Thread by @kateneuropsych

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice I certainly don't agree with all your points or how you define empathy but I've seen enough people, practice "empathy" to realize this word is COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE in how people experience, communicate about and practice it....
1/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice There are fine distinctions worth exploring relative to drowning in sympathy with your patients due to over-identification, compassion and empathy....
Empathy is information and information used correctly helps folks determine where principles are not being equitably applied. 2/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice ....It might be that empathy has a much wider range and more subtle expression that we can express....and there is the growth necessary that one does not always start out with. I think people use t/word empathy in place of other experiences they haven't yet identified 3/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice especially when it's "pity" or "feeling sorry for" (If you don't know people are simultaneously fragile and strong you feel sorry for, which robs folks of their dignity). Other folks erect an empathetic dance to appear to understand what they're too afraid to touch. 4/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice The English language lacks a lot of words when it comes to the range of emotions we really feel, and White Western culture is set up to dampen and confuse the entire internal process & experience of feeling and processing feelings, primarily because they're feared and not 5/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice understood not to mention that SUBJECTIVE is a dirty word and yet NOTHING WE DO, FEEL OR EXPERIENCE ISNT SUBJECTIVE.
Empathy is a decidedly subjective experience and as in all things ITS HOW YOU USE IT, WHAT YOU DO WITH IT THAT COUNTS.
6/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice I will say, having met more than a few socio/psychopaths that empathy is absolutely the wrong dynamic to establish, its not one they can relate to, but its absolutely the foothold they look for to exploit which strokes your ego and undermines any possibility 7/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice of successful therapy which requires a wholly different approach. Other than that, I've never met a patient that wasn't human....

Relative to stress, triggers & PTSD, in truth, I'm more at risk when I CAN DO NOTHING about an unethical supervisors, and I've had 4 out of 9.
8/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice THATS A SHATTERING 40% and I'm hardly alone in this. I'm more at risk when I have a (covertly or just culturally normative) racist misogynistic supervisors who think they're experts in diversity based on textbooks and shallow interactions with patients based on their White 9/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice Culturally Normative POV that they're frankly too afraid to shed) a SHATTERING 7 out of 9 & again, I'm not alone in this. And, I'm more at risk when training forces me to collude because quitting isn't a good option (although twice violations were so egregious I quit, 10/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice delaying training each time for one year: for those not in clinical training, things have to really really bad for any student to take such a risk, because it is huge)...

I've been at this a long time now, long B4 I completed my doctorate.
I don't typically get triggered by 11/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice patients, but that doesn't mean I'm not all in, I am....

Perhaps it was my mentors and my spiritual grounding, again established long before my doctorate that's allowed me this safety zone, or that I trained with cancer and AIDES patients and sat with them 12/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice in their dying stages (I'm not afraid of death, we all do it; what we don't all do is live), or that I easily adjust to facts and problem solving (meaning I don't waste time fighting with reality, I fight for the adjustments needed for recognition and equitable results) 13/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice or that I've thoroughly worked through my own trauma & PTSD relative to in depth therapy.....
I think sometimes it takes time, experience and good mentors to ripen & I have met no one who mentors once at this level. No one has the time, just a plethora of supervisors 14/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice who think supervising means looking for everything you did wrong in the shortest possible time & they couldn't be more wrong in that (& I KNOW FOR A FACT, I'm not alone in this). So I thank God everyday for my early experience .....

I think it takes time to discover 15/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice yourself in a system designed to stamp you out and to discover and know where you stand.....
There's nothing wrong with empathy, but that doesn't mean drowning with your patients, it means recognizing their pain AND their strength. It also means hearing what they really 16/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice need which might require assisting them in navigating the system instead of the psychotherapy you've trained to do.

And as a (God I hate this term) mixed race WOC (Af-Am, Lebanese, French) I'm aware often without words what's at stake for my patients, however communicating 17/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice this and getting those who belong within t/dominate culture to understand, relate or just get that it's beyond their POV is nigh impossible. THIS TRIGGERS ME. 

It's not my patients that trigger me, its unethical practices & the racism & misogyny built right into the system 19/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice (WHOOPS the above was 18/x)

such that when I tell a White supervisor "look you can't approach this in that way or expect straight answers if you ask questions worded this way because even though folks give you an answer, WHAT they mean, given cultural norms and 19/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice frame of reference, doesn't mean what you take it to mean, or when you use those words metaphors or images, it signals folks you won't understand what they say so they'll give you the answer you want to hear, and you'll go on, thinking you know but you won't.....20/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice or they'll give you an answer you suspect is canned and judge them accordingly without realizing YOU SET THEM UP for the defensive deception you now blame them for via racism/misogyny & power differentials because you really don't understand the impact 21/x

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice or what this means in t/nitty gritty of their lives."
& anytime that comes up, it threatens their "expert status" so CUE: massive push back & attack. If anything, somethings gotta give there b/c that's a burn out recipe & that's what we so often have to work around 22/x END.

@usnehal @DrHowardLiu @WendelynOslock @blondemedSJW @browofjustice @threadreaderapp please unroll