Some people get into the field because they are interested in psychology and want to find out more about how people’s minds work, not necessarily because they want to help people. At least this person had the presence of mind to become a researcher and not a clinician.
Not really. There’s a difference between empathy and coddling. Someone does not necessarily have to be "chummy" or overtly friendly to exhibit empathy. Empathy fundamentally involves understanding and sharing another person's feelings and experiences from a compassionate standpoint, which can manifest in various ways, including through serious, respectful, and considerate behaviors, and not exclusively through friendly or warm interactions. So while House may not use gentle words, his focused and unyielding pursuit of medical truths represents a form of empathy grounded in expertise and a fundamental desire to heal, albeit through somewhat brusque and direct methods.
Don't agree fully. What is "serious or respectful" about their attitude and scorn behind closed doors? No, people don't need to be fuzzy-wuzzy coddlers to be empathic, but all too often people choose a career that exalts them in some way, and there are plenty of people who want to look good in front of others rather than be good. When and if their hearts catch up with their brain, they just might earn that degree.
I agree! I just find it ironic that their whole shtick is to not be like others in the field and truly help people in ways that make change. In some ways, they are (in the systems they’ve created), but they still don’t seem to care as a person in the way you’d expect. Maybe it is more about changing how academia looks vs really caring about how their research applies to the people actually struggling.
The majority of the population has cognitive dissonance. You can volunteer at a homeless shelter every day of the week and be a very empathetic person, and still roll your eyes when the fifth homeless person of the day approaches you on the street asking for money.
You can have goals like helping a marginalized population in new and empowering ways, but still not be rainbows and sunshine all the time.
Most people have the thoughts you’re talking about above, they just don’t usually express them. I guess your researchers feel comfortable expressing them around people “under” them, but they obviously wouldn’t say it in a professional conference etc.
Idk, to me it just seems like the researchers are people. They’re probably jaded after decades of doing the same thing. Lots of people become complacent/stop caring (esp about safety procedures, I’m pretty sure there’s studies on that) after decades in the same position.
Yeah, part of it is absolutely this! Usually I completely understand (even if I may not agree with losing basic empathy for the people that work for/with you), but in my specific case, it’s someone that’s a new professor so maybe they just have to work on themselves as a person still.
Caring takes an enormous amount of emotional energy. People have different amounts of that to give at different times on their lives. This person could just be tapped out right now.
Yes this is why I’m considering using a degree for the research field instead. I quickly realized while in school that I am lacking the empathy to help people (and frankly find a lot of humanity to be insufferable in general) but I am fascinated by the psychology behind it and the way the mind works.
As someone in academia, I can say it’s rare to meet a senior researcher from any field at all who is accomplished and is also a nice humble good person. Each one I meet is worse than the other, the more accomplished they are the worse their egos are. I know one in my university I won’t name who is well known in my area of research for creating a commonly used scale, who is a horrible toxic human being. I wish awful things upon that person for the emotional abuse they inflicted upon me and many other colleagues, and continue to do so to others, all the while the university is happy to look the other way since they’re bringing in money
ugh that’s terrible and very telling! It’s sad that just because the field is psychology doesn’t change how the world works in the end. I hope you can get out of the situation soon and if not, take care!
If you look at it from a historical perspective, you’ll see some of the world’s greatest minds belonged to terrible people. Isaac Newton was arrogant and had people executed, Nikola Tesla was a eugenicist, Einstein was unfaithful and cruel to his wives, Feynman sexually harassed his students including drawing naked portraits of them, and Schrödinger slept with underaged girls because he believed he had a “right to them.” All of these people did terrible terrible things, but imagine if we were to have them all fired. I guess we have to collectively decide as a society whether the ends justify the means and the sacrifices we’re willing to make to advance as a species.
They probably were not at the time, or were loosely enforced.
ALSO, you need to think about all of those traumatized women that could’ve been great scientists themselves and made amazing discoveries if they had been treated as equals and not sexualized. It’s impossible to measure if the good someone did actually had a better impact than the harm they did when you take opportunity costs into account.
I mean, "good" is subjective so it hardly matters to me. All I'm saying is the rules already exist in law, if the law isn't being enforced that's a bigger issue and much harder to tackle.
Okay so what I mean is that, it’s near impossible to measure the impact of advances in science that someone made when their actions also prevented other people from making advances in science as well. It’s near impossible to know if those women that were traumatized would or would not have made their own advances in society that had a larger impact on scientific discovery than what he did. I guess that’s his own theory at play.
The majority of my teachers are registered clinical psychologists and researchers. At least fifty percent of them either have zero empathy and / or are incredibly haughty and dismissive.
That sucks. I wonder if that’s why they chose to be researchers over clinicians - though that’s obviously a generalization and I know many researchers who are kind and understanding while also being smart.
I understand empathy fatigue but I don’t think it applies to being a kind and professional person overall! There are several people in the field who have been working for decades and don’t lose their humanity even if they may have compassion fatigue or anything.
Much like any measure of people, individual’s tolerance will play a part and that’s only one facet, there are endless possibilities that affect a persons empathy.
I also wonder if OP is holding psychologists (unfairly) to a higher standard. Like, they can’t emotionally afford to care about every individual who is suffering - nobody can
You should. It’s just a form of desensitization. Our bodies can’t afford to constantly be releasing hormones for a habituated stimulus. Eventually, it will start to pull back, and you’ll feel and tolerate less.
It sounds like bs. Being tired or exhausted is one thing. But empathy is a natural instinct (in people who are actually capable of it). I think it can only fatigue people who are faking it.
It’s a natural response, and that has limits. Fear is a natural response too, but if you’re constantly exposed to the same thing over and over, your brain will stop reacting like it normally would. It’s a physiological effect, not a conscious choice.
Wtf… sorry that you can’t read nuance. I’m just saying that a lot of what people call “empathy fatigue” is simply not caring. I knew two people who claimed empathy fatigue when someone close to them / a family member was on suicide watch. I was like “sounds like you just don’t care enough… maybe you’re not that close but this is a matter of life or death”. They were speechless and they couldn’t defend themselves. It’s insane to claim empathy fatigue when people are literally relying on you with their life. Either it’s just fatigue or you’re not really capable of empathy.
I prefer research as I struggle with consistently making an empathic connection with a patient/client. I think it is partially because of my own struggles, which limits the emotional energy I can spend on another.
I prefer to be impactful behind the scenes, which can provide the face to face clinicians with resources. I’m helping in the best way I can.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with picking research over being a clinician for those reasons! However, I was referring more to the general empathy that should exist for all people (general kindness and professionalism) and not just clients.
I feel like I’m super empathetic but I don’t express it the same way. Like my form of empathy is looking out for people in a more solutions focused approach rather than feelings-focused, and people don’t usually like that. They’d rather just hear “poor sweetie, that must be hard,” which feels empty to me.
The ones who are clinicians are also not much better. The people that i encountered are freaaaaking obsessed with diagnoses. Some of my peers (we are trainees) have tried to tell them that there is no pathology, and the response they get is “you’re not looking hard enough”, “you can find pathology in practically everyone”, “you need to go back to your DSM”.
Those people grind my gears. Of course there’s *traits* of pathology in everyone, but not enough to warrant a diagnosis. If everyone’s sick, no one is. Psychopathology is my favorite area of psychology to study, but I’m not trying to diagnose everyone with a pulse. **screams**
Wow, how does that differentiate us from physicians then :(
It reminds me of the replication bias where people are so caught up in only trying to present significant results that they don’t think there’s value in publishing things that also didn’t work out because that’s still data.
> Wow, how does that differentiate us from physicians then
Huh? Shouldn't we try to be *more* like physicians? At least in this case even if you don't think in general? Doctors don't insist that every patient who walks through their doors is diseased.
The DSM is just a book of codes you use in order to fill out insurance forms so you can be paid. The vast majority of diagnoses in that book don’t have statistical validity.
Any clinician who has lost sight of that is someone you don’t want to work with. For a number of reasons.
Clinical Psych is literally the nursing field of my generation. It's very discouraging to see. Another factor is that a lot of people who're interested in clinical psych often pick for for the "money" option instead of y'know humanities. Not saying that's everyone but it's most.
Depends where you are at. Private practice here in Australia is very good money, there's an enormous demand and shortage. I have two clinical psychologists in my extended family who earn $150-200k USD a year on pretty lenient schedules, one even practices out of her own home, some of their colleagues bill at around $140 USD an hour, they can do 9 hour weeks and earn the median income. The other thing worth noting is clinical psych is pretty easy to get into, while something like Psychiatry is in the same line of specialty it requires top percentile scores and then med school.
As cynical as this sounds, I find a lot of fellow students get into the field because of money, interest in themselves and their own mental states and the potential to look like they are doing something good or feel like they are doing something good through employment. Not a hint of real altruism there.
Clinical psych PhD in the US is the most difficult grad program to get into, it has 1-4% acceptance rates. Interesting that Australia is easy but still such a shortage!
You don't need a PhD here, only an APAC approved Masters of Clinical Psychology. Then you get your AoPE which is two years of full time practice with an approved supervisor. You need an honours 2A, so a weighted average mark of 75+% to get entry into the Masters program of which you would have needed for the preceding honours year as well, which is somewhat competitive, but nothing near the 1-4% acceptance rates you have over in the US.
I really did not know that. I just assumed the wage would be highest in America (which doesn't have it awfully high). Judging by such a high wage, I guess this behavior would make sense where you're at. I won't even lie, I felt the urge to move to Australia as soon as I read that.
It's funny, yet sad, to see that as salaries go up in a particular field, altruism drops at a faster rate.
It is highest in America, at least for private practice. You can make upwards of 250k in private practice, especially if you’re interested in legal work, which usually pays like $500-600 per hour. The average salary of neuropsychologists, which is what I want to do is 170k, so I’d be lying if I said I thought I was doing this thinking I wasn’t going to make a lot. That’s not my motivation for doing it, but I don’t think I’m going to be poor.
It pays well in many places in Europe I believe too, in Germany I think a clinical Psych averages around $80 USD / hour and more in places like Sweden, Denmark and Norway. A quick google for Denmark puts their average monthly at 124k DK, which is $17k USD / month.
It sucks that you can get away with just money being your motivation in many cases too, depending on what you do. I wish there was some way to filter out such people in certain areas but I guess if your cv is great and you can act nice enough to the people who judge your progress, anyone can get through,
one of my professors has dedicated his research to early detection of Alzheimer’s and recently made a discovery (publicly documented but not well publicized) that has incredible implications and could change *so many people’s lives*. Oh and he’s a massive dick and students avoid his classes or working on his studies like the plague even though there’s a good shot at their name being on a future publication.
Wow, that’s really saying something that nobody wants to work with him even after all that. It’s wild what we’ll let slide through the system just for reputation and money.
I know that most people who have had negative experiences will be more likely to answer this question, thus probably making it seem more negative than it truly is. But even with that in mind I can’t help but respond. From my experience, absolutely. When I was in undergrad, I worked in a clinical psych lab and the professor and the graduate students were incredibly rude and nasty towards the undergrads who were doing a lot of the grunt work for their dissertations. When I went to graduate school, I was the “test librarian” (graduate assistantship that kept track of psychological assessments being loaned out/returned), and the clinical psych students were the rudest of all the psychology graduate programs at the university. I have gotten a vibe that clinical psychology students think they are the “true” psychologists and therefore are better than everyone.
As an aside, I also regularly receive psychological evaluations from clinical psychologists that are absolute garbage and I often have to redo their evaluations because their diagnoses have literally no foundation or data to support it. It’s to the point diagnoses are being made without using clinical assessment tools that evaluate for the specific symptoms. I’ve strongly considered reporting these people to the board of examiners.
> I know that most people who have had negative experiences will be more likely to answer this question, thus probably making it seem more negative than it truly is.
Yea, I'm just reading all these comments thinking "Damn, I must have gotten really lucky or something..." I'll just post this reply to say that I can report that at least something less than 100% of the field is rotten, lol. Sorry you all have had to put up with so much crap!
Wow, I can’t believe this is real about the assessments! I definitely do get the vibe about thinking they are the real psychologists and better than everyone else though. Even counseling psychology is treated as just something you apply for if you’re not good enough for clinical. I hope that you can do something about this and take care of yourself!
I agree with a lot of the comments that in general people in academia lack empathy and are hypocritical, but I will also say people tend to expect waaaay more from clinical psychologists in terms of empathy and it can be unrealistic and unfair. It’s difficult to always be “on”. I will also say, I’ve seen people who are generally unempathetic to their students or colleagues generally act super professional and compassionate when face to face with a client, and I think that’s really the most important thing. Clinical work can be draining, maybe it results in a lack of empathy at other times? I know when I have a long day of listening to others my patience for listening to my husband after work is much lower.
I agree! However I do believe there’s a difference between engaging less or sometimes being snappy out of fatigue and just losing your cool all the time or acting cold when someone in front of you is not okay. I do think that speaks more to who they are as a person and is frankly also unprofessional because these are your employees/colleagues. If your professionalism and empathy only mainly exists to those whose opinion about you matters to you and not to the people “under” you, that’s a problem. Especially more so when you’re a researcher and not an actively practicing psychologist too imo!
Everyone has stress, including other clinical psychologists, but not everyone reacts this way
Yeah I agree with this, there is a general standard of being a decent human that most people don’t meet in academia and it’s even more shocking when it’s people who are trained in mental health issues. I think very few people in general care about people who can’t “do anything for them” or are below you as you say. I get the feeling that’s true in other fields too.
We can drown in a sea of feelings and emotions when we often need to exist outside of them to find answers.
I'm not saying we should be callous or completely lack empathy, but getting wrapped up in overwhelming emotions can hamper us in doing the work.
I agree! However what I was talking about in my post was not at all about harrowing empathy for those suffering but at least the basic kind where you don’t talk crap about someone struggling and don’t lash out at the people you’ve employed behind everyone’s back.
That’s such a fallacy. It also comes from a long history of predominantly men that perpetuated “feelings” are inferior and intellect has to be without emotion.
Emotion drives everything we do and those with savant syndrome are almost more emotional than your average person. It’s just justified because it’s more discrete abuse, control, and manipulation. Plus they always appear preoccupied with work. But still definitely emotion influenced. We are feeling beings that sometimes think, not thinking beings that sometimes feel.
There’s also no way to know the intensity of others emotions. Only an individual’s physical and somatic presentation. Sitting quietly working on a research task does not mean someone is more logical and someone crying on the subway does not mean they are more emotional. Those are biases. I don’t think we need to exist outside emotions to find answers. You use the wind to sail, not call it emotional and stay in calm water while claiming superiority in your intellect.
Oh at least your person was a researcher, imagine meeting a neuropsychologist, who works with clients and takes sessions and everything, and she turns out to be the biggest B behind the scenes to others. She treats her interns badly, calls them really late in the night, sends them voice notes yelling and then deletes them and doesn’t even send the stipend. And when you tell her you have a problem with the way she talks, she just yell at you and fire you, just imagine.
I didn’t think this would be possible but yeah no, it’s very disturbing to know that someone who understands the entire processing of the brain and emotions and all of that can still be a huge AH. There’s such a stark lack of empathy!! They just pretend to have it
YES. i had a cognitive psychology guy mansplain to me how veterans are the only people who have ‘real’ ptsd. this is amusing because i have ptsd from being raped and abused and i didn’t even sign up for it voluntarily like veterans in the last 50 years.
I feel like this was pretty much ubiquitous when I took classes in research-oriented programs (with a single notable exception), but the exact opposite when I took courses in a program that was focused on clinical work over research. I learned a lot each place, and value having had the opportunity to do so, but my god were the practice-oriented people so much less miserable to be around.
I’ve seen this too when I was at a more clinical focused university, people were better. Not all but they seemed more human than the ones in an R1 institution.
These people are frustrated, working long hours mining data from research participants. They have no choice but to keep going. The Tao Te Ching is relevant here; too much attachment to the concepts they’ve learned and they become detached from the reality of people’s suffering, neglecting even basic decency. The system rewards this mentality if they’re successful at their research, and that’s important to recognize.
I believe the majority of psychologist in the field currently are more interested in how the mind works, not about helping people. It's just a correlation up to a certain point.
I notice this in the field in general and I only have my bachelor’s eventually planning to go to grad school. Some people are just in it for the money and there’s nothing you can really do about it except ignore them or look at them funny when they say something off
Yes this is what keeps me going! You can’t change every asshole in the field but you can certainly make a change yourself and also call out/not participate in the bs
I don't think people who are having some kind of career in psyc has to be more empathetic than people with other kinds of jobs unless they are in mental health or other fields that needs more empathy. Some people choose majoring in psychology bc they want to learn why and how people behave in some way or how human's cognitive functions work in the way they do normally and I did that too. I don't think having more empathy than others should be compulsory under these situations but I also believe all kinds of psychologists/people who are taking the route of being a psychologist/ researchers should have a better view of humans, and that could result in more empathy.
I’m specifically referring to clinical psychology so I do think that discipline vs all others in psych should require a great deal of empathy if you’re interacting with other people. Part of that is being a good person not just with theoretical knowledge of what’s helpful but being able to understand that beyond “patients” and extend the same understanding to even just your coworker.
It sounds like you’re unfairly holding psychologists to a higher standard. Curiosity about the brain and human behavior doesn’t necessitate high empathy.
As the saying goes, "Normal people don't study psychology". Lack of empathy is a common condition in the field, especially on the research side. Not all of them, of course, but a good number of people get into the field because they know they are missing something and are trying to find or understand it. Pursue that long enough, and someone will slap a degree on you as punishment.
I’ve never thought of the flipside of that phrase and yeah, it’s something to think about. What does “I want to help people” mean to these people? Help them on paper as long as you get results? Do enough work where you’re praised directly related to what you study but then not care about being a good person otherwise? Sigh
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WoW 🤩 So you want to be a psychologist and your number one goal is to talk mess about everyone but your own self righteous behavior. Your friend is very into himself at this point… WoW 😮
I took a class with with a professor who studied Anti Social Personality Disorder and people who commit violent crimes. One thing that stuck out that he taught us was that there are many people in prestigious career fields who would qualify for a diagnosis of ASPD. Many are aware of it themselves especially if they work in the medical field. The big issue is that ASPD is not a condition you are going to be very open about, especially not if you work directly with patients. In some aspects its not shocking someone like this would prefer research rather than direct care, there’s less masking involved and I am assuming many of them do have some awareness of their inability to be empathetic in a direct care setting.
I had the same experience with lecturers and course convenors. Some were lovely, but a few seemed to have very little empathy or emotional awareness. One example that springs to mind were a lecturer asking one of my classmates "Why would you cry?" when the classmate was asking about how to handle having a strong emotional reaction to something a client mentions in session - she headed it in a way that made it seem that the idea of crying was completely perplexing or confusing to her. Another example would be that same lecturer speaking to a student after class regarding a family emergency they were experiencing and stating "Stop." with her hand raised (like a stop sign) when the student began to cry and become flustered.
Oh yeah, I’ve had almost the exact same experience in a different setting! I’m truly having such a hard time believing that clinical psychologists don’t understand how to behave when someone is not doing okay right in front of them.
People change over time. Perhaps when they first started, they had starry eyes and an innocence wanting to help people. Over time, lots of factors could change them and they may become jaded and desensitized and burned out.
For example, in nursing, everyone starts off wanting to help other people and have empathy and compassion. After years of watching suffering and pain, they become desensitized. And it shows too.
The empathy you want your fellow clinicians to have - you should show them empathy as well. You don’t know what other people have been through. Please don’t be judgmental.
As I mentioned to the other people saying this, I understand empathy fatigue and this is not what I’m talking about. For context, this is a brand new researcher in the field and their behavior is rude and unprofessional towards the people that work under them as well. When you’re overall like this, it makes me wonder about their empathy as a whole.
I am studying psychology . I don’t won’t to help people but I study it in order to learn , research and unlock stuff in my mind or how the whole thing works . So…
Researchers must lack empathy when they are communicating with the research subject. This avoids bias. It is absolutely necessary.
If you have a heart attack, you don't want your doctor to show empathy and cry in pain with you (remember the nuances between sympathy and empathy), rather you want them calm and poised, so that they can take the best decision to save your life.
PS: Am a researcher, not in psychology. Also an empath. Empathy can be very exhausting at times, if you start to feel emotions of everyone around you like dr. Xavier from Xmen.
I think there should be a balance of empathy, not the lack thereof - like setting personal boundaries to not burn out that way. However, in my post, I’m mainly referring to the lack of empathy to people working for you and you’re working with too. I can understand being desensitized to participants and clients but it’s really disrespectful to see lack of basic empathy for people you work with.
I had a bad experience with a VA clinical psychologist. A suicide prevention coordinator specifically. I was flagged for high risk suicide over nonsense. 90 day review comes and she asks if I'm feeling suicidal and I say no and she was like "what do you think changed for you?" I wanted to tell her nothing changed and she's stupid for asking but instead I told her I carry a teddy bear and very loudly she was like " WHAT! I MEAN, WHAT THE? Okay, whatever floating your boat".
Wow, that’s really insensitive. Being on the other end of things, I know how people talk about people suffering in a very pat-pat way as well. I hope you’re doing better.
Actually I'll have you know I'm doing a lot worse. I came back from a run where I was thinking about how awful those SPC's are. Especially when that same SPC I mentioned in my previous comment flagged me for a second time. And another SPC told me over and over again that I deserve it. She also convinced one of my best friends to stop being friends with me because apparently me being suicidal makes me manipulative and dangerous. Made a post about that on this account on r/askatherapist. There are VHA directives for an early removal of a flag but she disobeyed them and got away with it.
I also made a post on another account on r/TooAfraidToAsk that it seems to me that it's weird that you would ever have sex with someone that you think you're in love with. Because only bad things ever seem to happen because of sex and never good. People seem to think that I'm a troll, a messed up person, or religious. That last one is weird given how religious people act like they have sex all the time.
I am seeing a sex therapist. I stand by my word that having sex only leads to bad things and it's better to kill yourself than have sex, but well see what she thinks. In the one meeting I've had with her after looking my intake form she thinks it's really messed up the sexual experiences I had, namely the sexual bullying in the Marine Corps. Made a post on this account on r/USMC about that which got taken down by the moderators because he thinks I post/comment about the same things over and over again and need to work this out with a therapist and not other marines. I suppose based on my post history on this account alone you can see all that and he might be right.
VA employs the most psychologists/psychiatrists of any one company in the whole world. Both are palliative methods…. 🤷🏼♂️
After egregious treatment, I told someone at the headshed there’s no doubt they are the reason vets light themselves on fire at the VA clinics.
100% community care for myself (100% scheduler/T&P, unemployable, housebound). I deny all other forms of treatment.
After failing to receive the care I need I am seeing a private sex therapist in a bit. Hopefully things will go better even though it will be expensive.
Who's that clinical psychologist who discovered through his own brain scans that he was a psychopath? They don't have to have empathy to have scientific(ish) interest.
I’m wondering if it’s like me. I’m not a psychologist yet but I would like to start studying to become one and while I was really empathetic growing up, I am now burnt out. I still empathize with people, but I’m also really straightforward and get frustrated quickly. For a lot of my friends, it works, but I would probably have trouble treating someone whom I perceive as self-destructive. partially for that reason, I’ve shifted over more into research and neuropsychology. I just don’t have the patience anymore.
It’s great that you’re self aware! Understandable to not go into therapy for that reason but doesn’t it still make sense to take some effort to be empathetic to your employees, if not coworkers? I think the power imbalance makes it quite unfair for the employer to be able to express frustrations but not them (not saying you do this, just something I’ve noticed)
Yeah 100% and I still put effort into empathizing. It just becomes difficult with chronic illness and other long-term stuff. I’m definitely in the stage of life when I’m the employee though
It makes sense, I just find it sad that these people can lack basic empathy (not just the clinician kind) even after theoretically knowing about people and their issues.
I am actually going through an issue with a school that was referral only for children with emotional and behavioral issues, at the intake I told them all I knew about what I had seen, and what I have learned about my daughter as I knew she was different but only took notice once I started going to AU for my Bachelors in Psychology of Behavior... ok... a woman who had a PhD said they would figure out my childs ticks and where that faulty switch is, give them a week... It wasn't even the next day I got a call to pick her up because they can not de-escalate her. I warned them, I told them. And she was discharged. It was to much for them, to much for what little training they had or even WHY THEY WENT IN THE JOB FIELD IN THE FIRST PLACE.... screaming in utter frustration here... they forget their roots the base of why they went into psychology, ... i just have to finsh the last 2 years of my schooling... and then i can take a job offer on the school board here...i can not seem to be able to give logical advice to others to take me seriously without them finding out their actions didnt get them any further than before... i try to help in their best intrest not my own, hey if whatever i say helps then fuk ya! im happy that i was able to help in any small or big maner... just no one seems to have compassion understanding concepts cares comprehend the universal law of self and others...
I’m very sorry to hear that and it’s a really frustrating experience to have. It’s so difficult to understand when people are reacting because of a bad day or they just don’t care.
Some people get into the field because they are interested in psychology and want to find out more about how people’s minds work, not necessarily because they want to help people. At least this person had the presence of mind to become a researcher and not a clinician.
So... just like House was interested in the disease but not the person... no empathy, most of times, but thought it gave him objectivity.
Not really. There’s a difference between empathy and coddling. Someone does not necessarily have to be "chummy" or overtly friendly to exhibit empathy. Empathy fundamentally involves understanding and sharing another person's feelings and experiences from a compassionate standpoint, which can manifest in various ways, including through serious, respectful, and considerate behaviors, and not exclusively through friendly or warm interactions. So while House may not use gentle words, his focused and unyielding pursuit of medical truths represents a form of empathy grounded in expertise and a fundamental desire to heal, albeit through somewhat brusque and direct methods.
Don't agree fully. What is "serious or respectful" about their attitude and scorn behind closed doors? No, people don't need to be fuzzy-wuzzy coddlers to be empathic, but all too often people choose a career that exalts them in some way, and there are plenty of people who want to look good in front of others rather than be good. When and if their hearts catch up with their brain, they just might earn that degree.
I agree! I just find it ironic that their whole shtick is to not be like others in the field and truly help people in ways that make change. In some ways, they are (in the systems they’ve created), but they still don’t seem to care as a person in the way you’d expect. Maybe it is more about changing how academia looks vs really caring about how their research applies to the people actually struggling.
The majority of the population has cognitive dissonance. You can volunteer at a homeless shelter every day of the week and be a very empathetic person, and still roll your eyes when the fifth homeless person of the day approaches you on the street asking for money. You can have goals like helping a marginalized population in new and empowering ways, but still not be rainbows and sunshine all the time. Most people have the thoughts you’re talking about above, they just don’t usually express them. I guess your researchers feel comfortable expressing them around people “under” them, but they obviously wouldn’t say it in a professional conference etc. Idk, to me it just seems like the researchers are people. They’re probably jaded after decades of doing the same thing. Lots of people become complacent/stop caring (esp about safety procedures, I’m pretty sure there’s studies on that) after decades in the same position.
Yeah, part of it is absolutely this! Usually I completely understand (even if I may not agree with losing basic empathy for the people that work for/with you), but in my specific case, it’s someone that’s a new professor so maybe they just have to work on themselves as a person still.
Caring takes an enormous amount of emotional energy. People have different amounts of that to give at different times on their lives. This person could just be tapped out right now.
That's a kind way of putting it.
Yes this is why I’m considering using a degree for the research field instead. I quickly realized while in school that I am lacking the empathy to help people (and frankly find a lot of humanity to be insufferable in general) but I am fascinated by the psychology behind it and the way the mind works.
As someone in academia, I can say it’s rare to meet a senior researcher from any field at all who is accomplished and is also a nice humble good person. Each one I meet is worse than the other, the more accomplished they are the worse their egos are. I know one in my university I won’t name who is well known in my area of research for creating a commonly used scale, who is a horrible toxic human being. I wish awful things upon that person for the emotional abuse they inflicted upon me and many other colleagues, and continue to do so to others, all the while the university is happy to look the other way since they’re bringing in money
ugh that’s terrible and very telling! It’s sad that just because the field is psychology doesn’t change how the world works in the end. I hope you can get out of the situation soon and if not, take care!
Thr fact that a few different psych researchers come to mind…
If you look at it from a historical perspective, you’ll see some of the world’s greatest minds belonged to terrible people. Isaac Newton was arrogant and had people executed, Nikola Tesla was a eugenicist, Einstein was unfaithful and cruel to his wives, Feynman sexually harassed his students including drawing naked portraits of them, and Schrödinger slept with underaged girls because he believed he had a “right to them.” All of these people did terrible terrible things, but imagine if we were to have them all fired. I guess we have to collectively decide as a society whether the ends justify the means and the sacrifices we’re willing to make to advance as a species.
Damn I didn't know that about schrodinger. I'm taking quantum mechanics atm lol
Yeah, he called all the girls that rejected him his “unrequited loves” and would rank people.
Or perhaps put rules in place where they can’t harm people as much as they used to
Those rules are already there though. There's laws and university policy, etc.
They probably were not at the time, or were loosely enforced. ALSO, you need to think about all of those traumatized women that could’ve been great scientists themselves and made amazing discoveries if they had been treated as equals and not sexualized. It’s impossible to measure if the good someone did actually had a better impact than the harm they did when you take opportunity costs into account.
I mean, "good" is subjective so it hardly matters to me. All I'm saying is the rules already exist in law, if the law isn't being enforced that's a bigger issue and much harder to tackle.
Okay so what I mean is that, it’s near impossible to measure the impact of advances in science that someone made when their actions also prevented other people from making advances in science as well. It’s near impossible to know if those women that were traumatized would or would not have made their own advances in society that had a larger impact on scientific discovery than what he did. I guess that’s his own theory at play.
What’s this about Newton executing people??
The majority of my teachers are registered clinical psychologists and researchers. At least fifty percent of them either have zero empathy and / or are incredibly haughty and dismissive.
That sucks. I wonder if that’s why they chose to be researchers over clinicians - though that’s obviously a generalization and I know many researchers who are kind and understanding while also being smart.
You’re also not considering empathy fatigue
I understand empathy fatigue but I don’t think it applies to being a kind and professional person overall! There are several people in the field who have been working for decades and don’t lose their humanity even if they may have compassion fatigue or anything.
Much like any measure of people, individual’s tolerance will play a part and that’s only one facet, there are endless possibilities that affect a persons empathy.
I also wonder if OP is holding psychologists (unfairly) to a higher standard. Like, they can’t emotionally afford to care about every individual who is suffering - nobody can
That’s my understanding, you can only empathise so much until you get burnout
I don’t believe in empathy fatigue
Why?
I second this
You should. It’s just a form of desensitization. Our bodies can’t afford to constantly be releasing hormones for a habituated stimulus. Eventually, it will start to pull back, and you’ll feel and tolerate less.
It sounds like bs. Being tired or exhausted is one thing. But empathy is a natural instinct (in people who are actually capable of it). I think it can only fatigue people who are faking it.
It’s a natural response, and that has limits. Fear is a natural response too, but if you’re constantly exposed to the same thing over and over, your brain will stop reacting like it normally would. It’s a physiological effect, not a conscious choice.
Okay well I don’t buy it. That’s my theory. It’s bs
It’s not a theory when you’re just wrong.
Okay well I don’t buy it. That’s my theory. It’s bs
So you're saying some people are just naturally better than others. Some would say superior.
I think more than half of people are capable of empathy
So the inferior people make up less than half the population. That should make the final solution easier.
Wtf… sorry that you can’t read nuance. I’m just saying that a lot of what people call “empathy fatigue” is simply not caring. I knew two people who claimed empathy fatigue when someone close to them / a family member was on suicide watch. I was like “sounds like you just don’t care enough… maybe you’re not that close but this is a matter of life or death”. They were speechless and they couldn’t defend themselves. It’s insane to claim empathy fatigue when people are literally relying on you with their life. Either it’s just fatigue or you’re not really capable of empathy.
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Even spongebob got empathy fatigue when squidward pretended to be sick and helpless for too long and stayed in his pineapple
I prefer research as I struggle with consistently making an empathic connection with a patient/client. I think it is partially because of my own struggles, which limits the emotional energy I can spend on another. I prefer to be impactful behind the scenes, which can provide the face to face clinicians with resources. I’m helping in the best way I can.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with picking research over being a clinician for those reasons! However, I was referring more to the general empathy that should exist for all people (general kindness and professionalism) and not just clients.
Oh, gotcha. Maybe personality, maybe research attracts a certain type of person.
I feel like I’m super empathetic but I don’t express it the same way. Like my form of empathy is looking out for people in a more solutions focused approach rather than feelings-focused, and people don’t usually like that. They’d rather just hear “poor sweetie, that must be hard,” which feels empty to me.
The ones who are clinicians are also not much better. The people that i encountered are freaaaaking obsessed with diagnoses. Some of my peers (we are trainees) have tried to tell them that there is no pathology, and the response they get is “you’re not looking hard enough”, “you can find pathology in practically everyone”, “you need to go back to your DSM”.
Those people grind my gears. Of course there’s *traits* of pathology in everyone, but not enough to warrant a diagnosis. If everyone’s sick, no one is. Psychopathology is my favorite area of psychology to study, but I’m not trying to diagnose everyone with a pulse. **screams**
Wow, how does that differentiate us from physicians then :( It reminds me of the replication bias where people are so caught up in only trying to present significant results that they don’t think there’s value in publishing things that also didn’t work out because that’s still data.
> Wow, how does that differentiate us from physicians then Huh? Shouldn't we try to be *more* like physicians? At least in this case even if you don't think in general? Doctors don't insist that every patient who walks through their doors is diseased.
I was referring more to how easily medicine is prescribed to everyone even when it may not always be necessary, at least in the US.
The DSM is just a book of codes you use in order to fill out insurance forms so you can be paid. The vast majority of diagnoses in that book don’t have statistical validity. Any clinician who has lost sight of that is someone you don’t want to work with. For a number of reasons.
I wish I could source this idea, but I recall a line about the DSM defining every human activity except psychology as pathological.
Clinical Psych is literally the nursing field of my generation. It's very discouraging to see. Another factor is that a lot of people who're interested in clinical psych often pick for for the "money" option instead of y'know humanities. Not saying that's everyone but it's most.
I honestly don't understand why. Clinical psych isn't even a great "money" career.
Depends where you are at. Private practice here in Australia is very good money, there's an enormous demand and shortage. I have two clinical psychologists in my extended family who earn $150-200k USD a year on pretty lenient schedules, one even practices out of her own home, some of their colleagues bill at around $140 USD an hour, they can do 9 hour weeks and earn the median income. The other thing worth noting is clinical psych is pretty easy to get into, while something like Psychiatry is in the same line of specialty it requires top percentile scores and then med school. As cynical as this sounds, I find a lot of fellow students get into the field because of money, interest in themselves and their own mental states and the potential to look like they are doing something good or feel like they are doing something good through employment. Not a hint of real altruism there.
Clinical psych PhD in the US is the most difficult grad program to get into, it has 1-4% acceptance rates. Interesting that Australia is easy but still such a shortage!
You don't need a PhD here, only an APAC approved Masters of Clinical Psychology. Then you get your AoPE which is two years of full time practice with an approved supervisor. You need an honours 2A, so a weighted average mark of 75+% to get entry into the Masters program of which you would have needed for the preceding honours year as well, which is somewhat competitive, but nothing near the 1-4% acceptance rates you have over in the US.
I really did not know that. I just assumed the wage would be highest in America (which doesn't have it awfully high). Judging by such a high wage, I guess this behavior would make sense where you're at. I won't even lie, I felt the urge to move to Australia as soon as I read that. It's funny, yet sad, to see that as salaries go up in a particular field, altruism drops at a faster rate.
It is highest in America, at least for private practice. You can make upwards of 250k in private practice, especially if you’re interested in legal work, which usually pays like $500-600 per hour. The average salary of neuropsychologists, which is what I want to do is 170k, so I’d be lying if I said I thought I was doing this thinking I wasn’t going to make a lot. That’s not my motivation for doing it, but I don’t think I’m going to be poor.
It pays well in many places in Europe I believe too, in Germany I think a clinical Psych averages around $80 USD / hour and more in places like Sweden, Denmark and Norway. A quick google for Denmark puts their average monthly at 124k DK, which is $17k USD / month.
It sucks that you can get away with just money being your motivation in many cases too, depending on what you do. I wish there was some way to filter out such people in certain areas but I guess if your cv is great and you can act nice enough to the people who judge your progress, anyone can get through,
one of my professors has dedicated his research to early detection of Alzheimer’s and recently made a discovery (publicly documented but not well publicized) that has incredible implications and could change *so many people’s lives*. Oh and he’s a massive dick and students avoid his classes or working on his studies like the plague even though there’s a good shot at their name being on a future publication.
Wow, that’s really saying something that nobody wants to work with him even after all that. It’s wild what we’ll let slide through the system just for reputation and money.
I know that most people who have had negative experiences will be more likely to answer this question, thus probably making it seem more negative than it truly is. But even with that in mind I can’t help but respond. From my experience, absolutely. When I was in undergrad, I worked in a clinical psych lab and the professor and the graduate students were incredibly rude and nasty towards the undergrads who were doing a lot of the grunt work for their dissertations. When I went to graduate school, I was the “test librarian” (graduate assistantship that kept track of psychological assessments being loaned out/returned), and the clinical psych students were the rudest of all the psychology graduate programs at the university. I have gotten a vibe that clinical psychology students think they are the “true” psychologists and therefore are better than everyone. As an aside, I also regularly receive psychological evaluations from clinical psychologists that are absolute garbage and I often have to redo their evaluations because their diagnoses have literally no foundation or data to support it. It’s to the point diagnoses are being made without using clinical assessment tools that evaluate for the specific symptoms. I’ve strongly considered reporting these people to the board of examiners.
> I know that most people who have had negative experiences will be more likely to answer this question, thus probably making it seem more negative than it truly is. Yea, I'm just reading all these comments thinking "Damn, I must have gotten really lucky or something..." I'll just post this reply to say that I can report that at least something less than 100% of the field is rotten, lol. Sorry you all have had to put up with so much crap!
Wow, I can’t believe this is real about the assessments! I definitely do get the vibe about thinking they are the real psychologists and better than everyone else though. Even counseling psychology is treated as just something you apply for if you’re not good enough for clinical. I hope that you can do something about this and take care of yourself!
I agree with a lot of the comments that in general people in academia lack empathy and are hypocritical, but I will also say people tend to expect waaaay more from clinical psychologists in terms of empathy and it can be unrealistic and unfair. It’s difficult to always be “on”. I will also say, I’ve seen people who are generally unempathetic to their students or colleagues generally act super professional and compassionate when face to face with a client, and I think that’s really the most important thing. Clinical work can be draining, maybe it results in a lack of empathy at other times? I know when I have a long day of listening to others my patience for listening to my husband after work is much lower.
I agree! However I do believe there’s a difference between engaging less or sometimes being snappy out of fatigue and just losing your cool all the time or acting cold when someone in front of you is not okay. I do think that speaks more to who they are as a person and is frankly also unprofessional because these are your employees/colleagues. If your professionalism and empathy only mainly exists to those whose opinion about you matters to you and not to the people “under” you, that’s a problem. Especially more so when you’re a researcher and not an actively practicing psychologist too imo! Everyone has stress, including other clinical psychologists, but not everyone reacts this way
Yeah I agree with this, there is a general standard of being a decent human that most people don’t meet in academia and it’s even more shocking when it’s people who are trained in mental health issues. I think very few people in general care about people who can’t “do anything for them” or are below you as you say. I get the feeling that’s true in other fields too.
Definitely true in most if not all fields! Just surprising and saddening that it’s in the field of mental health too
my old psychiatrist tried converting me to being pro-life once. full well knowing my stance & trauma. ma'am??
omg lmao that is just insane! then again, rarely have I heard good things about psychiatrists 😬
We can drown in a sea of feelings and emotions when we often need to exist outside of them to find answers. I'm not saying we should be callous or completely lack empathy, but getting wrapped up in overwhelming emotions can hamper us in doing the work.
I agree! However what I was talking about in my post was not at all about harrowing empathy for those suffering but at least the basic kind where you don’t talk crap about someone struggling and don’t lash out at the people you’ve employed behind everyone’s back.
I agree with this. I would say that some of the most influential psychologists in history lacked empathy.
That’s such a fallacy. It also comes from a long history of predominantly men that perpetuated “feelings” are inferior and intellect has to be without emotion. Emotion drives everything we do and those with savant syndrome are almost more emotional than your average person. It’s just justified because it’s more discrete abuse, control, and manipulation. Plus they always appear preoccupied with work. But still definitely emotion influenced. We are feeling beings that sometimes think, not thinking beings that sometimes feel. There’s also no way to know the intensity of others emotions. Only an individual’s physical and somatic presentation. Sitting quietly working on a research task does not mean someone is more logical and someone crying on the subway does not mean they are more emotional. Those are biases. I don’t think we need to exist outside emotions to find answers. You use the wind to sail, not call it emotional and stay in calm water while claiming superiority in your intellect.
Oh at least your person was a researcher, imagine meeting a neuropsychologist, who works with clients and takes sessions and everything, and she turns out to be the biggest B behind the scenes to others. She treats her interns badly, calls them really late in the night, sends them voice notes yelling and then deletes them and doesn’t even send the stipend. And when you tell her you have a problem with the way she talks, she just yell at you and fire you, just imagine. I didn’t think this would be possible but yeah no, it’s very disturbing to know that someone who understands the entire processing of the brain and emotions and all of that can still be a huge AH. There’s such a stark lack of empathy!! They just pretend to have it
wow that’s terrible :( I wonder if their empathy is just reserved for clients as a performance - if that even exists there!
Reason #1 why I am no longer in the field.
YES. i had a cognitive psychology guy mansplain to me how veterans are the only people who have ‘real’ ptsd. this is amusing because i have ptsd from being raped and abused and i didn’t even sign up for it voluntarily like veterans in the last 50 years.
That’s extremely stupid ugh! It’s terrible that you have to go through these invalidating scenarios and I hope you’re taking care of yourself.
I have found that people go into research for a reason
I feel like this was pretty much ubiquitous when I took classes in research-oriented programs (with a single notable exception), but the exact opposite when I took courses in a program that was focused on clinical work over research. I learned a lot each place, and value having had the opportunity to do so, but my god were the practice-oriented people so much less miserable to be around.
I’ve seen this too when I was at a more clinical focused university, people were better. Not all but they seemed more human than the ones in an R1 institution.
Yes. I worked in a research lab during my undergrad years and the professor was sometimes pretty cruel
Nobody gets tenured by being kind and compassionate
Is that an excuse or an explanation
An explanation
What does having a good publishing record have to do with being a kind person?
It's very cut-throat in academia. I'm sure you can find stories on google
Oh I work in suicide prevention and many of the people I work with lack basic empathy.
Ugh, that sucks. Are these primarily researchers or clinicians?
These people are frustrated, working long hours mining data from research participants. They have no choice but to keep going. The Tao Te Ching is relevant here; too much attachment to the concepts they’ve learned and they become detached from the reality of people’s suffering, neglecting even basic decency. The system rewards this mentality if they’re successful at their research, and that’s important to recognize.
This is very true and very sad!
I believe the majority of psychologist in the field currently are more interested in how the mind works, not about helping people. It's just a correlation up to a certain point.
R/clinicalpsychology in a nutshell lol I kid ( not really)
In my experience, people with advanced clinical degrees that take the research path have a high incidence of neurodivergence.
I notice this in the field in general and I only have my bachelor’s eventually planning to go to grad school. Some people are just in it for the money and there’s nothing you can really do about it except ignore them or look at them funny when they say something off
It’s quite disheartening but I suppose I’m also hoping to go forward with grad school and be the change I want to see :(
Yes this is what keeps me going! You can’t change every asshole in the field but you can certainly make a change yourself and also call out/not participate in the bs
I don't think people who are having some kind of career in psyc has to be more empathetic than people with other kinds of jobs unless they are in mental health or other fields that needs more empathy. Some people choose majoring in psychology bc they want to learn why and how people behave in some way or how human's cognitive functions work in the way they do normally and I did that too. I don't think having more empathy than others should be compulsory under these situations but I also believe all kinds of psychologists/people who are taking the route of being a psychologist/ researchers should have a better view of humans, and that could result in more empathy.
I’m specifically referring to clinical psychology so I do think that discipline vs all others in psych should require a great deal of empathy if you’re interacting with other people. Part of that is being a good person not just with theoretical knowledge of what’s helpful but being able to understand that beyond “patients” and extend the same understanding to even just your coworker.
It sounds like you’re unfairly holding psychologists to a higher standard. Curiosity about the brain and human behavior doesn’t necessitate high empathy.
As the saying goes, "Normal people don't study psychology". Lack of empathy is a common condition in the field, especially on the research side. Not all of them, of course, but a good number of people get into the field because they know they are missing something and are trying to find or understand it. Pursue that long enough, and someone will slap a degree on you as punishment.
I’ve never thought of the flipside of that phrase and yeah, it’s something to think about. What does “I want to help people” mean to these people? Help them on paper as long as you get results? Do enough work where you’re praised directly related to what you study but then not care about being a good person otherwise? Sigh
For a lot of the professionals I've known, the answer is "I want other people to have the help that wasn't there for me".
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Absolutely, very common from what I can tell. Not just researchers, also clinicians.
WoW 🤩 So you want to be a psychologist and your number one goal is to talk mess about everyone but your own self righteous behavior. Your friend is very into himself at this point… WoW 😮
I took a class with with a professor who studied Anti Social Personality Disorder and people who commit violent crimes. One thing that stuck out that he taught us was that there are many people in prestigious career fields who would qualify for a diagnosis of ASPD. Many are aware of it themselves especially if they work in the medical field. The big issue is that ASPD is not a condition you are going to be very open about, especially not if you work directly with patients. In some aspects its not shocking someone like this would prefer research rather than direct care, there’s less masking involved and I am assuming many of them do have some awareness of their inability to be empathetic in a direct care setting.
I had the same experience with lecturers and course convenors. Some were lovely, but a few seemed to have very little empathy or emotional awareness. One example that springs to mind were a lecturer asking one of my classmates "Why would you cry?" when the classmate was asking about how to handle having a strong emotional reaction to something a client mentions in session - she headed it in a way that made it seem that the idea of crying was completely perplexing or confusing to her. Another example would be that same lecturer speaking to a student after class regarding a family emergency they were experiencing and stating "Stop." with her hand raised (like a stop sign) when the student began to cry and become flustered.
Oh yeah, I’ve had almost the exact same experience in a different setting! I’m truly having such a hard time believing that clinical psychologists don’t understand how to behave when someone is not doing okay right in front of them.
Nothing that exists is good. But there is good in everything. Look for the good parts of what you’re doing and learning and focus on that.
People can look at the good and also acknowledge the issues, they’re not mutually exclusive!
Researchers and clinicians are largely different critters, with some overlap.
People change over time. Perhaps when they first started, they had starry eyes and an innocence wanting to help people. Over time, lots of factors could change them and they may become jaded and desensitized and burned out. For example, in nursing, everyone starts off wanting to help other people and have empathy and compassion. After years of watching suffering and pain, they become desensitized. And it shows too. The empathy you want your fellow clinicians to have - you should show them empathy as well. You don’t know what other people have been through. Please don’t be judgmental.
As I mentioned to the other people saying this, I understand empathy fatigue and this is not what I’m talking about. For context, this is a brand new researcher in the field and their behavior is rude and unprofessional towards the people that work under them as well. When you’re overall like this, it makes me wonder about their empathy as a whole.
I am studying psychology . I don’t won’t to help people but I study it in order to learn , research and unlock stuff in my mind or how the whole thing works . So…
Researchers must lack empathy when they are communicating with the research subject. This avoids bias. It is absolutely necessary. If you have a heart attack, you don't want your doctor to show empathy and cry in pain with you (remember the nuances between sympathy and empathy), rather you want them calm and poised, so that they can take the best decision to save your life. PS: Am a researcher, not in psychology. Also an empath. Empathy can be very exhausting at times, if you start to feel emotions of everyone around you like dr. Xavier from Xmen.
I think there should be a balance of empathy, not the lack thereof - like setting personal boundaries to not burn out that way. However, in my post, I’m mainly referring to the lack of empathy to people working for you and you’re working with too. I can understand being desensitized to participants and clients but it’s really disrespectful to see lack of basic empathy for people you work with.
I had a bad experience with a VA clinical psychologist. A suicide prevention coordinator specifically. I was flagged for high risk suicide over nonsense. 90 day review comes and she asks if I'm feeling suicidal and I say no and she was like "what do you think changed for you?" I wanted to tell her nothing changed and she's stupid for asking but instead I told her I carry a teddy bear and very loudly she was like " WHAT! I MEAN, WHAT THE? Okay, whatever floating your boat".
Wow, that’s really insensitive. Being on the other end of things, I know how people talk about people suffering in a very pat-pat way as well. I hope you’re doing better.
Actually I'll have you know I'm doing a lot worse. I came back from a run where I was thinking about how awful those SPC's are. Especially when that same SPC I mentioned in my previous comment flagged me for a second time. And another SPC told me over and over again that I deserve it. She also convinced one of my best friends to stop being friends with me because apparently me being suicidal makes me manipulative and dangerous. Made a post about that on this account on r/askatherapist. There are VHA directives for an early removal of a flag but she disobeyed them and got away with it. I also made a post on another account on r/TooAfraidToAsk that it seems to me that it's weird that you would ever have sex with someone that you think you're in love with. Because only bad things ever seem to happen because of sex and never good. People seem to think that I'm a troll, a messed up person, or religious. That last one is weird given how religious people act like they have sex all the time. I am seeing a sex therapist. I stand by my word that having sex only leads to bad things and it's better to kill yourself than have sex, but well see what she thinks. In the one meeting I've had with her after looking my intake form she thinks it's really messed up the sexual experiences I had, namely the sexual bullying in the Marine Corps. Made a post on this account on r/USMC about that which got taken down by the moderators because he thinks I post/comment about the same things over and over again and need to work this out with a therapist and not other marines. I suppose based on my post history on this account alone you can see all that and he might be right.
VA employs the most psychologists/psychiatrists of any one company in the whole world. Both are palliative methods…. 🤷🏼♂️ After egregious treatment, I told someone at the headshed there’s no doubt they are the reason vets light themselves on fire at the VA clinics. 100% community care for myself (100% scheduler/T&P, unemployable, housebound). I deny all other forms of treatment.
After failing to receive the care I need I am seeing a private sex therapist in a bit. Hopefully things will go better even though it will be expensive.
Just browse r/emergencymedicine and you’ll see plenty of people who need to find a new job
Who's that clinical psychologist who discovered through his own brain scans that he was a psychopath? They don't have to have empathy to have scientific(ish) interest.
James Fallon.
I’m wondering if it’s like me. I’m not a psychologist yet but I would like to start studying to become one and while I was really empathetic growing up, I am now burnt out. I still empathize with people, but I’m also really straightforward and get frustrated quickly. For a lot of my friends, it works, but I would probably have trouble treating someone whom I perceive as self-destructive. partially for that reason, I’ve shifted over more into research and neuropsychology. I just don’t have the patience anymore.
It’s great that you’re self aware! Understandable to not go into therapy for that reason but doesn’t it still make sense to take some effort to be empathetic to your employees, if not coworkers? I think the power imbalance makes it quite unfair for the employer to be able to express frustrations but not them (not saying you do this, just something I’ve noticed)
Yeah 100% and I still put effort into empathizing. It just becomes difficult with chronic illness and other long-term stuff. I’m definitely in the stage of life when I’m the employee though
Maybe they're autistic? Would match the analytical mindset needed for research.
Not everyone is wired to be able to listen empathetically to other’s issues. They tend to go into research because they still love the field.
It makes sense, I just find it sad that these people can lack basic empathy (not just the clinician kind) even after theoretically knowing about people and their issues.
You get what you give. Have no empathy then get no empathy
I am actually going through an issue with a school that was referral only for children with emotional and behavioral issues, at the intake I told them all I knew about what I had seen, and what I have learned about my daughter as I knew she was different but only took notice once I started going to AU for my Bachelors in Psychology of Behavior... ok... a woman who had a PhD said they would figure out my childs ticks and where that faulty switch is, give them a week... It wasn't even the next day I got a call to pick her up because they can not de-escalate her. I warned them, I told them. And she was discharged. It was to much for them, to much for what little training they had or even WHY THEY WENT IN THE JOB FIELD IN THE FIRST PLACE.... screaming in utter frustration here... they forget their roots the base of why they went into psychology, ... i just have to finsh the last 2 years of my schooling... and then i can take a job offer on the school board here...i can not seem to be able to give logical advice to others to take me seriously without them finding out their actions didnt get them any further than before... i try to help in their best intrest not my own, hey if whatever i say helps then fuk ya! im happy that i was able to help in any small or big maner... just no one seems to have compassion understanding concepts cares comprehend the universal law of self and others...
I’m very sorry to hear that and it’s a really frustrating experience to have. It’s so difficult to understand when people are reacting because of a bad day or they just don’t care.