Empathy Switch

This is a topic that's been flying around my mind for the last little while. Do you have conscious access to an empathy switch? Under the right circumstances, do you have the power to stop empathizing with a person and seeing them as a human, but more like an object or strange animal? I'm not talking about psychopathy, where an individual never had empathy to begin with, nor am I talking about mob mentality and mass brainwashing, where propaganda is used to paint a group of people as the enemy and thus, bypassing the natural empathic connection that people have with them. I'm talking about personal, conscious control over your ability to feel empathy.

A couple relevant articles on the subject:

The empathy toggle switch | Mom’s Tinfoil Hat

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/071004/brainscans.shtml

Personally, I think most people DO have an empathy switch. However, I don't think the vast majority have realized that they have conscious control over their ability to feel empathy. Do you?

I believe so. I want to feel empathy so that I can be a good person, so I keep the switch 'on' most of the time, at least when I think it's relevant.

Originally Posted by Prof. Song

I believe so. I want to feel empathy so that I can be a good person, so I keep the switch 'on' most of the time, at least when I think it's relevant.

In what situations could you see yourself removing it?

Originally Posted by Dark Romantic

In what situations could you see yourself removing it?

Well, sometimes when I watch the vet work on one of the horses or when I'm cleaning out a wound or something myself, I turn off my squeamishness as best I can and just view the horse more as an object on which a task has to be completed. Maybe that's a weak example, but I believe that's somewhat the same thing.
I also don't try when I'm reading bad news stories, most of the time. Bad stuff happens, and I don't need to get depressed whenever I read about some of it. I could, but there's no point. It doesn't help me value their lives more, and I suppose I might be turning the switch 'on' when I think more deeply about news stories.

Originally Posted by Prof. Song

Well, sometimes when I watch the vet work on one of the horses or when I'm cleaning out a wound or something myself, I turn off my squeamishness as best I can and just view the horse more as an object on which a task has to be completed. Maybe that's a weak example, but I believe that's somewhat the same thing.
I also don't try when I'm reading bad news stories, most of the time. Bad stuff happens, and I don't need to get depressed whenever I read about some of it. I could, but there's no point. It doesn't help me value their lives more, and I suppose I might be turning the switch 'on' when I think more deeply about news stories.

I see. That does corroborate with what I've discovered so far, since the vast majority of the research I've seen on this subject (which is actually quite limited) focuses on the idea that people in healing professions do, in fact, learn how to turn off their empathy. Did you always find yourself with that ability, were you trained in any way, or did it just happen when you needed it to?

I'm not entirely sure. I think I might, but it may be subconscious.

Interesting topic.

I'm not sure if I consciously toggle my empathy switch on and off, but I can see how other people can do it. I suppose my empathy switch turns off when I read the news in general. But that probably doesn't count since it's not a personal thing.

I can think of one example though. I can consciously switch off my empathy when my friends constantly put themselves in a vicious cycle and don't heed my advice. They come to me with their problems, I give advice, they don't follow it and thus continually get hurt. And then they approach me again. I don't always switch it off because I have a tall drama tank. If their drama fills it up though, I shut down and don't empathize at all on the inside. I just nod and listen.

It sounds a bit mean, but it's tiring to hear people complain about something while they don't do anything about it. I stop empathizing when that happens.

Originally Posted by Dark Romantic

Do you have conscious access to an empathy switch?...I'm talking about personal, conscious control over your ability to feel empathy.

Personally, I think most people DO have an empathy switch. However, I don't think the vast majority have realized that they have conscious control over their ability to feel empathy. Do you?

I'm definitely an empath and always have been. At a certain age I think I did turn it off because it just got so overwhelming (and often depressing since I was younger and didn't know how to handle it all). I turned to apathy for quite a while and while I'm working out the kinks for my empathy, I can detach myself (usually).

I think I do, though I'm more inclined to feel detached to begin with, I often let them sort their problems because it rarely has a lot to do with me? I will only help if they legit need it. Not to be selfish, I just believe people need to straighten up and fly right a lot on their own..

Originally Posted by Dark Romantic

I see. That does corroborate with what I've discovered so far, since the vast majority of the research I've seen on this subject (which is actually quite limited) focuses on the idea that people in healing professions do, in fact, learn how to turn off their empathy. Did you always find yourself with that ability, were you trained in any way, or did it just happen when you needed it to?

Specifically when dealing with injuries, I guess I just figured it out fairly recently as a coping mechanism. It's easier and more productive to think of an ugly wound simply as something that needs to be fixed than to feel sick at the sight of it and possibly make the horse nervous.
But I only started thinking about this as a concept last night, and I can't remember all that much of my childhood clearly, so I couldn't be certain. I'm pretty sure that I've always been able to feel things for people I read about on the news only if I try to imagine how it's like for them.