“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou

Empathy Is Good

“Empathy plays a critical interpersonal and societal role, enabling sharing of experiences, needs, and desires between individuals and providing an emotional bridge that promotes prosocial behavior. This capacity requires an exquisite interplay of neural networks and enables us to perceive the emotions of others, resonate with them emotionally and cognitively, to take in the perspective of others, and to distinguish between our own and others’ emotions.” (Helen Riess, MD., The Science of Empathy)

Types of Empathy

There is affective empathy and cognitive empathy.
Affective empathy means that we can feel what another person is feeling (“I feel your pain”).
Cognitive empathy means that we can take the perspective of someone else’s situation. (“I understand how you’re feeling. I imagine how you must be feeling”).

Both affective and cognitive types of empathy are fundamental to what makes us HUMAN. As a species, we rely on each other; we collaborate with each other; we largely share the same meaning about life, parenting, work, nature, love, death, suffering, aging, happiness and so on. This level of massive collaboration is what makes humans a super- species, to paraphrase Yuval Harrari.

Compassionate empathy (affective and cognitive empathy together in equilibrium) gives us the impetus to want to help someone in need (think of a time when you bought a sandwich for a homeless person, or something similar.

Too Much Empathy Is Not Good

Is empathy ever too much? The answer is Yes, in some people. They are called “empaths”,  “hyper-empaths”, “super-empaths” or “hyper-senstive”.
There is also a “hyper-empathy disorder” diagnosis in certain medical literature (not in the DSM-5).

Are You a Hyper-Empath?

• You are too in tune with other people’s emotions; in other words, you care too much.
• You find it hard to regulate your emotions and may have a tendency to pick up on others’ heavy  feelings.
• You have strong emotional reactions when other people experience negative feelings. Sometimes, these reactions are intense even if you’re only looking at a photo or a movie and may include physical symptoms (stomach ache, nausea).
• You still feel an emotional response to another person’s pain a few days after it happened.
• You feel overwhelmed after talking to people about their problems because it’s as if they’re happening to you.
• You’re so focused on other people’s problems you neglect taking care of yourself.  
• You find it hard to say No to people because you feel sorry for them. You have a (very) hard time setting boundaries in relationships and / or expressing what your needs are.
• You find yourself feeling exhausted and depleted at the end of (every) day after “giving” so much to other people (your time, your attention, your listening, you feeling their pain).
• You find yourself feeling resentful towards other people, especially your loved ones, for not seeing you (you feel invisible in the family system or in the couple).
• You have an urgent impulse to “help people”, coach them, advise them; save them from their misery. So much so, that you forget about your own day and priorities.

Hyper-Empathy & Parenting. What’s the Problem?

Ok, you may be thinking: what’s the problem with me being hyper- sensitive to my child’s needs? Am I not supposed to be highly attuned to my child’s needs or pain?

Let’s break it down.

• Attunement is vital in order to form a secure attachment relationship, which your child needs for optimal development.
• Attunement doesn’t mean you enmesh in your child’s pain or emotional meltdown.
• Attunement requires perspective and action-taking from your Adult Self, which requires you to remain centered, present, and non- judgemental, like a container for the child. If you take on your child’s pain, the child is left alone (think of it as emotional abandonment, because the Adult Self is not present anymore).
• The child needs an empathetic abiding presence from the parent, at all times. Attuned, yes. Enmeshed, no. Having a hyper-empathic parent feels very threatening to a child since that parent can’t hold proper limits, and can’t model self-regulation.
• In the absence of consistent and well- managed limits, a child feels scared. The amygdala can’t relax due to chronic perception of danger, and so that child will release high levels of cortisol, and low levels of oxytocin and dopamine. As a result, that child can’t focus in school or on his own growth and development (arrested development). Hence, the root cause of myriad behavioral and developmental problems in the future.

Where does Hyper-Empathy Come From… to begin with?

Research talks about maladaptive empathy response patterns identified as excessive interpersonal guilt and personal distress (i.e., internalizing problems). Girls (now mothers) are much more susceptible to these two responses in comparison to boys, generally speaking. This is due to normative upbringing of girls across many cultures to be “good girls”, “the big sister”, “mommy’s helper”, etc. (gendered patterns of socialization).

Personal distress symptoms in parents show significant associations with neuroticism , burnout, and pathological or irrational altruistic behavior. Interpersonal guilt has been linked to loneliness and alienation, as well as to depression and anxiety symptoms .

What Can You Do Today?

• As always, my answer is : work with a professional, at least in the beginning, for afew months, so you can get better skills for self- regulation and better tools  for parenting.
• Choose your therapist or coach wisely and carefully. You need someone who understands brain development, trauma, family as a system, attachment theory, science of connection, early childhood needs and development – to name the fundamentals.
• You need someone who is empathetic, non-judgemental and practical.
• You need someone who is intimately familiar with your situation.
• You need someone with a good track record of client work and credentials.

Here’s what my clients say about me:

I absolutely love working with her! I will start by saying a big thank you from the bottom of my heart. Mihaela helped me tremendously improve my relationship with my son, with myself and the world around me. Her techniques, her knowledge, her compassion and her ways of making me feel safe, seen, validated, have made me reach in such a short time to the root of my pain and disconnection from my authentic self. Thank you for helping me recognize, accept and integrate all parts of me and for giving me the necessary instruments to live a life free of triggers and wounds, connected, present and at peace with myself and my loved ones. (mom, USA)

After 4 long years, I’ve finally received the Court decision that my son needed. Your support has made all the difference for my son because I was able to see what he needed at times when he couldn’t say it, and all the while you kept space for me to offload. I can’t tell you how relieved we both are to go back to a normal life. You’re truly an angel, and I can’t thank you enough. (mom, UK)

Thank you for being there for me, and never letting me feel I was alone. (mom, USA)

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