when is it too much?Can you really care too much about complete strangers, that it affects your health? Aristotle said “to perceive is to suffer”………this may very well be true in cases of Hyper- empathy!
A French woman suffering from epilepsy had her amygdala surgically removed and developed a sudden case of hyper- empathy! Since the amygdala is the center for compassion and empathy, how and why did this happen? The neuroscientists attribute this to new neuronal connections (neuroplasticity) that gives her this superpower of encoding other people’s emotions. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brain-surgery-hyper-empathy-amygdala-remove-epilepsy_n_3920770 Ok… let’s talk about empathy first. Empathy is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Cognitive empathy is the accurate understanding the emotions of someone else while Affective or Emotional empathy is connecting at a deeper level and feeling and experiencing the emotions with someone else. Empathy is a crucial component of emotional intelligence and is necessary to connect with your patient. Everyone agrees that teaching empathy should be part of the predoctoral curriculum, and many researchers have studied various aspects of empathy in dental students. A study by Riess et al , in 2014 recommended a communication technique using an acronym “ E-M-P-A-T-H-Y” , E for eye contact, M for muscles of facial expression, P for posture, A for affect, T for tone of voice, H for hearing the whole patient and Y for your response. So... what about neurodivergent individuals? How do they experience and show empathy? To understand the difference, you must know that there are specialized neurons in the brain called mirror neurons and these are responsible for evoking empathy. In individuals with ADHD a d Autism Spectrum Disorders, when the hypersensitivity is predominant, these individuals may suffer from too much empathy: hyper-empathy! This is due to hyperstimulation of the mirror neurons. Symptoms of hyper-empathy may range from being hypersensitive to loud noises, strong smells, clothing that is too tight, too many people around them and strong emotional stimuli. It is postulated that this is due to a lack of filter from all the physical, sensory, and emotional stimuli received by the brain. An ”empath” is a person suffering from hyper- empathy and may struggle to mark boundaries in responding to one’s own emotions and that of complete strangers. As a result, they suffer from physical manifestations of the emotional impact on their body. Some scientists postulate that that is why there is emotional withdrawal from social situations because it is just way too much to handle….. This goes to prove the adage- moderation is the key!
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Dr. Parvati IyerI am a passionate, inquisitive dental educator, striving for excellence. My goal is to be inclusive in the classroom, incorporate multimodal teaching and learning strategies to increase active learning. |