Biological Support of Empathic Connections

Narcissistic personality disorder
#1

AOL EmailOn Empathy

http://samvak.tripod.com/empathy.html

Empathy and Personality Disorders

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Home » News » Professional News » Biological Support of Emphatic Connections one to keep Biological Support of Empathic Connections
By: Psych Central News Editor on Wednesday, Feb, 14, 2007

Effective psychotherapy often hinges on development of a “connection" or shared empathy between patient and therapist. For the first time, researchers have found biological support for how patients and therapists “connect" during a clinical encounter.

In the February Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report the physiologic evidence of shared emotions underlying the experience of empathy during live psychotherapy sessions.

The researchers found that, during moments of high positive emotion, both patients and therapists had similar physiologic responses and that greater levels of similarity were related to higher ratings of therapist empathy by patients.

The researchers’ goal is to learn how physiologic concordance relates to empathy over the course of psychotherapy. This knowledge will improve therapeutic techniques and help to develop resources for teaching medical students and clinicians to be more emphatic.

“This research supports brain imaging data that shows humans are literally wired to connect emotionally says Carl Marci, MD, director of Social Neuroscience in the MGH Department of Psychiatry and the paper’s lead author. “There is now converging evidence that, during moments of emphatic connection, humans reflect or mirror each other’s emotions, and their physiologies move on the same wavelength.

As part of an ongoing study of the role of empathy in psychotherapy, the MGH researchers videotaped therapeutic sessions of 20 unique patient-therapist pairs.

The patients were being treated as outpatients for common mood and anxiety disorders in established therapeutic relationships. The participating therapists practiced psychodynamic therapy, an approach that uses the therapeutic relationship to help patients develop insight into their emotions.

Throughout the therapy sessions, patients and therapists were “wired up" to record their physiologic responses using skin conductance recordings. Skin conductance is a commonly used measure of the activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls human arousal and provides a physiologic context for emotional experiences.

Following the sessions, the videotapes were edited to focus on moments of high and low physiologic concordance that is, when patients and therapists levels of nervous system activity were most and least similar. Independent observers, blinded to the study’s goals and methods, reviewed randomly presented video segments to identify the types of emotions being expressed by both patients and therapists.

The observers data showed that both patients and therapists expressed significantly more positive emotions during moments of high physiologic concordance than during low concordance. In addition, patient’s ratings of therapist empathy corresponded to levels of physiologic concordance during the therapy sessions. Overall, the findings suggest that shared positive emotions and shared physiologic arousal contribute to an emphatic connection during psychotherapy.

“We were pleased to find evidence for a biological basis to that feeling of connection," Marci says. “Taken together with current neurobiological models of empathy, our findings suggest that therapists perceived as being more emphatic have more positive emotional experiences in common with patients during the therapy session." He adds another finding not reported in the published report that there was much less physiologic concordance when therapists were talking than listening. “That suggests it is hard for clinicians to be emphatic when they are talking."

Source: Massachusetts General Hospital
NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and AsPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, or Sociopathy)

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Serial and mass killers
http://malignantselflove.tripod.com/serialkillers.html

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Narcissism and Evil
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Is the Narcissist Legally Insane?
http://malignantselflove.tripod.com/personalitydisorders49.html

#2

I got my narcissist to apologize! First one! I did it! I did it! My day is made!

#3

Two final questions before I get my Stalking needs met for the day:

When a thread is started by Sam Vaknin or any other member of this forum, does that mean our replies are only intended for the creator of the thread?

If I would like to comment on one of your posted articles, Sam, would you prefer I address 'Dear Group' so as not to exacerbate your pathological paranoia? I am willing to do that if it would help.

CZBZ

#4

Thanks for the article, "Biological Support of Empathic Connections." Very interesting! I had to chuckle at these words, though:

"He adds another finding not reported in the published report – that there was much less physiologic concordance when therapists were talking than listening. “That suggests it is hard for clinicians to be empathic when they are talking.” "

Most of us average Moms figure that out when we're raising teen-agers. hehehe

Thanks,

CZBZ

#5

YUCK!

CZBZ, please don’t thank me. I hate hypocrisy. Don’t go civil on me
suddenly. It’s smarmy.

If you find any of the articles I post of value, good for you. But, please
don’t thank me. It makes me cringe and it makes me sorry that I posted it. I
definitely don’t count you among the people I want to help or enlighten in
any way, shape, or form.

Respect yourself by being consistent. Respect me by honoring my wish.

Sam

Hypocritical CZBZ suddenly regained her manners:

Thanks for the article, “Biological Support of Empathic Connections.” Very
interesting!

#6

LOL!! I'll thank you if i wanna thank you and you can do whatever you want with my reply!!  

CZ

 

 

#7

Listen, what’s the big deal?

Thanking me = writing to me.

Please don’t write to me. I don’t like you. I find you repulsively
hypocritical and pretentious.

Is it too much to ask? Please don’t address me directly, even if you do it
through a public medium. I don’t want you in my inbox. it is polluted enough
as it is.

Sam

CZBZ:

LOL!! I’ll thank you if i wanna thank you and you can do whatever you want
with my reply!!

#8

"I don't like you. I find you repulsively hypocritical and pretentious."

Hypocritical Sam suddenly regained his manners, too, eh? I could care less whether you like me or not, Sam. I gave up trying to defend my integrity to the X-husbaNd. I'm not so desperate for validation that I'd try convincing a Malignant narcissist that his projections belonged to himself and not to me.

Besides, liking one another is not the point of a Discussion forum, now is it?

CZ

#9

Just don’t write to me, CZBZ.

I ask you not to write to me. If you continue to address me and to write to
me, then you are a stalker.

Learn more about stalking and harrassment here:

http://samvak.tripod.com/abuse18.html

#10

Just don’t address me PERSONALLY. “Thank you, Sam, for the article” is
personal.

Hope this is not above your housewife IQ.

Sam

#11

Dear Group,

I very much appreciated reading an article about Empathic Connections. Maybe some folks don't like posted links, but I find them very helpful since the Internet is filled with articles meriting a good read, but are oftentimes lost in the information deluge.

It's also useful when a respected member of a forum recommends an article he or she believes will benefit other people. I hate wasting my time reading something that has no merit.

So thanks to everyone recommending articles, websites and links. We really can work together---even if we have mental issues preventing us from making an empathic connection.

Hugs all,

CZBZ

 

#12

Apologies, CZBZ. Made an a**hole of myself yesterday and not for the first time.

Read about acting out here:

http://samvak.tripod.com/personalitydisorders21.html

Sorry again.

Sam

#13

For anyone who is wondering, I just want to say that my account here “Blitzen” was “suspended until December 31st” on December 27th. I still cannot log in, even to delete the account (including personal photographs, as is my right). In desperation I am going to attempt to use the email reply facility to keep requesting the deletion of my files, and account, as is my right.

I have mailed them repeatedly to ask why this is, and received no reply. I created a second account “Requestingdatadeletion” several days ago, for the sole purpose of using the message interface to contact staff to request an explanation and/or deletion of my personal files.

I have received no acknowledgement, and have now deleted that account.

Yet in that forum Sam Vaknin, and others (also in “True Healing from Narcissistic Abuse”, surprise, surprise) continue to repeatedly abuse me and address others by my given name with the obvious intention of giving the false impression that I am trolling under multiple names.

I tried to use the account “Requestingdatadeletion” to post a single refutation on 6th Jan (similar to what I am saying now), but any attempt brought me back to the “forum” page instead of the posting interface. I opened a second account “Blitzen II” with the same effect, so I can only suppose that my IP range is also blocked from posting in some way.

What this says about the integrity of Careplace is unprintable. I would ask, however, that anyone with access ask Careplace to please do me the courtesy of deleting my “Blitzen” account, and personal photo files, as I have asked them to do for over a week with no response.

Anything less is inexcusable. “DHughes” a part owner in Careplace, had Sam Vaknin as co-moderator here for years http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Narcissistic_Personality_Disorder I should have had more sense than to expect any sort of decency or integrity there.

Gaye