In order to rebuild ties, what characteristics do Obama and Medvedev need? Charisma and good communication skills help. An intellectual mind that ponders the nuance of issues helps. Then there's dignity, reticence, and dispassion; David Brooks in the NY Times OP Ed of 07-09-09 tells us that Obama has this dignity. Hopefully Medvedev does too. In order to bring about compromise, both leaders will need to bring something more to the table. That something is known as empathy. With empathy──the ability to step into another's shoes─ the leaders can really understand the problems of one another's countries.
Empathy happens to be a central feature of Obama's pick for Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court judge. By empathy he meant the ability to resonate with someone rather than to be like them. What do you think? I believe the capacity for empathy is essential in the psychology of politics and in the psychology of love. If extreme right wing and hate groups had more empathy for those they target, we would see less hate and more love. When we empathize more with our partners and friends, we see more love. At a societal level and at a personal level, empathy is essential.
In my practice, one of the biggest complaints that patients make is that their partners do not get them, that they lack emotional attunement, and empathy. Liz complains "Mike is so into himself, he doesn't see me. I feel invisible. When I fell and broke my leg and was rushed to the hospital, do you think Mike was with me? The answer is no. He told me to call my sister as he couldn't break away from his golf game."
Is Mike narcissistic? Is he simply inconsiderate? Is the relationship on the rocks? Perhaps, it's one or all of the above. It is not clear. What is clear is that Mike lacks the capacity to empathize with Liz. Do you know others who lack empathy? I'm sure you do. But the good part is that so many of us are well endowed with empathy.
Before I go on to talk more about empathy, let me introduce you to some remarkable brain cells-mirror neurons-located in our premotor cortex, behind the eye sockets. Working with macaque monkeys in the 1990's, a group of neuroscientists in Parma discovered mirror neurons. These tiny brain cells connected the monkey to the experimenter at an internal state. Sure enough, a similar discovery was made in humans. We too have mirror neurons.
The reason they are called ‘mirror neurons' is that they act like reflectors that mirror our internal states to one another in a meaningful relationship such as love. Not only that, but mirror neurons connect to millions of other neurons, and trigger the release of empathy and emotional resonance. They also trigger the release of brain chemicals that enhance empathy, emotional resonance and love. So our mirror neurons help us to put ourselves in someone else's place emotionally -and that's real empathy.
In the case of two world leaders, the ability to transcend one's own experience and empathize with one another is certainly not easy. Reticence and dispassion can help to ease the discomfort. Things, however, get more heated in relationships that are intimate. Real intimacy is a deep, multi-layered state of mind. When love goes awry, like in Liz and Mike's case, old faulty dynamics of intimacy trigger intense emotions that play their way down the layers, so that love chemicals are dampened down, and old painful memories, and emotions rise to the top. Mirror neurons misfire and instead of resonating with your partner, you are busy protecting your self from further pain.
The good news is that the brain is plastic, so if you change how you love, you can change how the brain works. One of the goals would be to bring empathy back on board so that the journey to emotional resonance is underway.
If you have thoughts about how to elicit more empathy from your partner or to have more empathy for yourself, please share them. In my next blog, I'll share some of my thoughts.
Email: drpraver@cs.com
Web : www.drfranpraver.com
Social Network: www.facebook.com
Professional Network: www.linkedin.com
