Empathy feels noble, but what if it also makes us blind? In the last episode of the Empathy series, I looked at how unchanneled empathy can damage the brain and the body. Today we're turning to the mind, because empathy doesn't just live in emotion, it lives in cognition. And when it goes unchecked, it becomes a mental shortcut that tells us we're good simply because we feel it. It can distort how we think, how we define ourselves, and how we relate to others. In this episode of the Untangled Mind podcast, we'll unpack empathy as a cognitive trap, a pattern that feels virtuous but reinforces biases, avoidance, and self-deception. We'll talk about the science behind it, how to recognize when you're caught in someone else's emotional raising, and how to climb the ladder out toward regulation, perspective, and real compassion. This is episode three of the empathy series of the Untangled Mind Podcast. Hey, hey there. Thank you so much for joining me. So today we're going to start looking again more deeply at empathy and from a different angle. So today we're going to look at it from the cognitive one. So if you're just now joining, this is our third installment in the empathy series. So today we're going to talk about how empathy doesn't just live in our heart or our body. It actually lives in our mind. And when it goes unchecked, it really does shape how we interpret our world and how we define ourselves and how we make meaning of pain. So this episode is really about empathy as a cognitive trap. So it's a mental shortcut, I feel, that shortcuts, it's a mental shortcut about how we feel more morally or however it shows up, right? And but often it does keep us in these distortions and often in avoidance. So I do see often in today's society, I see it with some clients that come in, I see it with a lot of clinicians, that empathy is used really as a mental shortcut. So in cognitive psychology, we use the term heuristic. I've talked about this before. One of the best books that you can read on heuristics is Thinking Fast and Slow by Caneman. It's pretty meaty, so take your time with it. It's a fabulous book, though. But really a term that he uses in there quite often is heuristic. And so this describes a shortcut that our mind takes to simplify decision making. Everybody does this, okay? This is not, you know, I don't have heuristics or I have the better heuristics. I don't want this to become another tool to show um moral goodness because this is happening a lot. Heuristic is something that everybody's mind does to simplify decision making, and it just kind of decides if it wants to remember something or not. So heuristics can actually help us to conserve mental energy, but but because they're shortcuts, they're really prone to error. So what I think is that what we're seeing is that empathy often functions as one of those shortcuts, and it's the heuristic of like a moral reassurance. So for example, it's if I feel others' pain, therefore I'm good. If I suffer, suffer with them, then therefore I am virtuous. Now, also if you hear how I am saying this, what do you also hear? You hear an if-then statement, which directly relates to cognitive distortion. So, all that to be said, that this belief, this shortcut, this heuristic of moral reassurance, this belief really feels true because it provides moral identity. Do you see that? But it really bypasses that deeper cognitive process. So, like the analyses, accountability, discernment. So, what it does is it reduces moral worth to emotional resonance. Do you see how this happens? So, this heuristic, the shortcut that the mind takes, it's like, nope, we're gonna cut this down to this really small thing, and I'm gonna make it my moral identity. And so that's what is really um something we need to be aware of as empathy as a cognitive trap. And then when that happens, actually, empathy becomes less about understanding others and it becomes more about protecting how we see ourselves. It does. So this induces that distorted thinking and it encourages what I call the empathy loop. So let's kind of unpack how this shows up cognitively. So in CBT terms, empathy, it often aligns with several key cognitive distortions. Number one, emotional reasoning, which is um because I feel this, you know, I'm an empath, it must be true. Okay. Then there's personalization where an individual might say something like, their pain is my responsibility. Um, you could see catastrophization with this. So if I don't feel deeply, I'm there for heartless, right? Um, or there's labeling, I'm a bad person if I can't fix them. So we hear this maybe not so much in exactly these words, and maybe we don't think these things to ourselves exactly, but I'm willing to bet if you step out of this loop, you would hear at least one or several of these distortions. So again, this is what I think happens. These distortions create what I call that empathy loop. So the loop is number one, you perceive somebody's distress, right? Number two, you interpret their feeling their that you're feeling their pain as a proof of your goodness. Number three, that feeling becomes reinforced and it gives you purpose and moral relief. And then four, when it overwhelms you, you interpret your exhaustion as further proof of your virtue. I care, so that's why I'm so depleted. And you see this a lot in my field. So that loop doesn't even resolve pain, it actually perpetuates it. So if you think about it, if your therapist is stuck in this empathy loop, they're essentially saying, because I'm so depleted, because I'm just feeling with you the whole time, it just shows that I'm so amazing. But what it does for the client is it perpetuates your pain. So empathy in this form actually becomes self-reinforcing suffering. Right? Do you see that? It's a pattern that totally looks altruistic on the surface, but it's actually very self-centered at its core. Right? That's not fun to think about, but it's true. It's true. So I want to give you like a little client vignette. So um there's a therapist, a mentee of mine, I'll call her Elle. Um, so she came to our time together. I love meant being a mentor. It's one of the greatest gifts I have. It was one of those things when I was um all through my years of school, I was just desperate for uh a mentor. And it's very hard to find. And I finally adopted one about two years into my master's degree. Um, I call him my my um Mr. Miyagi. He's so good. He has me waxing on and waxing off all the time. But I I mean, I just it took me so many years of my life to finally find this mentor. So I love stepping into the mentor position. I've um created curriculum for my mentees um to help them kind of expand what they've learned in school so that they're really prepared with developed skills above and beyond their initial schooling and so that they really shine when they go into these new environments, not just as some like green um clinician, like they're really going to shine. So, all that to be said, she came into one of our sessions um together and she was describing that she had this really intense anxiety after all of our sessions, and she's like, I just I'm having such a hard time not thinking about my clients, and I'm starting to like dream about them and their pain, and I'm really terrified that I'm going to fail them. So the first thing I said to her is like, I totally get it. This was how it was for me in the beginning as well. This is very common. You hear this all the time with people like, I want to go into counseling because I really love people. And I say, that's extraordinary, but that is your starting point. Because if you stay there, you're gonna be stuck in this trap. So what I asked her, um, I said to her, okay, well, what do those thoughts actually mean to you? You know, she's saying, you know, I just keep thinking about them and I dream about their pain and I'm terrified that I'm gonna fail. I'm like, okay, I hear you, and I get that. So let's step out of that kind of anxious thought. And what do those thoughts mean to you? She says, Well, I think that what it really says is that I care and it means that I'm a good therapist. Do you hear that? So her empathy had therefore become her identity. This is so, so, so common in the um therapeutic field. Okay. So her distress that she was feeling was therefore her proof of virtue. But cognitively, right, what was happening was this fusion of her self-worth and it was contingent on others feeling and suffering. Ugh. Say hear that her her fusion was her self-worth was contingent on somebody else's suffering. So when we unpacked that, she realized she wasn't helping clients through empathy, she was helping herself feel significant through their suffering. Ugh, I mean, ouch. Can you hear that? That is not a fun thing to unpack. That is not a fun thing to recognize, but it is absolutely key in this per profession. Because again, like I've been saying, this is really self-serving when all you do is say you're empathic. It's it is really self-serving. Um, it's not the place to say that's the trap. So empathy has stopped being relational. This is what I believe that we're seeing. Empathy has stopped being relational and it's become self-referential. Oh, I know I hate saying that out loud, but it's true. So I want to talk about empathy in the ego. So often what we see is um, you know, empathy masquerades around a selflessness, right? We're talking about that. But when we examine it through the cognitive lens, it does really become an ego function. So what I'm saying is by feeling others' pain, then we secure our place as the caring one, right? The moral one, the good one. And the mind then converts that emotional resonance into identity capital. That's that heuristic popping in again. So the mind converts that emotional resonance, I feel you, into identity capital. I am an empath. How many times have you heard people say that? So the problem is once empathy becomes identity, we really stop questioning the utility of it. It just feels like inherently right. You know, that's why counseling, medicine, um, and even activism, empathy is rarely scrutinized. It's just shielded by this like moral absolution. So we really have to start questioning is empathy really helping me here? Is it even helping, well, I shouldn't say helping me here because we know it is helping you, but is it really helping the individual that I I'm declaring I feel for? But again, like any any unchecked um cognitive pattern, it becomes a distorted reality. Oh my gosh, speaking of that, had a conversation on social media and a my uh a human being on there came up with it. Perception is reality. I just I can't get into that with people. Um, and he kept kind of chewing at me about this. Well, then what is reality? And it's like, listen, yes, I understand the sentiment behind, you know, perception is reality, but there is reality, and there is distorted reality based on what our mind does by these cognitive traps, these cognitive loops, these heuristics, these biases, everybody falls prey to them. So many people say, I am just so aware of everything I do and I say, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they say things, I'm like, you are not seeing anything here. So again, it's we have to be aware of these unchecked cognitive patterns. Okay. So it what happens if we don't is that it makes us reactive, it makes us biased, and it really makes us blind to nuance, and it fuels, like I just said, confirmation bias. So, therefore, then what we do is we seek stories that validate our feelings rather than challenge them, right? And this is how empathy becomes a cognitive trap. So then what happens, we we and I touched on this a little bit last um podcast, is group cognition and empathy become this echo chamber. So when empathy becomes the primary currency of community, the cognition, the cognitive aspects deteriorate. So people synchronize not just emotionally but cognitively. So group identity forms around shared outrage, shared suffering, and shared virtue. Now, this is not always a bad thing. We see very effective groups like AA, and there's tons of research and evidence on the group aspect. There's something to be said about being in community. However, in these groups, you do need someone in a leadership position position that's able to, if they see this kind of group think happening, that they can say, let's kind of shift this. Because again, you get very stuck in in this uh synchrosity of emotional, uh, emotionality. It's dangerous. So, again, in psychology, we talked about this last time that this is known as like emotional contagion or groupthink, and it's that blending of individual cognition into collective emotion. So, from a neurobiological standpoint, what's happening is the amygdala and insula, the brain's kind of distress centers, what they do is they start firing collectively. Well, the prefrontal cortex, which governs our critical thought, impulse control, it goes quiet. So if you think about this, what happens in some of these groups is the group literally loses its executive function. And we see this time and time and time again. That's why emotionally charged groups are often very incapable of nuance or dialogue, because they operate in this shared heuristic of we feel, therefore we are right. And again, there's a lot of evidence for the beauty of group. There is 100%. I'm not saying groups bad, but you do need an individual or individuals that recognize when this kind of wave of groupthink goes over and there's this blending, and all of a sudden it's all emotive and there's no cognition involved. That's when they step in and reel it back. So empathy really does often become a feedback loop of moral certainty disconnected from cognitive regulation. And so when that happens, empathy no longer connects, it just divides. So in a recent exchange on social media, I was confronted by some of this. So some individuals really um engaged in this really wonderful communication and effective communication, and they challenged my thinking and others, but they did so in a really great way. Then others resorted to name-calling. I got name calling, I got some nasty emails because they felt personally attacked. But notice I said they. So a group formed based on a feeling of attack, which then created the shared virtue, which then created the shared outrage, and they completely shut down any logical engagement with articulated thought. And it happened on a social media post. It was wild. And so it is really no accident that burnout, outrage, and compassion fatigue really um follow closely behind with this because we're cognitively misusing empathy as signaling rather than channeling it to critical thought or meaningful change. We're misusing empathy. And so, empathy, when it's used in this way, hear this, when we use empathy in this way, it does not humanize, even though that's what you parade around and say, it homogenizes. So everyone feels, so no one thinks. Ever read 1984? We're seeing it today. You have to be aware of the misuse of empathy. You parade it around like you're humanizing individuals, but really you just are part of this homogenized group thing. So here's the um really fascinating part or standpoint from neuroscience. When we deliberately step back from an empathic flood, we are able, you know, like we do this through um the ability to regulate our breathing. Maybe we ground our body, maybe we reflect instead of reacting. What happens is that prefrontal cortex re-engages. That's what we need. Because if you just sit there and rub on that amygdala, you're not gonna get anywhere. So the prefrontal cortex, that's part of the brain that helps us integrate emotion with logic. Um, and it also allows you to ask those really important questions because is our logic logical? We get into that conversation, right? So, but we need to ask, start asking ourselves questions. What is my role here? Is this feeling helpful? And am I acting out of from compassion or from ego? Right? So it's really, really important for us to, you know, purposefully, we feel the flood of emotion, we feel that empathy to say, okay, I'm gonna regulate real quick, and then go through these questions. Because this is how we train in CBT. It's recognition, evaluation, then reframing. So the prefrontal cortex brings empathy in alignment with what's actually going on. So, what I say, what we need to do, and I've been saying this through the series, is that we need to utilize compassion as a cognitive recalibrator. So in episode two, we talked about the ladder, how empathy, sympathy, and compassion aren't interchangeable, but like this form of progressive rungs on a psychological and neurodevelopmental lab ladder. So at the bottom is empathy, and I think that's where people are stuck. That's just the entry point, though. It's where the mirror neurons engage, where we resonate with another's experience. It really is essential, but is also very raw. It's mostly limbic and it's mostly reactive. So the next rung up is sympathy. And sympathy adds a bit of distance and cognition to it. So it allows us to say, you know, I see your pain rather than I am your pain. So this is where the prefrontal cortex begins to re-engage here and it gives us a little perspective and it provides some boundaries. And then at the top is compassion, and that's the ultimate rung we want to climb to. So can't compassion is empathy that's been transformed through regulation and cognition. So what we've learned before in this series is it activates the brain's reward and motivation networks instead of the pain networks that that's all we sit in with empathy, and it channels that emotional resonance into purposeful action. So compassion is what happens when the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex finally start working together. They're feeling without flooding, they're carrying without collapse, they're acting without ego. That's what I'm talking about when we use compassion as recalibration. That's what I'm meaning. It's not just a feeling, it's the integration of emotion, perspective, and intention. It's a synthesis that makes empathy sustainable. So if there's clinicians listening, or any of you that are uh self-prescribed empath, you're the helper of the group, if you are burned out, listen to this. You haven't climbed the ladder yet. You cannot sustain solely on empathy. You cannot. It integrates emotion with intention. So it says, I recognize your suffering and I am motivated to act skillfully to help you, but not impulsively. You are not making wise, discerned decisions if you're acting only out of empathy. And so from a CBT lens, compassion really reframes emotional reasoning into constructive action. It interrupts the loop. It shifts it from I must feel to uh I must feel to care to I can care effectively by thinking clearly. Isn't that great? I must feel to care to I can care effectively by thinking clearly. This is why compassion is both emotional and cognitive maturity. It's the integration of the heart and that really smart prefrontal mind and that control. It is the antidote to empathic distortion, this empathic cognitive trap. So, what how do we break the empathy cognitive trap? That's really what we're thinking about, right, as you're listening. So, in practice, breaking the trap does require honesty. So, when clients or clinicians, like I said, really identify strongly as empaths, I would ask you, what does that identity give you? How does it serve you? And what might you lose if you stop defining yourself by others' pain? Notice my emphasis on you. These questions expose that moral heuristic underneath empathy. If I stop feeling, I stop being good, right? We gotta be aware of that. We have got to look at ourselves why we hold on to empathy so strongly. Because it's serving you. But this is what I want to say. I want to challenge you with this. What if goodness, right? We're talking about this moral feeling that we get with empathy. What if goodness isn't about the intensity of feeling? What if it's about the effectiveness of action? Do you hear me? That's where therapy can become transformative. When we um look at empathy and we say, hey, I don't need you as my identity. I really want to step up this ladder, climb up this ladder, because when we do that, when we say it's not about the intensity of what I'm feeling or what I'm feeling for you, it's about my effectiveness of action. We regain regain clarity, agency, and self-differentiation. That's awesome. That's what we want for ourselves and for other individuals. So let's be honest. Many of you listening probably aren't just aware of your own empathy loops, because we all have them. You're probably stuck inside someone else's. That's pretty common. Maybe it's a partner who lives in perpetual outrage and needs you to match their emotion to feel understood. Maybe it's a friend or family member who confuses their agreement with validation, or maybe it's a colleague, a therapist, or even a whole community defines belonging through shared distress. So when you're caught in another person's cognitive trap, you begin to feel the same distortion, that emotional reasoning or the personalization or the catastrophizing. Their lens becomes your own. So here's what to do. So number one, name the trap. So you need to use language, literally saying to yourself, I'm being pulled into somebody else's cognitive loop. What this does is your naming recruits that prefrontal cortex and it moves you from reaction into recognition. Number two, regulate before you respond. So obviously, if you're in this kind of trap with this individual, you're gonna feel dysregulated. So if your heart rate rises or you feel your body tightens, you need to pause. Slow your breathing, ground your feet until your physiology settles. So that way that you can access rational thought. Otherwise, you can't. So remember, you can't reason from your amygdala. If you're activated, if you feel those physiological reactions, you've activated the amygdala. The amygdala does not know how to reason. So you've got to regulate before respond. Number three, you need to do a reality check of the thought, a reality check of the thought, excuse me. So ask, is this my emotion or theirs? What evidence supports this belief? What outcome will feeding this emotion produce? So these questions, questions quickly shift you from that empathy fusion to cognitive clarity. Number four, reframe the role. Empathy often makes us believe our job is to rescue someone, and it's not. It's just not. Your role is to help regulate someone. We talked about this in the first uh part of the series where we talked about mirror neurons. So when you stay steady, you invite that other person's nervous system into your own and to your cognition to follow your own. So that's what uh co-regulation is. It's really, really wonderful. So this is when we reframe our role, that's called co-regulation at a cognitive level. It's fabulous. Number five, you need to redefine connection. So healthy connection is not shared collapse. Um, I have heard horror stories from a lot of different groups, you know, like AA or grief groups or whatever it may be. And people come out of it like I was really looking forward to it, and I thought it was going to be great and it was gonna be really wonderful to be about around people that were in the same situation as me. And then it was just utter collapse. Everybody's sobbing in the room, it's chaos. So that does happen. So, what we want to know, what we want to say is we need to redefine this as connection. Healthy connection is not shared collapse, it's about that shared regulation and that groundedness. So you can remain compassionate without absorbing distortions and you can stay connected without surrendering, surrendering to someone else's emotional reasoning. It's very important for us to highlight this. This is really where emotional intelligence needs that cognitive maturity. Some people say they're emotionally intelligent, but really all they do is just sit in their fields. They're not intelligent about emotion. So, what I'm talking about is that that fusion, I guess you could say, with this of emotional, actual emotional intelligence with cognitive maturity. So you're not abandoning that empathy at all, you're anchoring it, right? Because remember, empathy is just that first rung. So you lead with clarity rather than this groupthink or the contagion. So I really want to leave you with a few uh questions to sit with after our time today in this empathy series. So, number one, where has empathy become part of your identity rather than a skill? This is huge. If you overly identify with empathy, it becomes your moral badge. That's become your identity rather than a skill. So, where has that happened? Um, when you feel others' pain, do you think clearly or do you feel all consumed? Or do you just feel slightly consumed? Um, we are supposed to feel people's pain, but the whole point of this series is that we don't stay in empathy. But if you're consumed by it and you stay there, it's gonna hurt really bad all the time. Okay, next question What moral comfort do you gain from suffering with others? Right? I mean, let's be real. If you only live as an empath and you parade it around, you're selfishly getting what you need by others suffering. Yikes, right? And lastly, what would you change if you saw compassion, not empathy, as the higher calling? So these questions aren't meant to challenge um just your cognitive reflexes or your character, okay? Because true empathy, the kind that integrates thought, feeling, and action, actually requires just discipline, not just this, you know, indulgence in the feels. So empathy is a beautiful capacity. As I've been saying, I'm not demonizing empathy at all. I just think that you need to stop stopping there. But when it becomes a cognitive shortcut, like we've talked about heuristics, it's a way of write instead of thinking clearly. I'm just right rather than thinking clearly. And so it really does cease to serve us. The mind that relies only on empathy will confuse emotion for truth and connection for progress. So the mind that integrates, excuse me, empathy with cognition, however, can then discern, act, and build. The goal is not to eliminate empathy at all. It's to elevate it, it's to let it evolve from reflex to reason, from identity to instrument, from trap to tool. It's about climbing the ladder. So thanks again for joining me on this series. Next time, we will be discussing how we can turn empathy into ethics through discernment. That brings us to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for joining me. Hyperherence with the Untangled Mind Podcast. I hope you learned some tools that can equip you to untangle your mind and untangle your life. If you're curious about working with me for your anxiety or trauma, head on over to my website at untangledmind.net to connect with me. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review me on your podcast listening platform and share it with your friends and family. As always, thanks so much for listening to me. Piper Harris with the Untangled Mind Podcast. I'll talk with you next time.