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Sticks and stones and words can hurt you. Remember the childhood phrase “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me?" It was supposed to be our defense against bullies, our response when people said mean things to us. Our parents thought that would protect us. Unfortunately, they were wrong.
Continue reading the post on Psychology Today... Walking in the shoes of immigrants today connects us to our ancestral past. Who am I? Where did my family come from? Millions of Americans are asking themselves these questions. These are the questions that have motivated them to buy a DNA testing kit. In fact, in recent years more than 12 million people have had their DNA tested through companies that provide the testing directly–dab the inside of your cheek with a swab, send it in and then wait to find out where your ancestors came from and who you might be related to now. There are genealogy software programs and phone apps to help you do this work. We even have a popular television series, “Finding Your Roots,” that traces the ancestry and family history of celebrities.
Continue Reading on Psychology Today... Saying I’m sorry takes strength and it helps to have a good dose of empathy. Mistakes happen. At some point we all have said something we regret, or done something we wish we hadn’t, or didn’t do something we wish we had. We hurt people’s feelings. We have also been on the receiving end of those hurt feelings. Someone said or did something that made us feel mistreated and wronged. When nothing is said or done to acknowledge that mistake we are left with those hurt feelings.
Continue reading the post on Psychology Today... Rallying for "us versus them" gives us a clear picture of an empathy deficit. This past weekend was the one year anniversary of the rallies and counter-protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. To commemorate the event, last years’ organizers held an anniversary gathering, this time in Washington, D.C. across from the White House. Although by numbers it was minuscule compared to last year, it shows us how much social empathy matters, and more importantly, how much a lack of social empathy matters.
Continue reading the post on Psychology Today... We become empathic when we develop our abilities to mirror others' actions. We human beings share the potential to experience the full scope of empathy. We may express it differently, we may take actions that vary based on that empathy, but we can all work to develop the building blocks that lead to empathy. And that is important because when we are empathic, we are better at understanding others, we feel better understood ourselves, and we are more likely to be kind, cooperative, and helpful.
Continue reading the post on Psychology Today... There is no one place in the brain where empathy happens. When we think of empathy we are likely to think “I hear you” or imagine “walking a mile in another’s shoes.” Or we might view empathy as feeling what another person is feeling, or understanding what he or she is thinking. It’s true that if we step into the place of another or imagine what that person is feeling or thinking we might feel empathy, but not necessarily.
Continue reading the post on Psychology Today... Children separated from their parents. Broken families. Does it matter whether it was due to policies left on the books by previous politicians or as a result of current politicians wanting to be tough on undocumented people coming over the border? No. The reality is that now, in the United States of America, we have put forth the worst of public policies that lack empathy.
Empathy involves connecting with another person’s experience by mirroring their emotions, taking their perspective and prioritizing their experience over our own. Can anyone who listened to the cries of children begging for their mothers and fathers, confused as to why they are in a metal cage without anyone they know, with strange adults who are not allowed to touch them, to comfort them, not be affected? They can be unaffected only if they don’t have empathy. The leaders who are promoting the current treatment of immigrant populations are listening without empathy. This lack of empathy is unfortunately not new. Looking at the historical context of acts like this we will recognize a familiar sight. We already have a terrible history of separating children from their parents, using Boarding Schools to house American Indian children forcibly removed from their homes and breaking up slave families to force them to work harder or to be sold for profit. Isn’t that an ugly enough history of forcibly separating children from their families? If ever there were a modern call for empathy, it is to feel the plight of young children separated from their parents at the U.S. border. And this has not been happening in a faraway country or decades ago. This is here, in the United States of America, in the summer of 2018. What would it take for the leaders promoting these horrific actions to be empathic? Looking from the Social Empathy lens, it is evident that the empathic components of perspective-taking and understanding historical context are grossly missing. If those controlling these practices were exercising perspective taking, they would ask themselves, “What if this was my child? My friend’s child? Or me as a child?” If they were considering the historical context of this policy, they would recognize that most of them are the descendants of immigrants, people who came over scared, not sure of what they would find, but looking for the chance for a new, safe beginning. Lack of empathy leads to great hypocrisy. For so many of these policy-makers, if their ancestors had been treated the way they are now treating people at the border, they would not be here, they would not hold the positions they do now. If you are having trouble with taking the perspective of these families, take a moment to imagine what it is like to be a young child, separated from your parents, surrounded by strangers in a place foreign to you, without any way to fully understand what is going on. How frightened might you feel? How scared? Now imagine why a parent would travel so far with a child for such a dangerous mission or even send that child alone? Can you learn about the conditions in the places these families are leaving? My great grandmother was 13 years old when her family, poor and frightened of growing violence from marauding gangs, sent her to this country to live with her older brother to be safe. She traveled by trains and steam boat, with a note pinned to her jacket that had her brother’s name on it and her destination – Chicago, America. That was it. Her story is part of my family’s identity. And her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren were born here, worked here, raised children here, just like so many other Americans who also have stories like mine. The families who today are walking hundreds and thousands of miles to do what my great grandmother did, can we walk in their shoes, feel their fears and hopes, learn about the reasons they came? Can we for a moment imagine what it feels like to be a young child, separated from our parents, alone in government camps? Take the perspective of others who are different from you, learn about their history and the conditions of their lives. If we can do that, we can build social empathy. When we use those skills, we can create better ways of treating others, we can create socially empathic policies. This current policy of separating families at the border lacks empathy. In fact, I would say it ranks as the worst of our recent unempathic public policies. I shudder to think how bad it will get before we see any empathy in those who are in charge. Unfortunately, I fear that will not happen to such hardened hearts and minds. So it is up to the rest of us to use our empathy to change these horrible policies. |
Elizabeth A. Segal, PhD
October 2018
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