Please be patient …

Power’s down here at the military base which means I’m on the laptop battery for about another hour. No power means no coffee and a generally grumpy pete. So to cheer myself up I’ve put up some cool wrapping paper (by Cape Town-based illustrator Alex Latimer of The Western Nostril fame) on my office wall.

Without the coffee I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those sloooow days.

Driving me crazy

My brother was the star, the favourite, the embattled hero who made it. Born with an immature stomach valve, he cried solidly for the first year and a half of his life. At three years old he walked to the shops with his sister (5) and came back with the correct change.
“The correct change, just imagine it,” said my ma. “And all that way.”

It was quite a way for a three-year old kid. You had to cross Forest Drive (the busiest road in Pinelands), pass the tennis courts and go round the municipal hall which was used as a nursery school before you got to Central Square. The Beehive was at the corner and the Blue Haze cafe was in the middle. This walking back with the correct change seems to sum up my brother’s innate ability. Having been short-changed at the start of his life with an immature stomach valve, he made sure that people wouldn’t do him down again. He was not one to lose the fight. Plucky little chinaman, said our mom.

He’s also a lefty, another disadvantage that he’s risen above. Lefties apparently have life tougher than us righties do. Sinister comes from the Latin word for left-handed. Scissors, golf clubs, even writing-desks are all designed for right-handed people. You don’t need to be Einstein to tell that right is right and left is, well, what’s left over. In strict Islamic societies you’re supposed to eat with your right hand and wipe your bum with your left. Lefties apparently also live on average five years less than righties. I don’t know where I read that but I’ve been struck with guilt ever since. The thought that my brother, whom I both admire and dislike could possibly be cheated again in the final years of his life makes me feel guilty. As if I’d somehow wished this calamity on him in all those moments when he called me horrible names (oily, boom, smell, noxious odour) or set his dog on me (“Hunt and kill, Dougal. Kill him!”) or teased me until I lost my temper.

I think he enjoyed seeing how easily he could make me lose it. “Low frustration tolerance” as it’s called now was the bane of my life for quite a while. I once got so mad with him that I chased him around the putt-putt course at Three Anchor Bay holding a putter over my head and with a murderous expression on my face. I knew that I wouldn’t actually hit him but I wanted to make him believe that I was crazy enough to do it. I wanted to see him suffer for a change. I would seethe with frustrated rage that I couldn’t beat him at one single thing. Not only was he my mom’s favourite but he was better at everything else too. Putt-putt, tennis, cricket, chess, hockey, academics, board games, middle-distance running, you name it.

My brother was my closest friend and my greatest enemy. My hero, my rival. One day when I was about 10 years old we’d just played our favourite board game, Formula One. As far as board games went in those days it was pretty cool with cards with gauges on them for tyre wear and brake wear and a steering wheel with a speedometer. The little plastic cars in different colours and the racetrack which snaked around the bedroom floor like a big jigsaw puzzle. He must have won every single game we played. I kept on thinking that if I just tried a little bit harder that I would beat him but I don’t remember ever winning. If I did beat him at anything then he would just ignore me so it would be a hollow victory. That day I really believed that I would finally triumph. My patience was going to pay off and I would be on a par, even for a few moments, with my older boet.

On the final lap he snuck passed me and then proceeded to do his usual gloating routine which involved reminding me that I was a loser. I was gutted and sat out on the carport roof next to the garage for ages while I seethed with the injustice of it all and tried to find a vent for my unexpressed anger. I was close to tears but I calmed down eventually and got some perspective. I realised that the less you care about something, the less it hurts you. That day I learned detachment as a defence mechanism. If you don’t try so hard or care so much then it doesn’t really matter if you win or lose.

“It’s just a game,” goes the saying. But when your sense of self is a bit dented from the start, losing is a continual reminder that you’re not quite good enough. Losing to my brother didn’t make me a lesser person even though it felt that way. From that day on I didn’t care so much about Formula One. We probably played the game a few more times after that but the excitement was gone for me. To this day I don’t really like the sport of motor racing. My brother still watches Formula One and I guess he cares about Hamilton versus Raikonnen, Ferrari versus McClaren. I don’t really see the point. You’re racing around burning up precious fuel, risking your life and for what? So you can say that you’re faster to the finish line?

It’s obviously more than that. Just like running is a chance to be the best you can be, to improve yourself physically and mentally, driving is a way of enhancing your reflexes, your coordination and your ability to cope and compete in pressure situations. But not for me. I’ll leave the fast driving to my older, more successful brother. I’m the guy driving in the slow lane in my Toyota Tazz, listening to Bob Dylan or U2 and analysing the psychological significance of road rage (narcissism) or the significance of driving in dreams. But part of me still yearns to be behind the steering wheel of a red Ferrari, accelerating through the turns, powering up the hills and feeling the glow and the thrill of victory.

Playing political poker with the US presidential debate

At one point last night’s first televised US presidential debate became a “tale of two bracelets”. Senator John McCain spoke of how a mother of a slain US marine had given him her son’s bracelet and encouraged McCain to continue the war in Iraq so that her son and others like him had not died in vain.

“I will wear his bracelet with honour,” McCain said, raising his right hand to show the bracelet on his arm.
“I’ve got a bracelet, too,” replied Obama, recalling his own story of a Wisconsin mother who wanted other mothers to be spared the pain she had been through.

Now I don’t want to trivialise the losses that these families suffered but it did seem a bit like the two senators were engaged in a game of political poker.

“John, I’ll see your bracelet and raise you two dog-tags and an engraved ring.”
“I don’t think Senator Obama understands the gravity of the situation. I’m seeing his dog-tags and his ring and raising him one heartfelt poem which just happens to be from a swing-state veteran who has been my close friend for 35 years.”
Moderator: “Ok you two, break it up. We’ve got a debate to run here.”

On a more serious note, I thought that Obama needs to play more to his strengths. For example, Obama appeared to listen more attentively to his opponent (although frowning at times when he did so) and sought to make eye contact, something which McCain appeared to avoid.

The US political bloggers will do a much better job of analysing the ins-and-outs of the debate but one thing that Obama does well is to make people feel acknowledged and understood. I think it would be a good tactic (and just good practice) to show that respect a bit more. I thought Obama had the upper hand when he was speaking from a position of strength and acknowledged the contributions of his opponent. McCain supporters will be more likely to change their allegiance if they feel that Obama really respects their candidate. Remember the sighs of Al Gore when George W. Bush was speaking in the 2000 debate? Those were fatal to his chances. I think Obama does respect McCain and I would like to see him using that respect to neutralise some of McCain’s criticisms. It’s maybe not that important to debate the small stuff and to defend his voting record in the Senate. Obama needs to make people believe that he knows McCain and really respects him but that he is the better candidate to become the next US president.

Update: Found some interesting blog comments on the debate. Firstly Mother Jones and the Moderate Voice. Then a blogger called maxedoutmama provides a reminder (if one was needed) why we should be worried about the average US voter. Here’s her finishing comment (or zinger if you like):

Anyone who watched last night’s debate and can still consider voting for Obama loses my respect. There’s a limit to how far one can defy reality and live. That man is currently outside the parameters of the land of the living. It’s probably due to inexperience.

For some excellent and thoughtful comments read George Lakoff at the Huffington Post.

Catching your own therapeutic fish

Do you ever get a slight feeling of apprehension when you open your blog-reader and see what’s waiting to be read that morning? For me it’s a bit like going down to the post-box first thing in the morning, taking out the newspaper and scanning the headlines. I know that most of the world probably wakes up to either the radio or the TV but my first contact with the outside world beyond my street is the morning newspaper. After the political upheavals of the past week I am a bit apprehensive of further shocks.

But it’s also quite a relief to turn to the blog-world and read some well-observed and thoughtful descriptions. I’ve been thinking about that quote from C.S. Lewis that Dick Jones posted here and it reminds me of Buddhism and living in the moment. Just observing and describing first without rushing to judge and categorise and label what it is I’m observing. Easier said than done of course and then it makes me wonder about novelists and whether writing is a way of practising living in the moment. You need to describe in detail what your characters are seeing and thinking and feeling. I’m not sure that I could do that.

And then it makes me reflect about psychotherapy as well, and how difficult it is often to stay in the moment with my clients. They’re anxious and I’m anxious and both of us rush to fill in the gaps with solutions, with a neatly worked-out answer to the things that are troubling them. I’m not suggesting sitting back and letting them be overwhelmed but I think I should tolerate the uncertainty more. Not jump in with interpretations and observations. It’s difficult work and the client population here is very mixed. Very often what it most required and helpful is active intervention. They need someone to do their thinking for them and so I oblige. But then I kick myself afterwards. Wasn’t there a way that I could have got them to do the work instead of me? There’s a sense that I need to let them catch their own therapeutic fish.

Empathy and the Novel

This is a huge topic and I feel quite over-awed just approaching it. There’s so much to say and quite a few people have given excellent suggestions to me already (see previous posts). Perhaps a good place to start is with a quote from Joyce Carol Oates (courtesy of pages turned’s blog): “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”

Since reading involves an active imagining of someone else’s world, the links and parallels with empathy are many. Interestingly, in “Empathy and the Novel” (2007), Suzanne Keen argues that while novelists use empathy both as a narrative strategy and a subject of their novels, and clearly engage strong affective responses in their readers, this does not necessarily translate into altruistic behaviour.

Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, but its proper role in shaping the behaviour of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. Keen surveys these debates and offers a series of hypotheses about literary empathy, including narrative techniques inviting empathetic response. She argues that above all readers’ perception of a text’s fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers’ empathy, by releasing readers from their guarded responses to the demands of real others. She confirms the centrality of narrative empathy as a strategy, as well as a subject, of contemporary novelists. (book blurb, my emphasis)

This echoes other research findings on empathy and the movies, that (low empathy) men are far more likely to enjoy a movie (and empathise with the characters) if they perceive the characters as fictional rather than based on real life. I think real life brings a lot more anxiety into play, such as fears that people will make real-life demands on you for time and attention / affection / money. Fiction allows us to relax and engage “softer” (less guarded) emotions.

I also wanted to quote from Litlove’s post on Josipovici the other day:

…. once again the notion of being in the same place as a fundamental prerequisite for sympathy is raised. We might need to be in the same geographical space to coincide with an event in a different historical time, or we might need to make the imaginative leap to the same mindset as another person, to understand an enigmatic point of view, but true sympathy demands that we change places, that we move ourselves either physically or mentally into another realm altogether, so that the same perspective might be shared. And the point of doing this, Josipovici seems to suggest (to me at least) is that this whole awkward business of moving and mental shape-shifting is one of the basic and most admirable building blocks of love.

I like the way that empathy (or sympathy here) is a building-block of love. From a purely psychological perspective, that links up to the point that empathy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for therapeutic change. Being able to enter into the thoughts and feelings of another doesn’t mean that you will be acting compassionately towards them. Hunters will tell you that they try to think like their prey, much like a good detective will try and imagine herself into the mind of the criminal. (What did they think or feel when they were standing there under that tree, looking up at the house?) Stalkers are particularly creepy because they get into your mind and you have no idea what their intentions might be. This has relevance to therapy because sometimes, if the therapist is not sensitive to how they are being perceived, the client might see the therapist as hunting them and trying to exploit their vulnerability.

So perhaps (in agreement with openpalm) I’m saying that empathy is not enough. There needs to be compassion (or love) as well. Valerie Stone (an Australian psychologist) writes about how humans use their well-developed intellectual abilities for compassion or cruelty, and how language is used to construct (or symbolise) the world in such a way that provides an outlet for kind or cruel feelings.

Cruelty is what happens when we use our symbolic capacity to define another person as ‘the enemy’, and use theory of mind and executive function to plan an outlet for our ancient instincts for aggression. Compassion is what happens when we use our symbolic capacity to define another person as part of our in-group, and use our theory of mind and executive function to plan ways to benefit them, using ancient instincts for empathy.

I’ll have to develop these ideas a bit more during the course of the week, if patient admin allows. I’d be interested to read (online at Google books) more of what Keen has to say. She quotes Little Women for a start (which I’ve never read) and then readers’ responses to Middlemarch (which I have). I liked the reference to Cassaubon coming up with a theory that tries to link everything together. Sometimes I feel that way about empathy.

Mbeki as tragic Shakesperian hero

President Thabo Mbeki’s shock resignation on Sunday night has me reaching for my Julius Caesar (Act 3, scene 2). I have this image of the noble Caesar (Mbeki) cut down in the forum by the conspirators (Mantashe, Motlanthe, Malema, Zuma et al).

ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it….
[...]
Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

I see that Zapiro (our national and increasingly controversial cartoonist) went a far more direct route with his weekly Sunday Times cartoon.

Mbeki gave a good farewell speech – noble, dignified and pleading his innocence while bowing out graciously. Even though he was an aloof, intellectual and decidedly un-empathic president for most of his term in office, I still prefer him over Zuma whom I just don’t trust. Zuma is possibly more duplicitous, saying what people want to hear (business to the business world; socialism to the workers, his Umshini Wam song to the masses) and then doing what he wants anyway. But I guess the masses would say that they love him because he connects with them. They can identify with him.

What was good about Mbeki’s speech on Sunday was that for the first time in a long time, he spoke from the heart as well as from the head. You could see the emotion in his eyes. The irony is that both Zuma and Mbeki have portrayed themselves as victims rather than perpetrators whereas it is their own actions which have got them (and the country) into such a mess.
Antony famously says that “I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on”.

Of course the opposite is true. He speaks very eloquently using the “power of speech” to stir men’s blood to rise up against Brutus and the other conspirators. The trick to being a good politician is to speak eloquently but to let people believe that you are speaking “right on”. It’s also a pity that this new Mbeki, the leader who connects with his feelings as well as his considerable intellect, is bowing out.

Update: I see that Alison Tilley over at Thoughtleader has had similar (but also quite different) ideas on the subject of Mbeki as tragic Shakesperian hero.

What the world needs now … is empathy

Empathy symbol
Here’s what they have to say over at http://www.empathysymbol.com:

“Heinz Kohut defined empathy as “the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.” We think that’s what the world needs today. As the cultural wars rage — Judeo/Christians vs. Muslims, immigrants vs. native-borns, Red States vs. Blue States — what we all need is to walk in each others’ shoes, to empathize with the other’s position, situation, upbringing, life experiences and feelings. Empathy leads to respect and caring for each other, and that is the sure path to peace.”

Reading that paragraph again, my brain catches on to the words “we think that’s what the world needs today”. Does anyone feel a song coming on? As in Burt Bacharach and the Posies? Check out Jackie Deshannon singing the Bach’s cheesy song (with really schmaltzy visuals) on You Tube.

And while you’re smiling, you may as well have a look at some of the Smiles over at the Smile group at Flickr:

I also really liked the connection that Marshall Rosenberg (of Non-violent communication fame) makes between empathy and surfing:

Question: “What is the Definition for Empathy?”
Rosenberg: “Empathy, I would say is presence. Pure presence to what is alive in a person at this moment, bringing nothing in from the past. The more you know a person, the harder empathy is. The more you have studied psychology, the harder empathy really is. Because you can bring no thinking in from the past. If you surf, you’d be better at empathy because you will have built into your body what it is about. Being present and getting in with the energy that is coming through you in the present. It is not a mental understanding.”

Question: “Is it speaking from the heart?”
Rosenberg: “What? Empathy? In empathy, you don’t speak at all. You speak with the eyes. You speak with the body. If you say any words at all, it’s because you are not sure you are with the person. So you may say some words. But the words are not empathy. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection to with what’s alive in you.”

Isn’t that great? Thanks to Duen Hsi Yen for that transcription. Check out his surfing links here.

On a slightly more thinking level, I also liked this:

Empathy is the ability to understand the situation of others and imagine how they feel. It’s at the heart of our closest personal ties and a key element in the relationship between clinicians and patients, especially in psychotherapy. [...] researchers at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston are monitoring physiological responses and emotional interactions during psychotherapy sessions. Results … show that when positive emotions are running high, patients and therapists are in sync physiologically, and the more in sync they are, the higher the level of empathy. (Harvard Women’s Health Watch, July 2007)

Poison: Apocalypse Now

Internet hanging today and I’m struggling to connect. I feel a knot in my stomach and it probably doesn’t help that I’ve just read Henrietta Rose-Innes’ prize-winning short story Poison over at Guardian Books. (The Caine prize is for the best short-story written in English by an African writer.)

Poison is apocalyptic and impersonal. Well-written and I can imagine that petrol station she describes very well. There’s a similar one just down the N2 from here. It is a model of efficiency and consumer-friendliness but I wonder what it would be like if there was a shortage of petrol and everyone was scrambling to get out of the city (as in her story). Every time I stop in there for some Wimpy coffee or fill up on the way to a weekend away I’ll probably be reminded of Lynn, the resigned and rather helpless heroine (not completely resigned, she is also resourceful) who is waiting for the emergency men to come and save her with their sirens and flashing lights and shiny vests. There’s clearly a metaphor waiting to be unpacked here (with political and social and environmental overtones).

But the story left me dissatisfied, perhaps because I was looking for an example of empathy and there’s none to be had in that apocalyptic landscape. Clearly that could be seen as a sign of the ‘new’ South Africa. Not much empathy. And not much of a plan other than waiting around to be rescued by someone else. If that doesn’t work out she’ll take a rusty bicycle and ride off to find something else.

Empathy at the movies

It’s Friday night and I’m off to a not-so-nearby couch for whatever P can rustle up on the VCR (yes, sadly her TV is not DVD-friendly). A quick search of my parents’ upstairs sitting room shows up some old cassettes – a few episodes of Rumpole, Tubby Custard Footprints and The Madness of King George. Being a conscientious empathy blogger, I feel the need to offer some related movie ideas. What would you suggest?

The first one that springs to mind is a film which my therapist told me go and see for homework. (Well it wasn’t exactly homework but she did recommend it.) As it is in Heaven is one of those movies that people rave about, and the reference to empathy is that the main character (a famous musician who returns to his childhood village) needs to empathise with himself and revisit his childhood (at least in his memories) in order to heal himself emotionally.

Movie No. 2 provides an excellent example of non-empathy in the figure of Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good as it Gets. It’s also a great film to watch if you like Helen Hunt, are interested in OCD (obessive-compulsive disorder) or just like cute dogs.

I’ll expand on this theme next Friday with some ideas about “chick-flicks” and other movies. I’m also trying to decide what I think around empathy and sex differences (women tend to have high empathy, men low empathy). For a start here is a quote from Helena Cronin from the Darwin Centre at the LSE:

Because, if you reproduce sexually, you must divide your reproductive efforts between competing for mates and caring for offspring.

Males specialise more in competing, females more in caring. So in humans, as in all other sexual species, males are shaped by all-out competing, females by committed caring – from brains to bodies to behaviour. So the question to ask about a species is never: are there evolved sex differences? The question is always: what exactly do the differences look like in this species?

On Empathy

I’ve decided to make September empathy month here at the Couch Trip. We’ll see how far I get with that but I’ve definitely got a few posts on this topic. For starters I was wondering whether the words “fun” and “empathy” can exist in the same sentence. Is empathy just serious or can it be sexy?

I was thinking yesterday about a case from last year. A young girl (in her teens) was referred to me for a cognitive assessment to help with school placement. On the intelligence test she scored in the “Cognitively Handicapped” range but there was a very big discrepancy between her Verbal and Performance IQs. Her Verbal IQ was basically terrible while her performance in the non-verbal tests was significiantly better. She was very anxious and she was, to use the language of Klein or Winnicott, very caught up in her internal world. My heart went out to her and I really wanted to help if I could but there wasn’t much that I could do. We did the assessment and I wrote up my report (recommending she be transferred to a more technical school, but also that she receive therapy and that her mother attend parental guidance classes and also therapy of her own). Remembering the case, I feel a bit sad. Perhaps I identify with the teenager caught up in their internal world and needing a helping hand to build more meaningful relationships.

There are many aspects of empathy that I’d like to mention. I initially got on to the topic by looking at violence. In August I opened a file on my computer called ‘Violence Research’ and started filling it with articles on “Freud and Violence” and so on. But after about two weeks of this, I realised that I was very possibly missing the point. Violence (like evil) flourishes in the absence of empathy. Shouldn’t we rather focus on the empathy (and the lack thereof) rather than on the violence? I liked what Barack Obama said about the “empathy deficit” being a problem that should receive as much attention as the budget deficit. (What a pity if the polls are right and the Republicans win once again.)

And, following Arthur Saltzman, I would love to make this topic dance, to come alive. But as with the issue of sanity (which Adam Phillips made so interesting in Going Sane), I think the issue of empathy could do with a makeover. So where to begin?

Yesterday my group had a really good discussion about empathy and our poet-priest reminded us of Agape (unconditional love) as well as introducing us to a Tonglan meditation, which effectively asked us to “breathe in the pain” and “open your heart-mind”.

I like this poem by the Canadian poet Carmine Starnino called ‘The Last Days’ (posted by Alex Boyd at The Danforth Review) :
When the nurse let go, my aunt
stood there, disoriented, swaying a little
from side to side, and we understood
that for one more day she had been
returned to us, her body given back
to the world. My uncle, waiting behind her,
smiled with the excitement of a father
watching his daughter’s first steps
as my aunt tottered toward the vase
of flowers by the window, taking one step
then another, squinting into the sunlight
that warmed the hospital room, filling it
with the rich fragrance of lilac.

Carl Rogers talks about empathy as a “way of being” rather than doing. And then I’m reading about Winnicott (Adam P again). Here’s Winnicott on imagination: “A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us … ” Doesn’t that sound a bit like blogging? Perhaps blogging could be promoted as a way to cultivate inter-subjective empathy?

By the way the picture at the top refers to walking around in someone else’s shoes (photo by PataGata at Flickr). Another image that I think would work is a Mark Rothko print. Very New York psychotherapist’s office.

Lastly, another quote from Alex Boyd’s excellent article in TDR. Here he quotes Alden Nowland’s “Johnnie’s Poem”

Look! I’ve written a poem!
Johnnie says
and hands it to me
and it’s about
his grandfather dying
last summer, and me
in the hospital
and I want to cry,
don’t you see, because it doesn’t matter
if it’s not very good:
what matters is he knows
and it was me, his father, who told him
you write poems about what
you feel deepest and hardest.