can the broken "empathy button" be repaired?

[Hopalong]

I found this pretty amazing (from a NYTimes article on animal abuse). Maybe there is some hope even for Ns.

Neuroscientists are now beginning to get a fix on the physical underpinnings of empathy. A research team at the University of Chicago headed by Jean Decety, a neuroscientist who specializes in the mechanisms behind empathy and emotional self-regulation, has performed MRI scans on 16-to-18-year-old boys with aggressive-conduct disorder and on another group of similarly aged boys who exhibited no unusual signs of aggression.

Each group was shown videos of people enduring both accidental pain, like stubbing a toe, and intentionally inflicted pain, like being punched in the arm. In the scans, both groups displayed a similar activation of their empathic neural circuitry, and in some cases, the boys with conduct disorder exhibited considerably more activity than those in the control group. But what really caught the attention of the researchers was the fact that when viewing the videos of intentionally inflicted pain, the aggressive-disorder teenagers displayed extremely heightened activity in the part of our brain known as the reward center, which is activated when we feel sensations of pleasure. They also displayed, unlike the control group, no activity at all in those neuronal regions involved in moral reasoning and self-regulation.

“We’re really just beginning to have an inkling of the neurophysiology of empathy,” Lockwood told me. “I think empathy is essentially innate, but I also think empathy can be learned, and I know it can be destroyed. That’s why having a better understanding of the neurophysiology will really help us. Just doing a social intervention on a person doesn’t do any good if you’re not aware of certain physiological deficits. As I heard someone put it at a recent lecture I attended, that would be like an orthopedist telling someone with a broken arm to lift weights. It won’t do anything until the arm is set, and it actually might make things worse. I try to understand who the kids are who seem beyond reach, who seem to have truly impaired systems of empathy. And then I ask, Can that be restored?”

It turns out that just as recent brain-imaging studies have begun to reveal the physical evidence of empathy’s erosion, they are now also beginning to show definitive signs of its cultivation as well. A group of researchers led by Richard Davidson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published a study in a March 2008 edition of the Public Library of Science One, showing that the mere act of thinking compassionate thoughts caused significant activity and physical changes in the brain’s empathic pathways. “People are not just stuck at their respective set points,” Davidson has said of the study’s results. “We can take advantage of our brain’s plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities. . . . I think this can be one of the tools we use to teach emotional regulation to kids who are at an age where they’re vulnerable to going seriously off track.”

To date, one of the most promising methods for healing those whose empathic pathways have been stunted by things like repeated exposure to animal cruelty is, poetically enough, having such victims work with animals. Kids who tend to be completely unresponsive to human counselors and who generally shun physical and emotional closeness with people often find themselves talking openly to, often crying in front of, a horse — a creature that can often be just as strong-willed and unpredictable as they are and yet in no way judgmental, except, of course, for a natural aversion to loud, aggressive human behaviors.

Equine-therapy programs, for example, are now helping an increasing number of teenagers who have severe emotional and behavioral issues, as well as children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. At Aspen Ranch in Loa, Utah, troubled teenagers are being paired off with wild mustangs that have been adopted from the Bureau of Land Management, each species ultimately managing to temper the other, a dynamic that has also proved very effective in teaching patience and empathy to prisoners in correctional facilities. In the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, there is a youth equestrian program called the Compton Junior Posse. Teenagers clean stables, groom horses and then ride them in amateur equestrian events across Southern California. There are now bovine- and elephant-assisted therapy programs as well.

For Lockwood, animal-therapy programs draw on the same issues of power and control that can give rise to animal cruelty, but elegantly reverse them to more enlightened ends. “When you get an 80-pound kid controlling a 1,000-pound horse,” he said, “or a kid teaching a dog to obey you and to do tricks, that’s getting a sense of power and control in a positive way. We all have within us the agents of entropy, especially as kids. It’s easier to delight in knocking things down and blowing stuff up. Watch kids in a park and you see them throw rocks at birds to get a whole cloud of them to scatter. But to lure animals in and teach them to take food from your hand or to obey commands, that’s a slower process. Part of the whole enculturation and socialization process is learning that it’s also cool and empowering to build something. To do something constructive.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13dogfighting-t.html?pagewanted=7

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Hops - do you recall who it was that posted that her mom took better care of her dog than her own kids? Was it Muffin Buster? There've been others, too.

Why do you suppose it's easier for these folks to "connect" with and care about animals... than other people? (Other than, it's a lower risk relationship... with fewer expectations, demands, etc)

[Hopalong]

Hi PR...
I remember the remark but not who it was. Maybe a site search on "dog" will turn them up.

I think empathy-damaged kids improve in empathy when encouraged (with supervision) to take care of animals because:

--animals are present, they respond to the real, actual present vibe (not the kid's "bad bio" or future fantasies or distorted self-talk or narrative). They don't respond to "thinking", they respond to presentness.
--in those settings, kids experience the power to make a positive difference in the life of another. The result is immediate, not verbal and not abstract (if they do not abuse the animal, they can "feel" the animal's increasing trust in the messages its body sends them--when fed, exercised, touched nonviolently, or talked to calmly)
--if they are caring for an animal that was once abused, they have a kinship. They are empathy damaged which means they don't register others' pain, but at some deep level, they recognize their own. That's the starting point. An animal shows, right out front and honestly (shaking, biting, shying), how its history has affected it. That's bound to awaken some recognition unless the kid is a complete sociopath.
--kids are animals. We are animals. The inter-species interaction literally demonstrates our living place in living nature. Which messed-up families and an insane culture do not. (And also because language, verbal language, is removed.)

We are so much more than what we say. We know it as infants and get massively indoctrinated to respect linear and verbal and logical language above all else. But it's not necessarily "real" or "true" that it's the most important language. Animals know other kinds and I believe, help us recall our innocence.

One of the most powerful experiences of my life was when a horse responded to my anguish with compassion. Don't know how else to describe it.

Hitler "loved" his dogs. Well, how do I know. Perhaps he actually loved them. Perhaps the one part of him that was still whole, loved his animals. Unfortunately, he had enough sickness and power in a sick culture...that it was not enough.

Perhaps if as a boy, he'd been saved by a program like that--something different would've happened.

I have a profound interest in what we learn (and need to learn) from our relationship with animals. Those we haven't destroyed...

xo
Hops

[SilverLining]

That's an interesting article.  The chemistry of N-ism is something I've wondered about.  I've figured my father must get a neuro-chemical "reward" everytime he says something obnoxious or dismissive.  He (sometimes) seems to know his behavior doesn't bring positive results, but he keeps doing the same thing. The brain pathways for this behavior might have been set down very early in life.  Perhaps he really is physically and chemically "stuck" in the terrible two's...  

My father and my sister both relate better to animals than people.   My father has actually been a good caretaker for animals.  I figure it's because they are emotionally more simple than humans, making it possible for him to understand how he should treat them.  If all the human offspring ever needed was a walk and a bowl of food, he would have been a great father.   My sister has inherited this tendency, except she isn't conscientious with the upkeep. 

[sKePTiKal]

Yep - horses are compassionate. I found that too. And I still think it was a major good omen... when I found my feral kitty who jumped right into my arms after I meowed her to me... I knew we had some connection; yep - she's completely attuned to my emotional state... and so is the dog....

as "mawmaw is - so are the animals"... at least in our house! Therapy animals are a good thing.

[mudpuppy]

   

can the broken "empathy button" be repaired?

I'll believe it when I see it and until then I will be breathing regularly.

mud

[Meh]

This research article would suggest that there is something deeply different about a person showing no empathy, also confirms that there is real pleasure gained from inducing suffering in another.

In some ways that reseach would blow a hole into the philosophy that bullies are acting out or trying to get attention. Instead they are feeding a type of stimulation their brains have become wired for like a drug addict.

I wonder if these boys in the article are the exact same as a psychopath or different.

Might this be another reason for getting out of an abusive relationship: "You erode my brain"

After a day spent with my nar-mother I have felt the impulse to kick her dog! This is not the typical me, I'm an adult, and I have impulse control, at least some, so I don't kick the dog but the knowledge that I have the impulse to do it makes me feel immature.

[BonesMS]

This research article would suggest that there is something deeply different about a person showing no empathy, also confirms that there is real pleasure gained from inducing suffering in another.

In some ways that reseach would blow a hole into the philosophy that bullies are acting out or trying to get attention. Instead they are feeding a type of stimulation their brains have become wired for like a drug addict.

I wonder if these boys in the article are the exact same as a psychopath or different.

Might this be another reason for getting out of an abusive relationship: "You erode my brain"

After a day spent with my nar-mother I have felt the impulse to kick her dog! This is not the typical me, I'm an adult, and I have impulse control, at least some, so I don't kick the dog but the knowledge that I have the impulse to do it makes me feel immature.

Maybe it might be because you want to kick the NWomb-Donor instead but feel powerless around her royal @#$!-ness.

Bones

[Meh]

After a day spent with my nar-mother I have felt the impulse to kick her dog!

Maybe it might be because you want to kick the NWomb-Donor instead but feel powerless around her royal @#$!-ness.
Bones

Yes, Bones, That would be correct I'm sure some part of me would like to "kick the NWomb-Donor instead".

It scares me how much I can "regress" or "digress" or whatever the proper term would be to describe doing something very childish in the presence of certain people. It's a part of my Self that maybe someday I will have time to explore more.

My mother is a person who has build a personal hobby around the quantity, quality, and duration of her castrated poodle's excrements.


Ha Ha Ha...........  (Have a good day Bones)

[Guest]

I agree with Mud, for the seriously disordered types I'm thinking of.

[BonesMS]

After a day spent with my nar-mother I have felt the impulse to kick her dog!

Maybe it might be because you want to kick the NWomb-Donor instead but feel powerless around her royal @#$!-ness.
Bones

Yes, Bones, That would be correct I'm sure some part of me would like to "kick the NWomb-Donor instead".

It scares me how much I can "regress" or "digress" or whatever the proper term would be to describe doing something very childish in the presence of certain people. It's a part of my Self that maybe someday I will have time to explore more.

My mother is a person who has build a personal hobby around the quantity, quality, and duration of her castrated poodle's excrements.


Ha Ha Ha...........  (Have a good day Bones)

LOL!!!

I would say that NWomb-Donor sounds ANAL-RETENTIVE.  She can't let go of her own $h*t and focuses on her dog's instead.

Bones