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Transference and Empathy: Where Transference Was Empathy Shall Be!
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[Note: the audio is not a exact transcript and sometimes covers the same or related material using different words]
While empathy is seemingly in exceedingly short supply in the world, you do not need a philosopher to tell you what empathy is. Every mother, every teacher with students, every business person with customers, every doctor with patients, every attorney with clients, every politician with supporters, every person with next door neighbors, knows about empathy.
We shall start with the folk definition of empathy – take a walk in the other person’s shoes, and add one additional recommendation. However, first take off your own shoes before putting on the other’s – an action that is routinely overlooked – otherwise one gets projection, not an experience of otherness.
The title statement echoes Freud’s celebrated slogan “Where id was, ego shall be!” Neither of these statements is an “either or” proposition. The id is not going away. Freud did not propose to abolish the id with the ego. It is not even clear what that could possibly mean. The idea is to expand the influence, control, and power of the second term (ego, empathy) over the first one (id, transference). The ego expands its power, including power over primitive aggressive and sexual inclinations; likewise, with empathy. Empathy expands its power in creating an opening for effectiveness and success in fulfilling and satisfying human relationships.
Let us define our terms. Transference is the carrying across of meaning from one context, model, or paradigm to another one. It is difference than metaphor, which means a “carrying across or beyond,” but perhaps not by much. We humans have a tendency to make things mean other things. We humans are “meaning making machines,” in the sense that we are a source of acts of conscious intentionality that brings meaning to our encounters with nature and our fellow humans in community. There is indeed something mechanistic about the way we automatically go about making things mean things. We can’t seem to stop doing it, which results in innovations but also distortions and misunderstanding. We take behaviors, conversations, and circumstances and try to make sense out of them by bringing meaning to them, which sometimes applies, but sometimes doesn’t.
This definition of transference extends into the realm of so-called behavioral health and psychoanalysis (where it was initially and innovatively defined) into the contexts of diverse forms of psychotherapy, empathy consulting, professional coaching, or community building. At the risk of oversimplification, transference takes a cognitive, behavioral, or emotional response from one context, such as childhood or circumstances in the past that one had to survive, and uses it to respond to the therapist, coach, or trainer in a similar way. Typically this introduces distortion or extraneous issues into the relationship.
The relationship between transference and empathy is under theorized. This is the case in spite of all the great psychoanalysts from Freud onwards commenting on both subjects, albeit sometimes in widely separated contexts and conversations. There are many reasons for under development of theory, both scientific and political, but it is largely due to the nature of the phenomena themselves. Transference as a distinction is largely structural, even though its emergence and transformation unfold in time in the process of a therapeutic psychoanalysis. Empathy as a distinction is largely a process unfolding in the therapeutic relationship, even though it has structural invariants.
Empathy and transference are the opposite of one another. How so? In empathy one takes a walk in the shoes of the other person, the better to understand the other and relate authentically to the individual. There are many definitions of empathy, but they converge on the idea that empathy is an authentic form of relatedness. Get rid of the judgments, assessments, and evaluations, and be with the other person without applying labels, categories, and prejudices.
Now transference is the exact opposite of authentic relatedness. The narrow definition of transference says take a pattern or relating from one situation – such as childhood or an experience in another context – and apply it to the current relationship or situation. The result is a distortion of the relatedness. The result is an inauthentic way of relating. In order to bring forth an empathic relationship one has to interpret and resolve the transference distortions.
Let us take a step back. The implications of the relationship between empathy and transference, as noted, have not been much theorized. It is true that dozens of publication address empathy and dozens of publications address transference, and some even contain discussions of both empathy and transference (e.g., Racker 1968). But the specific interactions between being empathic in the transference and getting engaged in transference in being empathic in a clinical setting have not been much engaged.
The recommendation? Think of the relationship between empathy and transference (or perhaps you say “the transference” as if it were a single unified thing) as a dance. Sometimes the one leads and the other follows and vice versa. The implications of the dance between empathy and transference are profound, but complex and entangled.
Lest one imagine these two phenomena – empathy and transference – are inevitably at loggerheads, consider the following example of convergence:
The patient comes in and says he saw the film, Elephant Man (directed by David Lynch (1980)) and he was deeply moved. The narrative is of an individua, David Merrick, suffering from Proteus Syndrome (often confused with Neurofibromatosis), which results in disfiguring folds of tissue on the head and other pulmonary and renal abnormalities. “Deeply moved,” by what aspect in particular, I asked? After being a freak, physically disfigured, lacking humanity, David Merrick meets the doctor who acknowledges his humanity. The recognition of humanity – “I am a human being – I am a man” is the most dramatic utterance – and the empathic moment. The client reports being moved to tears and having had a satisfying cry. Without further discussion, the client then spontaneously speculates, wondering if there was a parallel with our relationship, my having recognized something in him that others had not seen. Without going into confidential details, I had seen around or though the significant blind spot that kept him insensitive to an aspect of father’s behavior which was running his life and in a destructive way, yet not acknowledged. This enabled the client to shift his relationship to his life partner (as well as his father) and move on. The parallelism – transference – the recognition of humanity – empathy.
To try to prevent misunderstanding, one must distinguish between transference in a narrow sense and transference in an enlarged sense. At risk of oversimplification, when transference was first discovered by Freud, it seemed like an obstacle to treatment, since the patient related to Freud as an authority figure such as The Father (in the case of a male patient) or as a seductive father figure (in the case of a female patient) whereas Freud regarded himself as a kind, even empathic, listener to the patient’s neurotic suffering.
Eventually Freud realized that the patient was relating to him (Freud) as to an important figure from the patient’s past. Regardless of how Freud tried to treat the patient, the patient treated him- or herself with transference – but responding with a transference of meaning from one area of the patient’s life to the relationship with Freud. Just as significantly, Freud discovered that the patient was doing this in other areas of his life as well – towards his lady friend, towards his superiors at work, in a hundred and one ways in his life – with problematic results that caused the individual to seek treatment for his suffering and conflicts.
For example, when the patient was a woman, the transference was not hostile but erotic. This can be motivated. If the reader saw Vigo Morgenstern play the middle-aged Freud in the film A Dangerous Method, then you know what I mean. This guy was hot! Though unlike Carl Jung, Freud was clear about professional boundaries: “[…] [T]he patient has transferred on to the doctor intense feelings of affection which are justified neither by the doctor’s behavior nor by the situation that has developed during the treatment” [1917, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: 440 – 441]. It is in interpreting this transference – based on behavior different than that of the original seductive parental objects and suitable verbal feedback – that the cure of the neurosis is affected: “At the end of the analytic treatment the transference must itself be cleared away: and if success is then obtained or continues, it rests, not on suggestion, but on the achievement by its means of an overcoming of internal resistances, on the internal change that has been brought about in the patient” [1917, Introductory Lectures: 453]
Since this post is part of a larger project, I take the liberty of including several definitions of “transference” by leading figures who defined it. Those readers who wish less detail may skip ahead.
Thomas Szasz (1963: 432 – 443), who was otherwise a notorious psychoanalytic “bad boy,” denouncing the “myth of mental illness,” was an classic Freudian when it came to defining transference: “Freud conceived of transference love as an illusion because the situation in treatment cannot account for the origin of such feelings” [. . . .] [I]t [transference] is considered an expression of interest ‘basically’ directed towards childhood objects, deflected to the analyst or to the figures in the patient’s current life.”
Peter Giovacchini (1965: 287) writes that: “[. . . .] [T]ransference reaction refers to a person’s reactions to an object as they are determined by infantile unconscious factors. Viewing the object in terms of archaic imagos in a primary process orientation lead to irrational attitudes and distortions.”
Carl M. Grossman (1965: 249 – 250) defines transference in a broad sense that seems to go beyond the psychoanalytic context in a narrow sense: “[. . .] [Transference is] a universal human psychological characteristic which causes the internalized representation of certain objects – such as parents or parental surrogates from one’s infantile past – to be projected onto a succession of later, ostensibly unrelated persons. The transferring person then reacts to new objects with the anachronistically habitual reaction in adult life that he had had towards the originally cathected object in infancy.”
Ralph Greenson (1967: 151 – 152) asserts: “[. . . ] [Transference is] a special kind of relationship toward a person: it is a distinctive type of object relationship. The main characteristic is the experience of feelings to a person which do not befit that person and which actually apply to another. Essentially, a person in the present is reacted with as though he were a person in the past. Transference is a repetition, a new edition of an old object relationship” (pp. 151 – 152).” {TI: 339]
Leo Stone (1961: 66 – 67) writes “[…] [Transference is limited] to that aspect or fraction of a relationship which is motivated by persistent unmodified wishes (or other attitudes) toward an actual important personage of the past, which tend to invest a current individual in a sort of misidentification [. . . ] with the unconscious image of the past personage. It is essentially in appropriate to the current situation subjectively misunderstood as to genetic origin until analyzed, and tenaciously resistive to this analysis (pp. 66 – 67).” Stone further notes: “that a nuance of the analyst’s attitude can determine the difference between a lonely vacuum and a controlled but warm human situation, which does indeed offer these gratifications, along with its undoubted rigors” (1961: 21 – 22).”
In short, transference is what happens when human do what they cannot stop doing – trying to make sense of situations by assimilating them to patterns from key patterns and expectations based on experience. What may have been helpful in one context to enable the person to survive or even flourish is less helpful and even harmful in other situations in that distortions and misunderstandings are introduced.
There is a broader sense of “transference” that developed, in which transference becomes the entire relationship which the patient has towards the therapist. And wherever there is transference can countertransference be far away? Under this idiosyncratic and enlarged meaning, “countertransference” becomes the therapist’s way of relating to the patient. For example, according to Paula Heiman, under this idiosyncratic interpretation of the relationship, “counter- transference” covers all the feelings the analyst experiences toward the patient (see Paula Heiman, 1950. On counter-transference. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 31: 81 – 84).
Of course, “counter transference” can mean an unprofessional or pathological response on the part of the therapist, as when s/he behaves in a moralizing, aggressive, or seductive manner; but it can also include appropriate and positive responses such as empathic ones. In the extreme, countertransference comes to mean empathy itself. Heimann’s thesis is “that the analyst’s emotional response to his patient within the analytic situation represents one of the most important tools for his work. The analyst’s countertransference is an instrument of research into the patient’s unconscious” (1950: 81). The transference is not empathy, but the countertransference is essential input to the empathic process, even if not quite reducible to empathy itself.
While Freud innovated decisively in decoding the meaning of dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and the exploration of infantile sexuality, from a clinical perspective, the elaboration of transference defined the clinical encounter between patient and therapist in the context of psychoanalysis. Transference becomes co-extensive with the encounter between patient and therapist. If you can’t form a transference, since the therapy consists in interpreting and raising the transference, the therapy is not going to work.
We now turn from transference to empathy.
Freud explicitly states that unless the physician begins empathy in engaging in psychoanalysis, that physician is headed for trouble. The issue is that nearly no one knows that Freud said that because the Strachey’s mistranslate “empathy [Einfühlung]” as “sympathetic understanding.” I must insist on the point. We are on firm group as far as Freud’s guidance is concerned. “Empathy” and “sympathetic understanding” are not the same, and what is more, in a kind of Nachträglichkeit – or retrospective consideration – we lose the opportunity to connect to Freud’s guidance (see Agosta 2014). Thus, we have the kind of empathy wars that Heinz Kohut had to fight to demonstrate that empathy had a mutative effect on the structure of the self (presumably and especially including the ego).
When Freud demonstrated by his empathic way of relating to the patient (including by his verbal interpretations) that he was not the authoritarian or seductive parental figure of the patient’s past or trauma, the patient would often resist, deny, or offer other defensive gestures against Freud’s interventions and interpretations. But eventually the evidence would add up. Freud was not the unkind parent or the seductive uncle – the mischief was coming from the patient’s unconscious (and his circumstances), not from Freud. With this realization, the patient was reliably able to shift out of stuckness and enjoy a new beginning in his work and romantic relatedness thanks to Freud’s revolutionary new method of treatment.
Although there are numerous definitions of empathy, most include a narrow and an enlarged use of the term. In the narrow sense, empathy is a psychological mechanism, which, in folk psychology terms, as noted, consists in taking a walk in the other person’s shoes. It is rarely pointed out that one must take off one’s own shoes before putting on those of the other or one risks the distortion/defense of projection. As a psychological mechanism, Kohut defines empathy as vicarious introspection, though he does not merely define empathy in that way.
In an enlarged sense, empathy means being present with the other person without applying judgments, labels, or moralizing assessments. When I use the expression “empathic presence,” the word “presence” inevitably invokes Nacht (1962) and Nacht and Viderman (1960), who penetrating and insightful contribution should not be underestimated. However, as I use it the word “presence” should not be understood as a source or justification for any deviations in technique or the frame. If anything “presence” means “being with” one another in a Heideggerian sense or “being” in the sense of “going on being” as Winnicott employed the term. Even though not necessarily visible, if seated behind the couch, the analyst’s listening is a strong presence.
If one understands “transference” in a broad sense of all aspects of relatedness to the patient, then it tends to merge with an understanding of “empathy” as the foundation of relatedness.
Anything the analyst does to influence the transference is considered an issue – the question of the background to transference – passivity? Neutrality? Empathy? but empathy is the background to transference.
One of the most enlarged uses of the terms is to be found in Kohut. For Kohut empathy defines the entire field of therapeutic interrelations and one can even give a transcendental argument to that effect
Empathy is not just a useful way by which we have access to the inner life of man – the idea itself of an inner life of man, and thus of a psychology of complex mental states, is unthinkable without our ability to know via vicarious introspection – my explanation of empathy . . . what the inner life of man is, what we ourselves and what others think and feel. (1977: 306)
In this statement, empathy is the foundation of our relations to other individuals. This is a restatement and an expansion of Kohut’s celebrated statement in his 1959 article that empathy is the method of data gathering precisely about what other individuals feel and think. In turn, this method defines the scope and limits of psychoanalysis as a therapy and discipline. The field of empathy that of psychoanalytic therapy become co-extensive.
As noted, one individual does not directly access the mental states of the other person, but rather had a vicarious experience of the other person’s experience. In empathy one is receptive to the micro-expressions of the other person’s experience – one has an “after image” and a “vicarious” experience of what the other is experience.
The innovations continue. Kohut innovates around transference in 1971 – the establishment of what was first called idealizing transference and transference of the grandiose self and ultimately becomes selfobject transference is a distinct phase in the history of transference and tends to live like a split off bastion – for example, is there any evidence of a selfobject transference in the Wolfman, who had aspects of the depletion and grandiosity of narcissistic personality disorder?
The selfobject represents the function that other people have for oneself. Kohut: “[. . .] [T]he general meaning of the term selfobject [is] as that dimension of our experience of another person that related to this person’s function in shoring up [supporting the homeostatis / equilibriating] our self [. . .]” (1984: 49)
In a standard relationship people interact in such a way that they mutually regulate one another’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. This is called “friendship.” It is also the give-and-take at the foundation of many forms of interpersonal cooperation, communication, and collaboration. When one’s spouse comes home from a hard day at the office or clinic or the backroom on Zoom and you give them a good listening as they vent the frustrations, double binds and bullying perpetrated by the boss or client, then you are functioning as a selfobject. Presumably such an interaction or function did not begin with Kohut’s coining the term “selfobject,” though it was more clearly delimited out of the undifferentiated background.
One significant difference that, unfortunately, has resulted in controversy and lack of clarity, is how Kohut’s selfobject (narcissistic) transference is sustaining to the patient during the long process of interpreting, working through, and dissolving the transference and the inevitable transference distortions. Kohut took considerable pains to emphasize (and empathize!) that confrontational and moralizing methods would unleash reactive narcissistic rage on the part of the patient and that the empathic approach was critical path.
This lines up with and is complementary to one of Freud’s early discoveries was a later version of this phenomenon – that what seemed to be a source of resistance was actually the way forward. However, the way forward means the possibility of relatedness between internal objects (everything from the superego to hostile introjects to good breasts) and the therapist. Key term: relatedness. Thus, when there are disruptions in the relatedness between the patient and therapist that is conceptualized as a breakdown in the transference – the loss of connectedness, even if the connectedness includes distortions, misunderstandings, and conflicts. But that is usually the way it is thought of or described in the context of classical analysis where the breakdown of the transference often results in what seem like moralistic or objective medical judgments that the patient is not analyzable.
Instead, the relationship between transference and empathy comes into its own where, in the face of a breakdown in transference, empathy is used to restore the transference relationship.
For example, speaking of a patient with significant narcissistic disequilibrium, Kohut writes:
- When the narcissistic transference has become disrupted, he has the impression that he is not fully real, or at least that his emotions are dulled; he is doing his work without zest, that he seeks routines to carry him along since he appears to be lacking in initiative … ((1971): 16)
The restoration of the relatedness and the transference is brought forward when the therapist, using empathic understanding, shows the analysand that the therapist “gets” how the analysand is struggling with a setback or challenge in his life that he left him emotionally disequilibriated, anxious, lethargic, depleted. When this occurs repeatedly in the course of treatment, psychic structure is built and reinforced in the areas of emotional and behavioral regulation. A cure comes into view.
Kohut (1984: 66) writes: “[. . .] [The] aim and the result of the cure – is the opening of a path of empathy between self and selfobject, specifically, the establishment of empathic in-tuneness between self and selfobject on mature adult levels. [….] …the gradual acquisition of empathic contact with mature selfobjects is the essence of the psychoanalytic cure [. . .]” Of course, one must hasten to add that “empathic in-tuneness” is unlikely, even impossible, unless the distortions and illusions of the transference have been engaged interpretively (and in an empathic way) in course of making contact with mature selfobjects in empathic relatedness
A number of issues occur here that clearly require further research and clarification of terminology. Why would selfobject transference be considered transference at all? Here “transference” again gets used in the broadest sense of “empathic relatedness.” It represents healthy relatedness, good listening, and interpersonal well-being. Interpretation of the transference is a key bridge between empathy and transference – when the interpretation is experienced as unempathic then the aggression released is not due to a lowering or elimination of defense against the death instinct but a reactive rage at getting one’s feelings hurt at being misunderstood by one’s therapist, being re-traumatized in the transference by unempathic caretakers or disappointed parental idealizations.
If such relatedness with its significant component of a “good listening” is spontaneously constellated in the psychoanalytic therapeutic encounter, then it may at first glance seem to be pure positive transference (the analyst as “good object”) or positive nontransference reality-based relatedness. Indeed, Winnicott’s transitional object is a special case of a selfobject but shows that the selfobject is a standard part of development in which the imaginary is integrated into the rich system of conventions and symbols known as everyday life. In that sense, the family pictures on one’s writing desk are reminders of why one works, making the absent present in what is literally a picture of health.
Where transference was empathy shall be!
References
Szasz, Thomas. (1963). The concept of transference. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 44: 432 – 443.
Stone, Leo. (1961). The Psychoanalytic Situation. New York: International Universities Press. [TI: 239]
Reich, Annie. (1966). Empathy and countertransference. In Annie Reich, Psychoanalytic Contributions. New York: IUP Press, 1973: 344 – 360.
Nacht, S. (1962). Empathy as a psychological mechanism and empathy as presence (of course it is both). Symposium The curative factors in psycho-analysis. II International Journal of Psychoanalysis 43: 206 – 211
Kohut, Heinz. (1984). How Does Analysis Cure? Eds. Paul Sepansky and Arnold Goldberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kohut, Heinz. (1977). The Restoration of the Self. New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, Heinz. (1971). The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press.
Grossman, Carl M. (1965). Transference, countertransference, and being in love. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 34: 249 – 256.
Greenson, Ralph R. (1967). The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis vol 1. New York: International Universities Press.
Giovacchini, Peter L. (1965). Transference, incorporation and synthesis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 46: 287 – 296.
Agosta, Lou. (2014a). Rewriting empathy in Freud. A Rumor of Empathy: Rewriting Empathy in the Context of Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 66 – 82. DOI:10.1057/978113746534.0009.
(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project
Empathy versus bullying: Part 3: Recommendations for students, parents, teachers and administrators
Listen to podcast on Spotify (via Anchor): https://anchor.fm/lou-agosta-phd/episodes/Empathy-versus-Bullying-Part-3-Recommendations-for-students–parents–and-educators-e17j1ts
Bullying: Recommendations for students
If one is being bullied, some guidelines are useful.; though no single, easy answer is available.
[Note: even though these recommendations directly address the “student,” they are intended to provide guidance to the parent or responsible adult on how he or she is to address the student regarding bullying. They are intended to inform the grown up, adult’s speaking and listening in the matter of bullying as the grown up engages with their student.]
First, these recommendations are about getting back your power—or at least some of your power—in the face of bullying. Sometimes that looks like making a tactical retreat, much as one might dislike doing so, in order to reestablish boundaries and integrity. The idea is to de-escalate the potential confrontation. What de-escalation looks like is different according to the situation.
Second, this is not happening to you—the target of bullying—because you did anything wrong. Stop the negative self-talk (devaluing comments directed at oneself) about being to blame for the bad behavior of bullies. Such negative self-talk results in two problems, the bullying and your own negative self-talk.
Previously there was only one problem, the bullying. Now two problems exist, the bulling and the negative self-talk. Reduce the problems by 50%; stop the negative self-talk. If you cannot seem to stop the negative self-talk, then get help from a parent or professional with doing so.
Many different kinds of bullies exist—see the above typology—and it is not your job to be the bully’s therapist or policeman.
There is probably no reply to the bully that is so powerful that the bully cannot transform it by using a sing-song, condescending tone of voice.
Even if one says: “Thank you for respecting my privacy,” a statement that makes a great quotation in any subsequent police or administrative report, the risk is that the reply is going to come back at you like yet another confrontation. It might be worth a try, but no guarantees.
The bully is behaving the way he does to “get a rise” out of the target. The intention is to make the target upset. That is a “pay off” for the bully. That is not to say that one should not shout back if shouted at or push back if one is pushed. That is a judgment call based on the situation and one’s sense that fighting back—otherwise know as “self defense”—may make a positive difference in establishing or maintaining a boundary.
However, if one is out-numbered or the bully is physically larger and one’s power is diminished, engaging the bully in a back-and-forth exchange is not going to work. If one can maintain some measure of composure or equilibrium, then the process of escalation on the part of the bully may be short-circuited or at least moderated. The bully is “getting off” on upsetting the target, so, tactically speaking, being boring to the bully is a valid defense. You will be “less fun” for the bully, and he will move on to the next target.
Another thing that is done—and is potentially life saving—is to keep a “bully log,” noting in writing, once one escapes, the occasion on which one was bullied and what exactly was said or done. In the case of cyber bullying, this includes print outs, with URLs and time stamps, or screen shots of devaluing comments from email, Facebook, social media, or text messages.
I know, I know. The last thing that a kid stressed out by bullying wants to think about is documenting what is happening precisely so that one can escalate and get one’s power back. But that is what is required. One may prefer to forget about it all, but keeping a log with dates and times and names (or descriptions if one does not know the name) and what exactly was said or done, is going to be an important part of getting one’s power back in the face of bullying.
Civic and spiritual leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have famously pointed out that “no one can diminish you without your consent.” That remains true; and it is always a good reminder to oneself in the face of bullying. However, King and his followers actively trained and role-played non-violent resistance prior to engaging in demonstrations, civic actions, marches, protests, and sits-ins, in which they confronted bullying, hostility, and out-and-out violence.
Civil rights activists practiced with colleagues, who pretended to be racists, hurling insults and ketchup at the would-be demonstrators in role playing. In turn, the would-be demonstrators practiced not responding with counter-aggression; and all this prior to their actually engaging in anti-segregation sit ins, public protests, civil disobedience, and so on.
One should not have to undertake training in non-violent resistance in order to survive the ride on the bus to school or the school lunch room, and the fact that we are now discussing such a scenario means that something has already gone seriously off the rails. Attempting to transform a culture of segregation and colonialism as King and Gandhi did—or a culture of bullying—is not for the faint of heart.
A group of middle or high school kids are not the KKK or the British Empire (though they may seem like it at times), and such kids cannot be forced to include an “outsider” when they really decide not to be inclusive. Thus, the coaching to the outsider is to keep looking for a group that is welcoming. Once again, it takes courage—and a support system—and is always easier said than done.
People need friends, and, for people in middle and high school, relating to friends is an important part of the fun. It is a part of growing up and the non-academic learning that occurs. If you are with a group of people—also called one’s “peers”—and their behavior and speech towards you leaves you feeling “less than” or “upset,” then you may need to look at your understanding of what is a friend. If your inquiry to your “friends” as to what is really going on seems to elicit more of the same upsetting and “less than” behavior—then you need to re-examine their status as “friends.” I hope you will not shoot the messenger: it is time to move on and seek friendlier friends.
One bullied LGBT teen made a difference by trying to join a Gay-Straight Alliance group activity at his high school. But there was one catch. Before he could join the alliance, he had to create it. It became a significant project, and a path to engagement for him and numerous fellow students both gay and straight. Never underestimate the power of one person with the courage to stand up and say “Enough—there’s got to be a better way!”
Friends may argue. Friends may disagree. Friends may engage in drama over boy or girl friends. Friends may even decide to stop being friends and go their separate ways. But if one finds so-called “friends” treating one like an outsider, using de-valuing language towards one, or being mischievous in ways that are cruel, mean, or aggressive, then it is time to find new friends. If one’s peer group lets one down, then it is time to seek a new peer group. Once again, this is not easy to do when one is struggling against bullying. However, if one is unable to take action in the direction of finding new relationships because one is so paralyzed by the upset, then it may be because one is anxious or depressed, and the intervention of a caring third party is warranted. But where to turn?
If you have a good relationship with one or both parents, that is a good place to start. Here “good relationship” means that you can talk with him or her. It means the parent has the ability to empathize with your predicament and listen to your concerns. It also means you are not going to come away from the conversation feeling bullied. Older siblings can also be useful if one has a good relationship.
The idea is not to have a grown up “fix” the problem for you, but to find a “trusted advisor” to work with you on what can be done to get back your power—or at least some of it—in the face of bullying. Though the analogy is imperfect, this is a tad like getting tutoring in geometry or science. Do not expect the tutor to do your homework for you; but together you work to acquire the skills, so you can not only survive the lunchroom or school bus ride, but also even have fun and prosper.
If you do not have the kind of empathic relationship with a parent that makes you think the parent can help to improve the situation, then look for a trusted teacher at school with whom one has a relationship. (But see the caution below about teachers and staff being school-bullying-mandated reporters.) Once again, this should be someone who you believe will listen to you—use her or his empathy to appreciate you—and work with you to improve the situation. If neither your parents nor a trusted teacher at school can be mobilized to intervene, then you should look for someone in the community such as a coach at the art or sports center, a pastor at church, or coordinator of the LGBT group in the community with whom you enjoy a relationship of empathy and trust.
If you are being harassed online, request that the web site take down the content, since the harassing comments violent the rules of most web sites. If the site is Facebook, report the abuse immediately via the dropdown item “this picture is of me and I don’t like it” [or words to that effect]. Facebook says that it is committed to taking the word of the reporter (you) about harassing comments. Print out the cruel or mean content or make a screen shot. Put all such stuff in a folder. You need to show others in authority what is happening. It is almost never useful to respond to the perpetrator. If you find yourself compulsively checking back for mean content, take a time out. Power down. Pull the plug. It is not worth it. It might be better to give online activity a break and drop out for awhile. Good friends will be able to reach you by phone or in person.
Another word of caution is needed. If you approach someone in school—a teacher or member of the staff—then this person may be required by law to report the bullying to the school administration. This might be okay if the school has a program in place to deal with bullying. This is also where your written record detailing bullying that has occurred over the past period can be useful. I wish I could say that this would not result in further bullying with accusations of being a “snitch” occurring. But the risk of escalation is real and must be considered prior to taking action.
If the reputation of the school is one of having a culture that seems to permit a certain amount of aggression and discourtesy, whether towards teachers or one’s fellow students, then the risk expands. Retaliation on the part of bullies for complaints about their bullying can become as significant an issue as the bullying itself.
Once the school administration is involved, the process can take on a life of its own. The administration must (is mandated to) open an investigation, and the requirement to gather evidence of bullying can make you feel like you are inside the “hall of mirrors” at the carnival without, however, anyone having any fun.
Grown ups are notoriously unable to distinguish adolescent drama from out-and-out bullying. This is sometimes due to grown ups’ lack of empathy, but not always. If the tweens and adolescents cannot tell these apart, why should the grown ups necessarily be able to? What seemed open-and-shut to the target of bullying can take on disturbing nuances once people are interviewed “on the record.”
Trying to sort out a bullying report can become an exercise in forensic investigation with conflicting testimony full of “he said” and “she said.” Are witnesses denying an alleged episode of bullying—note the legalese “alleged” shows up—because they don’t want to be regarded as “snitches” or because the episode never occurred?
The school system itself—no matter how empathic and well-intentioned—can seem to work unwittingly to punish all participants—or at least use all the time and effort of all implicated in a given incident in filling out forms, processes, procedures, and attending meetings. The process of determining what happened = x has now become something to survive—a potential breakdown in empathy and a breakdown in community. Ready or not, one has matriculated in the “college of hard knocks.”
However, if the student is being physically assaulted or harassed to the point where the student’s school work is suffering (grades and so on), then it is best to “bite the bullet,” fill out the formal report—including the police report if appropriate—try to take charge of the escalation, share the suffering, and learn the lesson in community building.
No one should have to suffer in isolation in the face of bullying. Part of the abuse consists precisely in the bully’s attempt to isolate the target. So the best outcomes are those in which one is able to take action to break out of one’s isolation: finding new and welcoming friends, martial arts lessons, founding a gay-straight alliance at the school, chess or science club, and so on. Once again, this is easier said than done, but it must be both said and done.
If you are someone who is caught up in drama and you are tempted to bully someone, it is time to take a time out. Take a look at your own behavior. Do you really want to be known as someone who is mean or a bully? While “put downs” or “one liners” might seem like auditioning for a role in a reality television show, hit the pause button. There are better ways of getting into show business. Go out for theatre or sign up for an improvisation class. All the world is a stage, and an important part of the training for theatre—and for success in life—is role playing. Indeed acting is precisely role playing. Try taking a walk in the other person’s shoes. There are other, better shoes—and choices—than to bully or be bullied.
Bullying: Recommendations for parents
If your child comes to you with an upset about bullying or you see that she or he is upset about something and the story sounds like bullying, then what should a parent do?
This is where empathy goes a long way. Start by listening. Your job as a parent is to support your child and to help your child regulate the child’s feelings and behavior. Your job is to help the child regain an emotional equilibrium in the face of life’s vicissitudes, including bullying.
Parenting is about setting boundaries. Empathy is about navigating boundaries, and bullying about violating boundaries. Therefore, empathy is about restoring boundaries in the face of bullying.
Be empathically receptive and responsive: “That’s really gotta be a concern.” “Try to tell me exactly what happened.” “Then what happened?” “Say more about that.” “Okay, but help me understand.” “He said what?!” Ask about the details in a concerned, empathic way. “Johnny is a jerk” may be true; but it is an interpretation. That Johnny said “You are a loser” while pointing at his forehead with his fingers in the shape of an “L” is a report of a devaluing comment. Do not be dismissive. It’s not “nothing.” Note it. Be concerned. Avoid finger wagging or moralizing. Though you are obviously “on the side” of your child, do not assume she or he is an angel. Likewise, if the child is known to have a “devilish” streak, do not assume he or she is the devil. A single example is not bullying in itself, but repeated instances start to form a pattern of concern.
One word of caution to parents at this point. One issue that should not be overlooked is how the adult is inevitably confronted with his or her own fate as a child in the face of bullying. In short, if you had a bad experience in bullying that is still unintegrated as an adult, it is going to be there when your child comes to you. If you have unresolved issues around bullying in your own history, when your child comes to you about bullying, a challenging situation becomes all the more challenging for you. You have to distinguish the child’s problem from your own in order to do your job. As a parent, your priority is to solve the child’s problem, not your own.
Now this does not mean the parent has precipitously to go back into therapy (though nothing is wrong with that as such), but that one must be prepared to identify and use one’s own experiences around bullying as a resource. These experiences, long past, will come up. Promise. This is where parental peer support can be essential. Consult with other parents with whom you have a relationship of empathy and trust. It is crucial this be a person to whom one can relate without moralizing or finger pointing.
If one does have an unresolved issue around bullying, then acknowledge it, so that one can gain some distance and objectivity about bullying today. In a deep sense, bullying and human aggression have not changed, though they now have online technology at their disposal; but parenting norms, schools, school administrators, and community standards have shifted significantly since Baby Boomers and even Gen-Xers have struggled with bullying in a different world.
If, when you were a kid, the guidance from your parent was “just hit him back,” and it worked, then you are going to be inclined to provide such guidance. If, when you were a kid, you told his mom about his bullying behavior, and it worked (as unlikely as that may seem), then your initial inclination is going to be to provide such advice. Even if you wished that you had “just hit him back,” but were not able to do so, you are also going to be inclined to provide such guidance. You see the dilemma?
Our empathy for our children in the here and now is a function of our own fate as a child in what was (and is) not always the most empathic of worlds. If one is at a party for five year olds, tweens, or adolescents, then one is inevitably going to be present to one’s own experiences as a five year old, tween, or adolescent. That is a risk and an opportunity. Such experiences from one’s own childhood or teen years can be a useful resource and should not be overlooked. However, such experiences of surviving bullying are most likely to make a positive difference within the context of an empathic listening to the child currently being bullied, not the context the parent had to overcome long ago. [i]
The point is to appreciate the distinction between your own experiences and those of your child. An outgoing or extroverted parent may have a shy or introverted child—or vice versa. Yes, certain kinds of bullying are such that a child may properly be expected to handle them on his or her own. However, if the child who used to enjoy school now dreads it, if grades are suffering, or if a once flourishing child is now floundering, and it is not clear what is going on, then intervention is required.
A substantial part of the challenge for the parent is to re-create the context on the school bus, at school, in the lunchroom, or on the sports field. What seems at first to be an open-and-shut case of meanness or cruelty can turn out to be a complex example of drama, pseudo-sibling rivalry, or bad manners. Debates quickly emerge about “Who started it!?” or “he said” and “she said.” Try to determine who said what to whom and then what happened. You may quickly find yourself asking, “Is there a single fact here?” This, however, does not mean that bullying did not occur. As a parent, you want to document what you have learned, and you want to keep open the lines of communication with your child. Is there a pattern?
In order to be useful in supporting your child, you must have a thorough grasp of what is going on. Get the entire narrative. If what is happening really is bullying, you will want to be as specific as possible in order to make a report to the authorities if the problem persists.
This is where the difference between handing the child a fish and teaching him or her how to fish is the lesson. Even if the student is an adolescent, the student’s request may be to “fix” the problem and make the bully go away. Wouldn’t it be nice? Rarely is that practical. If the bullying is occurring on the way to or from school, and if one can take a different bus or route, by all means, do so. Band-Aids have their uses. Tourniquets are essential. Buy some time to figure out what is really happening.
The tough job of parenting occurs at four levels: (1) providing guidance to one’s student on how to fend for oneself; (2) providing explicit training in self-defense or assertiveness if the student can be enrolled in the value of doing so; (3) reaching out to the parents of the alleged bully if there is any chance they are responsive people, who are able to have a civil conversation; (4) intervening with school authorities (or law enforcement) as a last resort if no other solution can be found.
(1) Share with the student the above-cited coaching in “Recommendations for Students” about the dynamics of bullying. Even if you have reason to believe that your child has been provocative and is engaging in drama, begin by asking, “What happened?” “Who said what to whom?” “What happened next?“ Do not begin by asking, “What did you do to cause this?” That can seem like blaming the victim. Do not be dismissive. Trust—but verify empathically.
Providing empathy means that one should provide examples of proper behavior on the part of “friends” and peers; friends do not use devaluing, hurtful, bad language or engage in aggression against one another; and broach the difficult subject that maybe one needs to find new friends or a suitable, different, extra-curricular activity if one is being harassed. One should provide assurances to the child, who is blaming himself, that the child did not do anything to deserve such treatment.
(2) Time was when “bullying” meant physical aggression. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” We now know that devaluing names, too, are hurtful. This is especially so when the name calling occurs persistently across different environments—at school, on the bus, online after school, and so on. I know—I know. Why is it that parenting usually seems to require ever-increasing commitments rather than less? Yet intervention on the part of the grown ups is important., especially if the meanness is escalating.
If a student, who is being physically assaulted, sees value in boxing or Asian martial arts lessons, the parent may pick up the extra expense and effort of chauffeuring him or her. It may be worth it. Self defense remains a fundamental right.
However, if the individual is up against a group or the size differential is substantial, such lessons might be good for one’s self-esteem (and the value of such a contribution is not to be underestimated), but it is of limited practical value in surviving an altercation. For some shy or socially awkward kids explicit training in social assertiveness is useful.
(3) If one is part of a community where one has communications with other parents, then it may be worth the risk to reach out to the other parents. It is important to do so in a way that does not land like an incoming accusation or reproach. That such a conversation would initially be uncomfortable is no reason not to try.
If you can work with the other parents, it provides an example to all the children of how to resolve conflict in a mature, adult way that benefits all involved. Such a lesson is worth its weight in gold—or at least an associate’s degree in counseling. However, if the parent turns out to be troubled or a part of the problem, then one has perhaps discovered the source of the bully’s misbehavior. One has to move on. Encourage one’s child to leave alone a “friend” who is making his life miserable.
(4) If one has exhausted individual coaching to the child or outreach to other parents, and one still has concerns about the child’s safety or the impact of bullying on a child’s academic results, then it is necessary to approach the school authorities. Remember that these may be harried individuals.
School authorities already have a long list of academic, administrative, and educational responsibilities. The state legislature has just mandated compliance with rules that schools take on the task of managing and improving a situation in which 10% of a school population (say) of 1,000 students is either a bully or a target of bullying over a given period of time. A budget increase to support the mandate is still pending, meaning doing more with less is again demanded.
A parent may have a right to stand up in a school board meeting and express concern or even accuse officials of being indifferent to bullying.
However, it does put one in mind of Dale Carnegie’s dictum: if you want to gather honey, do not kick over the bee’s nest.
Rather identify an educator or administrator who has the empathy to hear your concern about your child’s emotional and academic well-being and its urgency. In a time sensitive situation, specific steps can be taken such as allowing the child to keep a cell phone with him at all times to call for help; a designated safe room (say next to the nurse’s office) that the child can go to in case he feels unsafe; a special hall pass or permission to arrive two minutes before class to avoid the bully; or assigning a grown up to accompany her or him through the hallway. It is important that all the relevant teachers and staff know about this or it will just become another breakdown, punishing the victim as the phone gets confiscated, and so on.
In the case of cyber-bullying of tweens, parents may appropriately have access to the online passwords. Parents may usefully know what sites the children are visiting. Even if one has a phobia for technology, it is imperative for the parents of kids using computers to have a minimum of computer literacy to supervise the kids’ involvement with electronic media. It is a tad stealthy—but I would not rule it out—to have the child train you with her email or Facebook account, and then use what you have learned to monitor theirs.
You would not simply give the kids the car keys and tell them, “Hey, keep in touch!” Funny. The Internet is different than the open road, but hazards and risks exist in abundance in cyberspace, too. Since no parent has enough time to monitor the totality of anyone’s online activity—it would be crazy to try—start out like the wise teacher who begins with strictness but eases up thereafter based on proper behavior and feedback.
Manage by exception. Trust but verify. If spending time engaging online becomes an upset to the child, then an empathic inquiry as to what is happening is needed. Expectations for online behavior should be made clear: Just as one would not use devaluing language, ethnic or racial insults in person, so too one should not do so online. If one is the target of such behavior, then it must be documented, monitored, and neutralized through appropriate interventions.
Why is it that people forget you can turn off the computer or not go to certain sites? Parents’ good examples of laying aside electronic devices and relating in person to other persons speak volumes to kids. So does any behavior that demonstrates a parent’s commitment to drama or using social media to drive personal conflicts. Business people and politicians now have a rule about email and comments on social networks (even if they do not always follow their own good guidance): Write every electronic comment or communication so that it could be published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal without creating an embarrassment. The reason? Because the communication will eventually migrate there! This is an essential rule of thumb going forward.
Such is especially the case after the US election of 2016 where a seemingly endless stream of hacked emails—containing ambiguous and devaluing comments about the sender’s colleagues—got published periodically. In some cases, no hacking was required, since the candidate published the comments intentionally using Twitter.
As this book is being published, reports are emerging that Russia—you know, the sovereign state or a clandestine unit thereof—has attempted to influence the US 2016 election by purchasing ads on social media that attempted to aggravate racial, social, and economic divisions, thereby driving voters towards one Presidential candidate rather than the other.[ii] A lesson for us all? The ability to think critically and for oneself has always been an essential foundation of any democracy or any middle school kid’s emotional well-being. Now more than ever.
There is also a rule—at the level of Sir Isaac Newton’s ironclad Laws of Motion—that naked or compromising photos taken by a person migrate inevitably in the direction of social media. So don’t take any; and delete any that might already exist now—before it’s too late!
The expectations of privacy are such that online communications can no longer reasonably be expected to be private. Perhaps they ought to be private. Perhaps the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure still holds sway in courts and halls of justice in the USA. I hope it does. I believe it does. But cyberspace just does not work that way any more. Facebook is designed so that people are given incentives to broadcast their personal and private data. As Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, is supposed to have said: “Privacy is no longer the norm,” implying rather that publicity is. Here take my personal data—please! Here—see what I am eating, who I am befriending, who I am dating, what I am wearing (or not), what I am reading, where I am checking in geographically, what I like, what I don’t like, what I am thinking—and at all times. [iii]
If you really need to have a private communication, send a letter by US Mail. It does put one in mind of Miranda Lambert’s country western song: “If you had something to say—you’d write it on a piece of paper—then you put a stamp on it—and they’d get it three days later—before everything became—automatic.” Words to live by.
This may sound a tad nostalgic; and I am not sure that I could explain it to an eleven year old. So, if your eleven year old is citing the 4th Amendment to you as reason for not handing over his password, congratulations! You have a Clarence Darrow for the defense in the making. I hope you can afford law school. But you then get to explain that “probable cause” creates an exception—and a parental search warrant. Hand the password over, buddy—or hand over the device!
Bullying: Recommendations for teachers and administrators
The media provide sensational, even tragic, reports about bullying, but they less frequently provide useful guidance or actionable information. We have to separate bullying from conflict and “drama” between peers of roughly equal power. Attention grabbing headlines have provided a “call to action” for educators in middle and high schools (and for state legislatures), who had been distracted by other priorities and looking the other way.
A few dramatic, high profile suicides, and many low profile emotional breakdowns, not to mention major litigation from outraged parents, have persuaded school administrators of the importance of intervening on behalf of the most vulnerable, bullied members of the community.
Yet it is also important to realize that grown ups are not the only source of relief from tween and adolescent bullying. In no way is it blaming the victim that the targets of bullying sometimes need to take crucial actions on their own behalf to improve the outcomes of unwanted assaults.
The first empathy lesson for administrators is that empathy is on a spectrum that extends from being firm about boundaries all the way to “tough love.” As every administrator knows, education is impossible if a school that is “out of control” surrounds the class room. A school is a system, and the hallways and class room must be calm in order for education to work. Before we turn to the details of how empathy plays in this context, some background is useful.
In December 1982 three elementary school students (10 to 14 years old) killed themselves near Tromsø, Norway. All three had been bullied. For example, one had been called a “leper” because of his measles scars, an insult, frankly, that I had not previously heard. These tragedies galvanized Norway.
Previously, bullying had been regarded as something that kids had to work out for themselves on the street. These tragedies provided evidence that the most vulnerable members of the community required intervention.
Dan Olweus, who had studied bullying extensively in nearby Sweden, but who was without popular support there for his research recommendations, was invited to come next door to Norway to help out. He surveyed 130,000 students. Some 15% were involved in bullying either as perpetrators or targets.[iv]
Olweus’ research challenged many assumptions. It challenged the assumptions that upper class high school students were less frequent bullies than their underclass peers or that urban kids were more likely to bully than their countryside fellows. Bullying was an equal opportunity issue. The targets of bullying were significantly weaker physically and more vulnerable to anxiety; but, for the most part, they did not look or dress significantly differently than others in the group. Space does not permit a comprehensive review of Olweus’ bullying prevention program; but its focus is on transforming the culture of the entire school, providing authoritative and positive role models, improved overall supervision, and intervention in individual cases. In the initial pilot, eight months after the program was introduced, there was 50% less bullying; but also significantly less vandalism and theft.
Olweus’ approach anticipated the crime fighting approach of reducing major crimes by fixing the broken windows in abandoned buildings and arresting the petty turn-style jumpers on public transit. These are individuals who might escalate to more serious offenses, if they are allowed to get away with mirror ones. They are halted early in the course of their boundary-violating careers. Their relatively minor criminal behaviors get cut short before they can advance to more serious misdeeds.
Norway devoted significant resources to the issue of bullying. Here in the USA legislative compliance mandates ordering schools to solve the problem of bullying without providing resources or money are taking the easy way out. And mandates to comply often do not work—precisely because a mandate without resources is at best a well-intentioned, but empty, gesture. To be sure, the indifference of some school administrators has been a cause for concern regardless of the (in)action of state legislatures. But the commitment of many, if not most, administrators is a cause for hope—and engagement.
Emily Bazelon reports on a case study—a school, Old Mill North, that had a reputation for roughness and was demonstrably spiraling downward. But it was pulled back from the brink and turned around by a program inspired by Olweus. This is not a one size fits all narrative, but numerous lessons exist that can be generalized.
No matter how inspiring or talented the individual teacher, education is impossible if a school that is out of control surrounds the class room. The hallways and class rooms must be calm in order for the process of education to get the traction it requires to produce educated students.
Bullies are put on notice that teachers and administrators are decidedly not happy about their behavior. Such individuals have been poorly socialized, and it is going to catch up with them. They need to get in touch with their inner jerk—have a conversation for possibility about recognizing one’s peers as peers—and learn how to respect boundaries. They can do better. If one can get the peer group to validate the language of respect for boundaries, courtesy, an optimum measure of toleration, and empathy, then their behavior eventually catches up with the rhetoric of respect and improves.
As noted, empathy is on a spectrum that extends from being firm about boundaries, but nice about it, all the way to “tough love.” Some students are not interested in respecting the boundaries that mark a commitment to education, and they really do not belong in school. Some 52 kids were expelled from Old Mill North. Likewise, the teachers were assessed. If they were not committed to transforming the culture of the school in the direction of excellence in education, they were encouraged to seek positions at other schools in the system. They were not expelled, but were counseled out. Some 22 out of 66 left the school.
How shall I put it delicately? This was no longer business as usual. At Old North, a significant minority of the student body was still more than a tad rough around the edges by the time they got to middle school. Some students literally did not know what to do when one student bumped into another student passing in the hallway. They needed to be taught to say, “Excuse me!” or “Pardon me,” instead of telling the other person, “Drop dead, loser!” Similarly, with common courtesy in the cafeteria. At Old North a broad intervention with the students provided explicit guidance in what was expected of them by way of behavior. Thus, the students were drilled in social skills such as acknowledging the feelings of others, making eye contact, and conflict management skills such as making a request, saying “no,” or agreeing to disagree. In short, they were trained in empathy.
Some bullies are indeed thugs, and need to be removed from the community to protect the community from them; but other bullies are themselves survivors of abusive situations (e.g., at home). They exhibit mental health issues, have a diagnosable cognitive impairment, and require intervention.
That is no excuse—there is never an excuse for bullying behavior. However, it does mean that to prevent repetition of the bullying after a suspension has been served, these individuals need guidance. Many need treatment. Whether such treatment is full-blown dynamic talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, bullies may usefully undertake an inquiry into their own abusive behavior in order to shift out of a pattern that is creating misery around them. It is worth repeating: If it’s mean, intervene.
However, intervention is not the same as automatic discipline. Suspension and expulsion should be used only when the immediate concern is safety; and followed up with evaluation for the individual for depression, anxiety, conduct disorder, other emotional issues, or problems at home. Extrinsic motivation was also applied at Old North.
Using Positive Behavior-Based Interventions and Support (PBIS), along with the Pledge of Allegiance, the school day began with reciting the school commitment: “Be respectful, responsible, and on task.” That means: say “please” and “thank you”; do your homework; and participate in class.
An internal currency of courtesy was introduced. “Patriot passports” were blue slips that teachers handed out when students were identified as doing something well. The teacher meant it as a recognition and statement: “I liked the way you did that.”
A gimmick? Perhaps, but the underlying value was in building a positive relationship between student and teacher. Instead of handing out detention slips, getting into an adversarial role, teachers were in a friendly role of recognizing students for a job well done. Those teachers who used up all their blue slips got a gold star on their door—and more slips. The slips could be redeemed for PTA sponsored school supplies, ice cream at the social, a school movie, or getting to the head of the line in the cafeteria.
One word of caution. Peer mediation is not a good method for dealing with bullying. Peer mediation makes sense when the two kids are of roughly equal power. However, putting a bully and a target in the same room together is a bad idea. This is so even if a grown up is present to help mediate. Bullies are skilled at saying the right thing in the moment, and then retaliating later. If the students are roughly equal in power, and the infraction involved drama (not bullying), then peer mediation may perhaps make sense. But otherwise, it is just putting the fox to guard the chickens. Things are not going to go well.
Once a measure of calm was restored to the hallways at Old North, then those students who continued to be disrupters tended to stand out. They could be provided with the services they required to gain control over their behavior and emotions instead of missing even more academics by being sent to the principal’s office or suspended.
Instead of being given a suspension and sent home, the disrupters were given confidential psychological assessments for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and self-esteem. They were required to watch videos about bullying, and consider their own behavior in relation to what they saw. Teachers who were chronic yellers were trained in other methods of de-escalating conflict with students who were disrespectful or difficult. This was not a two week effort.
Six years into the program, scores on standardized achievement tests had improved enough for the school to introduce the International Baccalaureate Program to further drive academic excellence. Reducing bullying is good for academics.
In summary, schools that support such efforts find that bullying of all kinds is reduced, not merely that directed at kids who are eccentric, socially awkward, new to the community, or LGBT. Of course, if the school’s grown ups are still struggling ineffectively with their own homophobic issues, then survivors must look for alternative communities outside of school. These alternatives outside of school run the gamut from sports to book clubs. It is not blaming the survivor to say, “Hey, it’s gonna take something from you, too, in building a community that works for everyone.” Martial arts and boxing are powerful compensatory activities for people who tend to be shy; but such people have to overcome their own introverted tendencies even to sign up. The very behavior that is stopping them is also part of the behavior that is leaving them vulnerable to bullying. The breakthrough is already present in stopping procrastinating and taking action to get such training.
In conclusion, the lesson is that empathy builds community; and communities demonstrate empathy by being inclusive. Yet rare is theindividual who transforms the authenticity and integrity of an entire community in order to join a community with integrity and authenticity. What would an anti-bullying club even look like? It might look like a LGBT alliance; but it might also look like a jogging, biking, or history club. Don’t just be “anti,” as proper as that is in the case of bullying; but be “pro” engagement, inclusion, and community.
As Daniel Burnham said in different context: “Make no small plans.” Empathy is the foundation of no small community.
[i] Christine Olden. (1953). On adult empathy with children, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 8: 111–126.
[ii] See “The Facebook Files: A Wall Street Journal Investigation,” https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039 [checked on Sept 27, 2021]; see also (now “ancient” history): Mike Isaac and Scott Shane. (2017). Facebook’s Russia-linked ads came in many disguises, The New York Times, Oct 2, 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/technology/facebook-russia-ads-.html [checked on Oct 15, 2017].
[iii] Bernard E. Harcourt. (2015). Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 90–93.
[iv] Olweus 1973/1993 in Bazelon 2012. Dan Olweus. (1973/1993). Bullying in School: What We Know and What We Can Do. London: Wiley/Blackwell; Emily Bazelon. (2012). Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. New York: Random House. This post and the corresponding chapter in Empathy Lessons rely significantly on Bazelon’s journalistic synthesis of the literature and her incisive interviews; see also James Garbarino and Ellen deLara. (2002). And Words Can Hurt Forever: How to Protect Adolescents from Bullying, Harassment, and Emotional Violence. New York: the Free Press (Simon and Shuster).
(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project
Narcissism gets a bad rap: On empathy and narcissism
Narcissism has gotten a bad name. “Narcissism” has become a euphemism – a polite description – for a variety of integrity outages and bad behaviors. These extend from antisocial, psychopathic actions through bullying and domestic violence all the way to bipolar spectrum disorders or moral insanity. “Narcissism” has become the label of choice when an individual is behaving like a jerk.
In the face of narcissism’s bad name, I am not here to give narcissism a good name, but rather I suggest the matter is more nuanced than that presented in the popular psychology press today. Like Mark Anthony commenting on Julius Caesar in his funeral oration after Caesar’s assassination, I come not to praise narcissism but to bury it – and to differentiate narcissism from more serious forms of bad behavior with which it is confused. This article suggests that if a person behaves in an anti-social, bullying, boundary violating or other problematic way described above, then narcissism is the least of the worries.
Whip-sawed as the narcissist is between arrogant grandiosity and vulnerable idealization, the authentic narcissist will reliably provide a positive developmental response to empathy. However, if repeatedly providing empathy to the alleged narcissist just gets you more manipulations, bullying, integrity outages, and broken agreements, then you may really be dealing with an anti-social person and personality, moral insanity, psychopathy, or undefined lack of integrity, in which case, empathy will not work. Neither will compassion. Limit setting is the order of the day. Fill out the police report and get the order of protection.
The truth of narcissism is that people need and use other people to regulate their emotions. When Elvis sang “I wanna be – your teddy bear” (Elvis Presley, that is), he was bearing witness to the truth that we use other people to sooth our distressed selves, provide emotional calming when we are upset, and give us the empathy we need to fell good about ourselves.
“I wanna be your teddy bear” means “I wanna give you the empathy, recognition, acknowledge that you need to feel good about yourself.” If the other person subsequently does not respond to you as a whole person, then that is surely a disappointment but the shortcoming is not necessarily in anything you did. The other person did not keep their commitment.
People want people who respond to them as a whole person. People want people who appreciate who they are as a possibility. People need that sort of thing. People are vulnerable to the promise of such satisfaction because it feels good when it actually shows up.
Of course, the big ifs contained in such a proposal are that the other person is capable of providing such empathy; the other person is reciprocally acknowledged as being someone from whom empathy is worth receiving, and then the other actually behaves in a way that is understanding and receptive.
If the other person expresses hostility, withholds acknowledgement, does not honor his or her word, perpetrates micro aggressions (“narcissistic slights”), manipulates in subtle and overt ways, or behaves in a controlling or dominating way, behaves like a bully, then is that narcissism? It might be – but it might also be a lack of integrity (dishonesty), anti-social personality behavior, criminality, boundary violations, and abuse. It might or might not be narcissism – but it is definitely behaving like a jerk [just to use a neutral, non vulgar term].
The person who survives such an encounter or relationship with the alleged psychopath in narcissistic sheep’s clothing then has two problems. The first problem is that the individual has been deceived, manipulated, or cheated. The second problem is that he or she blames himself.
Narcissists are supposed to be excessively self-involved, self-centered, self indulgent. To succeed in life, most people need to have a dose of healthy self confidence. By a show of hands, who reading this article lacks a strong sense of self-interest? Get some help with that. Okay – that’s narcissism, but not pathological narcissism.
When I read the latest denunciation of narcissism in the pop psychology magazine, I wonder where are all of these people who are not self-involved, self-centered, self-interested, looking out for “number one”?
I go to social media where self-expression is trending. My take-away? Freedom of speech and self expression are flourishing – no one is listening! Is such lack of listening narcissism? Perhaps. But more likely is not lack of listening rather just lack of listening? Lack of commitment of expanding listening skills, inclusiveness, and lack of community?
So suppose the popular press is all mixed up about narcissism. What does the disentangling of this mess look like?
People who are described as narcissists have [some] people skills. Even if one’s empathy is incomplete and defective at times, most people crave an empathic response and are able to provide one, at least on a good day. The challenge is that the narcissist’s empathy breaks down in emotional contagion, conformity, lack of perspective taking, and messages getting lost in translation.
Most people want to look good and avoid looking bad, and narcissists are especially prone to doing that. Most people are committed to being right and, while we theoretically acknowledge we might be wrong, few people actually behave that way. Most behave like “know it alls,” especially in areas about which they literally know nothing. Narcissists are especially prone to that too. So we are all narcissists now?
The differentiator is that the narcissist ends up feeling like a fake, experiencing an empty (not melancholic) depression, even in the face of authentic accomplishments.
Even when the narcissist actually performs and wins the gold ring, he (or she) still feels like a fake. There is a kind of empty depression, lack of energy, lack of vitality. This lack of aliveness may cause the narcissist arrogant, cold, haughty withdrawal or acting out using substances of abuse or sexual misadventures. In spite of actual accomplishments, the narcissist may feel that life is passing him by. A pervasive sense of lack of aliveness, vitality, or apathy dominates the narcissist’s emotional life.
The one thing that narcissism is not confused with is autism spectrum disorders. The narcissistic has access to empathy, values it, “gets” it, craves it, even if the narcissist’s empathy is distorted and incomplete. I speculate that the psychopath is good at faking empathy, like an empathy parrot, prior to his perpetrations, whereas the narcissist is just not very good at it. He may seem to be faking empathy, but that is his clumsy effort to get it right, which is not working.
It seems as though the narcissist has an exaggerated self worth and, if in a position of authority, has the power to enforce his or her distorted view on others. The narcissist shares his suffering in a bad way by causing pain and suffering to the people in his environment. When such a person has authority, the result indeed can be dysfunction behavior, which is hard to distinguish from bullying.
As with most forms of bad behavior, the optimal first response is to set a limit to the bad behavior by pushing back, calling it out, expressing concern, or using humor to deflect: such behavior (bullying, bad language, physical or financial abuse, etc.) is unacceptable. “That doesn’t work for me.” “Stop it.” Without establishing a context of safety and security, we do not have a set up for success in which empathy can make a difference. Few people are in a position to up and quit their job. No easy answers here. Depending on the seriousness of the situation, then document, call for backup, and escalate to the authorities, including a call to 911 or a police report as applicable.
At this point, the narcissist may get the idea, “Hey maybe I need someone to talk to – professionally.”
While every case is different, no one size fits all, and all the usual disclaimers apply, the intervention with the narcissist often consists in a conversation for possibility. Talk to the person. Give him or her a good listening, and she what shows up. The person’s experiences as a child of tender age show deficiencies in the areas of empathic response, opportunities for emotional regulation, or distress tolerance. This is no excuse for bad behavior; never will be; however, it can point to transformation if the person is open and willing.
The narcissistic encapsulates his true self into a cocoon, hiding behind a fake self, in order to preserve the hope of aliveness and vitality if an empathic environment were ever to show up. If, in a context of safety for all, the narcissist is encouraged to lay back and to take a look at the precursors, triggers, and behaviors that he experiences as narcissistic insults and injuries causing him to break down or act out, then something starts to shift. They did not get enough empathy, did not get feedback on their own empathic responses (or lack thereof), got empathy but the responses were distorted or flat out crazy (causing the above-cited retreat into the emotional cocoon).
If the intervention gets off to a good start and the narcissist has a therapeutic response – that is, he feels better and stabilizes – then the work consists of trying to provide empathy, restoring understanding when empathy breaks down, restoring communication when communications break down, and restarting the development of positive personality traits such as empathy, humor, creativity that got lost in the narcissist’s deficient environment coming up.
The bottom line? Like most human beings, those with significant narcissistic tendencies and behaviors are susceptible of improvement. Sometimes there is no way to know for sure except to attempt the intervention in a context of safety and security. Unlike more serious forms of bad behavior exemplified by anti-social personality disorder, significant bullying, or boundary violating behaviors in which people get hurt, many narcissists are sufficiently in touch with their feelings and cravings for empathy that they will respond positively to an intervention in a context of safety and empathy.
Bibliography
Heinz Kohut, (1971). The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press.
Lou Agosta and Alex Zonis (Illustrator), (2020). Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide. Chicago: Two Pears Press.
Go to all A Rumor of Empathy podcast(s) by Lou Agosta on Audible by clicking here: [https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Rumor-of-Empathy-Podcast/B08K58LM19]
Okay, I have read enough. I want to get Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide, a light-hearted look at empathy, containing some two dozen illustrations by artist Alex Zonis and including the one minute empathy training plus numerous tips and techniques for taking your empathy to the next level: click here (https://tinyurl.com/y8mof57f)
(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project
Lou Agosta, Ph.D., Listening With Empathy 