Instrumental empathy: what it is, how to detect it, and how to react to it

We tend to think that all people who show empathy use this ability to help others. other and not to take advantage of him, but in subjects with instrumental empathy we see everything contrary.

People with instrumental empathy are able to recognize how others feel but fail to put themselves in their shoes. adopt their perspective, so they will use the information they acquire from the other to manipulate and use it for their benefit own self.

They are subjects who do not show regret for their behavior and who, therefore, do not perceive that they are acting wrongly, it will not be usual for them to come to therapy of their own free will. At present, techniques to intervene in these patients continue to be tested, because to date there is no effective treatment.

In this article we will see what instrumental empathy is, how it is defined, what its main characteristics are, which subjects show it and how to work with these individuals.

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What is instrumental empathy?

It can be difficult to guess what the definition of instrumental empathy is, since when we look at the term we see that it is made up of empathy that is defined as a positive capacity, thus making us think that it is a good performance, but the second concept, instrumental, produces a negative effect on this empathy.

The term "instrumental" refers to the possibility of using something or someone for one's own benefit, with a purpose. For its part, empathy is defined as the ability to understand and put oneself in another's place, this being very important for us to act altruistically in order to help the neighbor.

But in the case of instrumental empathy, what happens when you put the two terms together is that the positive intention that is normally associated with empathy is affected by instrumentality. Thus, a subject with this capacity will be able to understand how the other person feels, but not for the purpose of help her, his goal will be to take advantage of this information he has about the other to benefit himself and to take advantage of the situation.

There are different types of empathy, two of them being fundamental to be able to speak of true empathy. Cognitive empathy that refers to the ability to understand the state of the other person and the emotional empathy that would be linked more with the ability to feel ourselves what the other subject feels, that is, it would consist in being able to put oneself in the place of the other. The latter, the emotional one, is what people with instrumental empathy lack.

We see then, how to have the ability to understand how the other feels does not ensure that we will act appropriately and on the contrary, it can give the possibility of doing a lot of damage, since we take advantage of the other person's feelings to use them or know how to harm them.

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How to detect it? Characteristics of instrumental empathy

Now that we know better how instrumental empathy is defined, it may be easier to deduce what types of subjects will use it. It is surprising to see how not all empathic people have good intentions, nor the purpose of helping others. How behavior that appears to be done without malice can turn against you, taking advantage of you.

This type of empathy is typical of individuals who they act charmingly towards us but without the purpose of helping us; This is how we observe it in subjects with some type of psychological disorder, whom we will talk about later, although We can also find this type of behavior in subjects without diagnosis but with selfish, interested and selfish traits. manipulators.

Within the group of people with this characteristic, we observe that they share two distinctive traits: they show cognitive empathy, that is, they are able to identify how others feel people valuing how they act, their facial and body expression, their tone of voice, their gaze...but they really can't put themselves in the place of the other, to feel how the other feels and present emotions in an unstable way, by this we mean that there are subjects, as in the case of psychopaths, where less emotional activity is observed and they only feel at specific moments and when they do They use this feeling to manipulate.

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Psychopathologies with which instrumental empathy has been linked

As we already know, this type of empathy is exercised mainly by manipulative subjects, individuals who use the another person to achieve their own ends, this characteristic of manipulation is common to observe in subjects with personality disorders, specifically the narcissistic type and the antisocial type.

What are these guys like? In reference to subjects with antisocial traits, they show contempt and violation of the rights of others and social norms, they are dishonest, they lie to obtain their own pleasure, they are impulsive, cruel, manipulative, aggressive, unconcerned about the health of others, irresponsible and without feeling of guilt for anything they do. do.

For its part, individuals with narcissistic traits present a feeling of grandiosity, they need the constant admiration of othersThey believe they are special and therefore they believe that they can only deal with people who are also special, they are arrogant, they can be manipulative, false and cruel to others.

Likewise, these two personalities have the characteristics and tools to get you to trust them and then manipulate you and use you for their benefit. To achieve their goal, they will show themselves as empathetic people, who understand how you feel and love you. help, but really that will never be their intention, they just want to gain your trust to favor themselves they.

Other subjects that have also been assessed as being able to present this type of empathy are psychopaths. These are characterized by presenting an external charm; they are unstable, liars and false; lack of feeling of regret or shame; antisocial behavior, breach of rules and violation of rights, and are self-centered. They present negative affectation of affective relationships; insensitivity to the problems of others and difficulty following the plan of life.

Within the group of individuals with psychopathic characteristics we find subjects whose main trait is emotional detachment showing above all a narcissistic behavior and other subjects that stand out for acting in a deviant way to the socially established, this type of psychopath is more similar to the traits of the antisocial.

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What to do with subjects with instrumental empathy?

First of all it will be important identify them and realize that they show this type of empathy. To this end, it will be convenient for us to be alert since it may seem difficult to recognize this type of subject at a glance, when we interact more with they begin to observe signs, modes of behavior that make us think that their empathy is not true, for example we see that although they tell us that it is that affects them as we are, their behavior does not reaffirm this concern or they prefer that we are bad so they can manipulate us, instead of when we are happy.

They are subjects who, as we have seen, do not feel bad about their misconduct, have no remorse and Therefore, they will rarely ask for professional help to deal with their problems since they do not perceive it as such. Similarly, there is no therapy that has been proven effective for these types of patients with psychopathy or personality disorder. At the moment studies are still being carried out to try to make their empathy truly genuine, this process being very difficult and even more so if the patient does not collaborate.

If they manage to reach therapy, different strategies have been proposed to deal with them: with patients with antisocial personality disorder, it is recommended mark the objectives to be achieved and the advantages and disadvantages that they entail, establish clear limits but without being punitive, we will try, as therapists, be seen as someone nice and intelligent not as a figure of punishment, we can also use humor when necessary and show confidence in ourselves and When the treatment is already in an advanced phase and the relationship is well established, it is when we will introduce the work of genuine empathy, both cognitive and psychological. emotional.

Regarding individuals with narcissistic personality disorder We will try not to enter into a power struggle, not to compete, act firmly but respectfully and also work on empathy; For this purpose, we will train alternative ways of treating the other person, trying to activate emotional schemes through, for example, the role reversal technique that It consists of the patient acting as if he were the other individual, putting himself in the place of the other and helping to differentiate thought, emotion and behavior, so that he learns to identify each factor.

Thus, as we have pointed out, research continues to treat these subjects, we know that their improvement process is not easy and in many cases they do not even reach therapy or at least for will, they find it difficult to recognize their pathology or that they are doing something wrong, since their actions are in accordance with what they think, it is for this reason that in case of identify a subject with these characteristics if we see that he has no intention of improving, it is advisable that we move away, keep our distance because, if not, we will end up bad us.