Reactivity, empathy, perpetrator and victims

This is another amazing twitter spiel by a wonderful therapist and twitter friend. I’ve shared another one of these from Martha Crawford before: The psychotherapeutic community needs to tolerate diversity, dissonance, divergence. It’s worth checking out too if you didn’t see it when I posted it.

Thinking about how reactivity masks itself as empathy – Empathy calls us to think deeper, tolerate ambiguity & complexity and mourn…

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Reactivity & premature action is a failure to withstand empathy- an inability to tolerate dissonance & complexity, a refusal to go deeper — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

This does not mean that action and reaction do not have a place. It is essential to act for those in the throes of emergent events & crisis

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Those who not in direct crisis, but are invested need to engage in considered action -which means thinking & feeling it all the way through — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

This does not always take a lot of time: but it is a matter of timing

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Sometimes the difference between reactivity and empathic considered action is just a matter of seconds. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

The greatest challenge is to mourn for both the victims & perpetrators: As violence/abuse harm the perpetrator profoundly…

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

…whether they know it or not. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

I learned this early in my career – working with ex-offenders with histories of violence. They were also damaged by what they had done.

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

If you can tolerate this terrible ambivalence: the real line between victims and perpetrators is thinner than any of us want to acknowledge: — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

if you can tolerate the tragedy of what it does to all of humanity when we harm each other… then you’ve moved past reactivity.

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Empathy calls us to considered action understanding that both victims &perpetrators need to be protected from the impact of abuse/violence. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

People in on the direct receiving end of violence cannot be expected to withstand this dissonance – for a long long time afterwards, if ever

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

When we have been traumatically vicitimized, we are necessarily flooded by our own experience and injury. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Some, astounding souls are able to metabolized this quickly, some eventually, and some – never.

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

But the danger of slipping into perpetrating emotional or physical violence after surviving it is enormous & only empathy guards against it. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

Last thought: sometimes a reactive act & an empathic act can look identical but generate disparate outcomes b/c of the spirit behind the act

— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

We can smell it, feel it in our bones when an action is born from empathy – after an inhalation – and when it is a breath-held reaction. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) July 18, 2014

See also: The psychotherapeutic community needs to tolerate diversity, dissonance, divergence

Related

Comments are closed.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: I often publish authors whose articles I appreciate while maybe not agreeing with everything. My pieces, also, cannot stand alone. Some of my work contains ideas that may sometimes seem to contradict other pieces because all cannot be said in short essays. It's wise to avoid assumptions based on a few posts. Attitudes have also not remained stagnant over time and the archives reflect the passage of of many years. Some articles contain links to other resources on the Internet. Links are provided as citations to help identify more information and are not intended to state or imply that this site recommends, endorses, supports, sponsors, or is in any way affiliated or associated with any person or entity associated with the linked material. Use your judgment in all things. Nothing on these pages should be construed as medical advice.

function wpb_rand_posts() { 
 
$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'orderby'   => 'rand',
    'posts_per_page' => 5, 
    );
 
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args );
 
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
 
$string .= '<ul>';
    while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
        $the_query->the_post();
        $string .= '<li><a href="'. get_permalink() .'">'. get_the_title() .'</a></li>';
    }
    $string .= '</ul>';
    /* Restore original Post Data */
    wp_reset_postdata();
} else {
 
$string .= 'no posts found';
}
 
return $string; 
} 
 
add_shortcode('wpb-random-posts','wpb_rand_posts');
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

Powered by WordPress.com.