DETACHMENT AND PREDATION

CAN WE RECOGNIZE EMPATHY WHEN WE SEE IT?

New Braintree, MA  March 20, 2012 In a blog published at Thanksgiving I wrote about the sudden explosion of violence that accompanies domestic violence homicide.  Readers expressed some interest in my thoughts on why this occurs.  There are several theories as to what factors trigger the final paroxysm of rage.  First is the growing insecurity and humiliation associated with perceived loss such as when a spouse seeks a divorce.  Many abusers are deeply insecure and while they may appear to be in control they do so without much emotional reserve.  When stress is accelerated by financial decline or legal conflict abusers become marginalized and increasingly fragile.  This pushes them out of the mainstream of their lives and creates huge emotional dissonance.  

When the stress becomes intolerable violence can occur like a depolarizing discharge of the lightning bolt. What follows is a pitiable display of regret and denial of responsibility that is arguably a show of theatrics.  This is called the cycle of abuse.  Most people tolerate stress and this kind of dissonance without becoming violent.  What separates them from those who would kill?  An OP-Ed article in this weeks NY Times described how all people have capacity for primal anger and despicable acts those those I have described.  It was written in response to the Army Sergeant who allegedly left his base in Afganistan and killed 16 civilians while they slept.  Is this an example of a lack of empathy?  People have spoken quite highly of the sergeant - those who knew him personally find the facts in the case incongruent with his personality.  But that is war and unless we have been in war there is nothing against which to compare the impact of its ghastly sights and sounds.


A WAR FROM WITHIN
Some liken living in the home of a domestic abuser to war.  Only secretive and destructive from within.  There is no single factor that identifies the next abuser who may destroy his family like the man in Maine.  However, a pattern of emotional detachment and lack of human empathy are among the two highest risks.  Empathy is not something that can be taught or derived from years of psychotherapy.  You are capable of understanding the feelings of others or you are not.  


In the absence of mental illness, domestic violence results from a powerful need to 'control' intimate partners - often in the absence of true conflict and without empathy at all.  A war from within.