Empathy & The Narcissist - Or Lack Of!!!

Trauma & Narcissism Redefined

Caroline Strawson

Narcissisticabuse, Health & Fitness, Narcissist, Self-improvement, Education, Recovery, Mental Health, Trauma

4.8 • 701 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today's episode, we will talk about narcissists and empathy. We will go through the three types of empathy and explain which area of the brain is responsible for each of them, so we can understand better why, according to the DSM, narcissists lack empathy.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- The three types of empathy - cognitive, emotional, and compassionate

- The three main areas of the brain that are associated with each type of empathy

- What kind of empathy narcissists are able to demonstrate

- Why and when narcissists are showing some kind of empathy

- What happens to us when we are offered no empathy

When we understand the origin and the difference between the three types of empathy, it becomes easier to understand why sometimes it may look like the narcissist in our lives is showing kindness or compassion. For them, it is all about getting narcissistic supply, and they'll put themselves in a situation where they can get more of it.

Resources:

- Join my Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thriveafternarcissisticabuse

- Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinestrawson/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the narcissistic abuse recovery podcast. I'm Caroline Stawson and I'll be sharing with you
0:09.2	awareness, understanding and education about the devastating effects of narcissistic abuse to help you thrive.
0:16.8	I want you to know that I've been exactly where you are now and I believe you. And this show is all
0:22.7	about taking you from trauma to transformation. Hey there. So in this episode, I want to talk to you
0:33.2	about empathy and the narcissist. Now that's not often two words that we bring together when we talk
0:41.9	about the narcissist because if you look in the DSM, which is the diagnostical and statistical
0:47.8	manual of mental disorders. So this is what sort of psychiatrists will use to diagnose a narcissist.
0:55.9	On there, of the nine traits, it talks about that lack of empathy. Now, one of the ways that I approach narcissistic
1:02.7	abuse and narcissism is through that trauma-informed lens. So it's not necessarily about trying
1:07.7	to pathologize everything and give labels for everything. Understandably,
1:12.3	I know labels can obviously help. But for me, again, narcissism isn't just about nine traits
1:17.3	that are listed in the DSM, although obviously we have another element of all of that coming through.
1:22.7	But it's about a lot of behaviour traits. And one of those behaviour traits is that lack of empathy, or indeed,
1:29.7	no empathy. But I want to talk to you about something that, again, I get lots of messages about
1:34.5	from within my community. And that is, but they show some empathy. They do look like they care
1:42.5	on occasion. And this is where I want to really explain to you a little bit more
1:46.4	about what empathy is, because I think that understanding will then help you understand
1:52.6	why a narcissist does that. Now, there are actually three different types of empathy. We have
1:59.0	cognitive empathy, we have emotional empathy and
2:03.1	compassionate empathy. Now, if you think about our brain, our brain also has three main areas.
2:09.6	So we have our brain stem or our reptilian part of our brain, the mammalian part,
2:14.4	which is our limbic system, the emotional part of our brain. And then we have our prefrontal cortex, that logical thinking part of our brain.
	...

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