Two Psychiatrists: A Closer Look at Empathy
Re ''Empathy' Becomes Debatable,' by Jennifer Szalai (Critic's Notebook, July 24):
At a time when core values are under attack, empathy is increasingly misunderstood and dismissed as a soft or misguided emotional reaction. But empathy is not weakness. It is a vital human capacity that enables us to perceive suffering and then respond with compassion and reason.
Neuroscience shows that empathy engages both emotional and cognitive parts of the brain. The emotional side helps us resonate with others; it's why we instinctively flinch when we see others suffering. But empathy does not stop there. The cognitive dimension allows us to step back and consider context. When we see children in pain, we instantly feel their distress; that's emotional empathy.
The cognitive dimension allows us to step back and consider context. If we learn that a child was hurt while punching another child, the emotional response may recede — but empathy remains. It shifts into perspective-taking and helps us consider the broader context, including the safety of the other child.
Those who reject empathy fail to see that it's necessary for compassion. Social scientists recognize that compassion, not just strength, enables groups to thrive.
Today, we see its power most clearly in health care. When we are sick or dying, what we crave isn't judgment or ideology — it's connection, comfort and care.
Empathy is not our enemy. It's our lifeline. When we deny it, we deny our shared humanity.
Helen RiessBostonThe writer is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of 'The Empathy Effect.'
To the Editor:
Jennifer Szalai's illuminating discussion of empathy does not mention one important finding: Too much empathy can put health care providers (and family caregivers) at risk for burnout, depression and anxiety.
As a psychiatrist, I have seen empathic, well-meaning colleagues becoming emotionally enmeshed in the distress and suffering of their patients, to the detriment of their own health.
To be sure, empathy is necessary but not sufficient in the care of the sick and the infirm. The caregiver must also find ways of taking constructive action, beyond 'I feel your pain.' For example, caregivers can advocate greater social, emotional and financial support for seriously ill patients or family members.
Finally, health care professionals need to find forms of self-care and emotion regulation strategies that sustain them in the midst of their patients' suffering.
Ronald W. PiesCazenovia, N.Y.
Trump on Mount Rushmore? Critics Weigh In.
To the Editor:
Re 'Room for One More? (Trump Wants to Know.)' (news article, July 28):
When I began researching a book on Mount Rushmore in 1996, one of the things that intrigued me about the monument was the parallel with the Socialist Realist style of art. Huge national monuments assert an official story through brute force. They are designed to intimidate.
I concluded at the time that for all its overtly propagandistic nature, Rushmore ultimately retains a more naïvely democratic concept of civic identity than all those gigantic statues of heroic soldiers and factory workers that littered the public landscape of the Soviet Union and its satellites.
But the meaning of a monument is not necessarily static, and President Trump's expressed desire to be memorialized on Rushmore (and the public's failure to react with more outrage) suggests that I should reassess my conclusion.
Mr. Trump not only abuses the law for partisan and personal purposes, but also proposes to extend personal control over civil society: what is taught in universities, which clients attorneys can represent, what can be said on news programs and displayed in museums, and how much private businesses can charge for their products.
It is hard to imagine a more totalitarian agenda, and totalitarian agendas demand to be served by totalitarian art.
Jesse LarnerNew YorkThe writer is the author of 'Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered.'
To the Editor:
Data and strata notwithstanding, the egregiously offensive proposition of adding another 'American hero' image to Mount Rushmore is evidence of ongoing insensitivity to the demoralizing view that Indigenous tribes of the Black Hills must take in daily.
That land is sacred. Leave it alone.
Nan Deane CanoWestlake Village, Calif.
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