelty sent straight to his heart, lol. 

Poor poor N..... why do I make him fight me and the children so hard?

Why do I make him go to war with us?

Poor poor N......

Dear Lighter,

NPD-ex and I had few material goods over which to wrangle and - most importantly - no children together. The home in which we lived was mine, purchased before our marriage and in my name alone. And yet there was war, declared by him when he filed for the divorce and allowed, by me, to run its course unopposed.
He filed because I refused to say,
"aww, no... that's okay, judge, it was all just a misunderstanding.
I really don't need a restraining order against my wonderful husband... he's just a pussycat and I know he really does try hard. After all, he's been hurt, too... he can't help it he gets mad and blames everyone near and far for his own crackpot choices and actions."
Instead, I said, "Your honor, please keep this freak away from me."
How cruel of me. How inconsiderate and uncompassionate.

You didn't declare war, Lighter.
You simply refused to wither away and let him envelop you.
How dare you crack his perfect mirror! He's really fighting himself, you know.
(((((((((((Lighter))))))))))

[Certain Hope]

Found this that might be interesting.The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term "einfuhlung" (literally, "in-feeling") to describe the emotional appreciation of another's feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person's subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance.9 Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person's experience from within that person's frame of reference.10

Even more simply stated, empathy is the ability to "put oneself in another's shoes." In an essay entitled "Some Thoughts on Empathy," Columbia University psychiatrist Alberta Szalita stated, "I view empathy as one of the important mechanisms through which we bridge the gap between experience and thought." A few sentences earlier in her essay, she had emphasized that ... "[empathy is] consideration of another person's feelings and readiness to respond to his [or her] needs ... without making his [or her] burden one's own."11:p151

Dear Lupita,

Thank you!  This is so helpful... "maintaining an observant stance"... sharing & understanding from within the other's frame of reference.
That is more... or deeper, I think, than just imagining how you would feel if you experienced a certain event in the other person's life.

And yet it's not the actual carrying and experiencing of the other person's emotions to the point of losing touch with your own feelings and laying them entirely aside. 
I see...  because this could quickly become a matter of "owning" the other person's feelings to a depth that's not appropriate, making you much more than a caring observer, but, in fact, enmeshed (which is where I've been so many times).

So empathy bridges the gap between thinking and feeling, but doesn't completely overwhelm the empathic individual into a symbiotic relationship.
Balanced curiousity... need to keep pondering this... back later re: the rest.

Thank you again ((((((((((Lupita)))))))))))

Love,
Hope

[gratitude28]

CH,
I think my biggest problem in this arena is believing that everything has to do with ME. If someone is in a bad mood, I caused it. If they are in a good mood, I must have done something right. It is very self-centered of me to believe this. But I know now that it is from years of trying to control how my parents' moods would be. Basically, I don't have the emotional boundaries yet that I need to be truly content.
Love, Beth

[mudpuppy]

It was pity.

Ya think? I think the only genuine pity they feel is self-pity. But if you mean pity in the sense that a cat feels pity for a mouse as the cat torments it just before eating it, then maybe I agree.
On the whole though, I'd say those acid eyes, which by the way if you look close enough are completely vacant behind the haughty stare, are like everything else about Ns; fake. It's all manipulation and bluff and a sordid mess of whacko projections, so much so that it's impossible to untangle the real from the fake. The only thing real is their incomparable fear and self pity and feelings of worthlessness and self loathing, but it's all so tangled up with their projections of phony emotions and motives, who has the time or inclination to sort them out?
 Much more sensible to just say "Your honor, please keep this freak away from me." And if we're fortunate we will eventually see them fade from sight in our rear view mirror, still wrestling in the dirt with themselves and anyone else unfortunate enough to enter their gravitational field; feeling a good deal of empathy for all of them of course, but with the accellerator to the floor nonetheless.

mud