Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse

Watch Out for These 7 Empathy Weaponization Tactics That Will Trap You

• Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D. • Season 4 • Episode 249

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0:00 | 12:10

Have you heard, ‘If you truly understood me, you'd give me what I want?” 

This week's Fan Mail comes from a listener in Sweden who asks Dr. Kerry to explain how empathy gets weaponized. 

In this episode, Dr. Kerry breaks down the 5 types of empathy (affective, cognitive, compassionate, somatic, and perspective-taking) and explains why having empathy doesn't make someone safe. 

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Toxic People's Favorite 7 Empathy Traps Transcript

Kerry: [00:00:00] When you meet a predatory person, exploitative person, they may be empathic, they may be able to anticipate what you're going through or even what your perspective might be. They may even be able to anticipate what it would feel like to be you, to be in your body, but it doesn't mean they have any warps about it or any concern or care about that.

They can use their knowledge as a way to injure you and make it even worse. Almost in a way to kind of turn the screws up on you causes me to wanna kind of. Slow down and talk to you about empathy, the types of empathy, but also how empathy gets weaponized.

I got this fan mail letter by someone in Sweden who asks about empathy and particularly empathy disorders. She'd like me to bring. Clarity into the self-development tantra informed spaces that she works in. This is a fascinating question 'cause there's a whole lot that's being kind of like hinted at. It causes me to wanna kind of slow down and [00:01:00] talk to you about empathy, the types of empathy, but also how empathy gets weaponized.

I often think of empathy as just one thing. You're either sensitive to how other people are experiencing the world and themselves or you're not. But there's actually different types of empathy. Now are these. Clinical examples or is there like research? I, I'm not saying that, but I, I think you can still put empathy in these buckets.

Maybe that's a better way to think about it. Different buckets of types of empathy. The ones we talk the most about are affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is like, think of the Hallmark commercial where. You see a sad situation or somebody experiencing something emotional or nostalgic, and you experience it yourself.

So you see them feeling a feeling and you start to feel the same feeling that they're feeling. That's an example of affective or emotional empathy. Then there's cognitive empathy, which is you being able to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes. You can kind of [00:02:00] picture what it would be like to face the challenges that they're facing.

You don't necessarily feel the feelings, but you can. Kind of mentally place yourself in that situation. Now it's possible for you to have cognitive empathy and be sensitive to what somebody else is experiencing, but use that against them. You know, you don't personally feel it, so you can actually use the knowledge.

It's some people refer to it as mind mapping. Be able to put yourself into the place of somebody else and anticipate what it might. Cause them to think and do. But here's another bucket of empathy. I want you to also consider that we don't talk about compassionate empathy or empathic concern. This is when you understand another person's situation and you have a desire to help them in a healthy way.

Like I care that you're hurting or, you know what? I don't really wanna be yelled at? I'm not okay with being yelled at. What it is is that it has a desire to connect, but it really comes with it with a state of boundaries. Then there's somatic [00:03:00] empathy where you register what other people are feeling in their body, whether it's, have you ever seen a, a show of someone's being nauseous and then you start to feel nauseated yourself, or they show themselves being really exhausted and you start to feel the fatigue in your body.

This is sort of an example of you mirroring what's happening in them in yourself. And then the fifth type is perspective taking. It's when you can say to somebody else, I understand how you got there, or It makes sense that that's something that you would feel. You're not necessarily giving them permission and you're also not saying it's necessarily right or okay, but you're saying to them, I get how that happened or how you can see it that way.

The problem with empathy is, is that we assume that people fall into buck. I'm again using that word, buckets, but we make the error of thinking that people either have empathy or don't have empathy, and I don't think this is a good way of seeing empathy. I think everybody has some form of empathy. What we're confusing is just because we can [00:04:00] understand somebody else's perspective or we can imagine what it would be like to walk in their shoes, doesn't mean that we are emotionally connected or feel compassion for that individual.

The empathy in itself isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It's actually a neutral thing. It's a description of. A skill of a resource that we have varying degrees of strength. And maybe you're really a person who senses what other people are feeling, but you can't really imagine what it would be like to be in their life.

Or maybe you're somebody who's really great at taking perspective on something, but you're not really all that great with knowing what it feel like to be in that person's body. You know what they're feeling somatically. So I want you to start to see this as not so much as a. Oh, it's a like, almost like a badge of honor.

It's not, it's a skill that we all have different varying levels of talent at that, you know, we're degrees of being good at it. But what happens though is when you meet a predatory person, exploitative person, they may be empathic, they may be able to anticipate what you're going through or even [00:05:00] what your perspective might be.

They may even be able to anticipate what it would feel like to be you, to be in your body, but it doesn't mean they have any warmth. About it or any concern or care about that. You know, it doesn't mean they're a compassionate person and the fact that they can use their knowledge as a way to injure you and make it even worse almost in a way to kind of turn the screws up on you.

So it's really good for us to not think about people is having empathy or not having empathy, but rather what they do with the empathy. Are they weaponizing it? Are they. Using it as a tactic against you, or does that make them know how to be more compassionate? How to come alongside of you and show concern?

Here are some common ways in which empathy gets weaponized against you. Sometimes people will use empathy that if you can understand what I'm going through, then you should give me what I want. Think of it sort of the empathy is an obligation trap. Watch out for somebody who thinks you owe them because you get what?

They're [00:06:00] suffering. You don't. You can have care and concern about somebody, but it doesn't make you responsible for them. Number two, watch out for people who use empathy as a way to do dvo, you know, so that they know that the fact that you're bringing something up, then they collapse. So they're using your sensitivity and your compassion against you.

They're redirecting away from your pain of how they're affecting you by getting upset over the conflict and then moving you into the person who then has to comfort them from the things that they've done from their own consequences. So watch out for dvo. Third one is trauma. Dumping is leverage where they actually, they'll do something bad and then they'll claim that they did it because they're broken and they want you to sort of excuse their betrayal or excuse the abuse because of some bad experience of their life or because some bad situation that happened that they can't help themselves.

Everybody is ultimately, at the end of the day, responsible for their own [00:07:00] behavior Also. Watch out for people who want you to take their perspective at the wrong time. You know, they want you to see things from their side while they're actively harming you. They'll say things like, why can't you understand how hard this is?

Or, you're not considering my feelings. Your job when you're being injured and you're looking for some type of repair or restitution, is not to become that person's caretaker or analyst. You don't need to understand their side of things. You're looking for an effort. For them to care and repair about what they've done.

Watch out for people who also hijacked the good person identity. They'll say things like, I thought you knew me better than this, or I thought you're an empathic person, that you wouldn't abandon me or you wouldn't turn on me like this. In other words, they're using your kindness as a weapon or a leash, so be careful that they don't use your good nature against you.

Another one is pathologizing boundaries. They'll reframe your [00:08:00] self-protection, your good boundaries as hurting them or harming them. They'll say, you know, for example, the only reason you're behaving this way is because you're being triggered, or you're emotionally unwell, or you're paranoid so that you end up then having to protect or sort of defend your sanity or the reasons that you're doing that instead of enforcing the boundaries that you need to feel safe.

Or they'll weaponize your forgiveness. They'll ask you to push past the need to repair the relationship and want you just to move into absolution like you need to, forgive me. The only way we'll heal is if you can just let it go, or you holding this against me is really turning into something toxic. So they're making the forgetting part of the forgiveness, the solution to things, when really is you're looking for accountability, real repair.

Depends on somebody, not only understanding what they did, but also taking responsibility for how they've harmed you. And then watch out for people who use spiritual or therapy speak as a form to really bypass what's [00:09:00] happening. Almost a sort of, it's a form of gaslighting where there will be a real conflict or of something that's wrong in this relationship or in this institution, and they'll treat your reaction as.

Evidence of you not being spiritual enough or you not trusting God enough, or you not working on your shadow side. I think that this person who wrote in about the tantric informed spaces, we often get into the place where there's spiritual bypassing. They'll say things like, you're not evolved enough to hold unconditional love, or you manifested your experience.

So really be careful when harm is reframed as your spiritual deficiency. So here are some rules to remember about empathy. Empathy without accountability is requesting you to abandon yourself, and you should never do that. Explanations don't equate permission, and you being empathic, caring person does not mean that that person has earned the right to have access to you.

And their sob story [00:10:00] is not a repair plan. They need to show true accountability and responsibility for what they've done and how they've harmed you. And if you're feeling confused, pressure, or guilty for having a boundary, something is off. You can understand how somebody can feel the way that they feel, but still have your answer be no.

Having boundaries is not showing a lack of empathy. It's showing self-protection. You can understand how someone feels the way that they feel, but you can still have your answer be no. So thank you so much for this letter and this question about empathy driven disorders and, and struggles. I deeply appreciate it.

And if you have a question you'd like to have me answer on air, please email it at clients@kerrymcelvoyphd.com. That's C-L-I-E-N-T s@kerrymcelvoyphd.com, or use the link that I've put in the show notes below, and I'd love to be able to take your biggest struggle and talk about it on air. So thank you so much for this trust.

I [00:11:00] deeply appreciate it.

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D.

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