The simple answer to this is a plain, emphatic, resounding NO!!!
If anything people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are the most outstanding at empathy of all people, why?
Because when you feel emotions amplified at least 10x as strongly as ‘normal’ people, with an intensity one can only liken to being hit by a high speed train (and switching for one emotion to another with the same degree of force on a hairtrigger) who is better placed to understand what someone else feels?
Empathy is defined as:
the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
Empathy and BPD – The falsehoods
There is a heap of misleading, unfair literature out there that suggests that ‘borderlines’ are incapable of feeling empathy (along with people suffering various other conditions from autism to psycopathy) but one of the most famous examples, which is also the most nasty, damaging and stigmatising is the work of Simon Baron-Cohen (Professor, Expert in Autism & cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen aka Ali-G) in his book Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty.
First of all I would actively recommend against reading the book unless you want to be angered to the point you want to hunt this man down and show him who really lacks empathy – HIMSELF!
Baron-Cohen displays the most unempathic understanding of BPD throughout his section on the condition within the book, quite a feat for someone to write about the lack of empathy of others while clearly demonstrating his own inability to empathise! Examples of what Baron-Cohen has to say about people with BPD include:
Zero degrees of empathy does not strike at random in the population. There are at least three well-defined routes to getting to this end-point: borderline, psychopathic, and borderline personality disorders. I group these as zero-negative because they have nothing positive to recommend them. They are unequivocally bad for the sufferer and for those around them.
and
people with BPD are “evil”, “zero-negative” and have “zero degrees of empathy” (similar to the Nazis).
Dorothy Rowe (clinical psychologist and writer, and an expert on research into the biological basis of mental disorder) wrote in the Guardian review of Zero Degrees of Empathy:
In Baron-Cohen’s section on borderline personality disorder I counted 19 uses of the words “borderline” or “borderlines” as a noun, in sentences such as “Borderlines are very manipulative”.
Clearly this is a book to avoid, likening BP’s to nazi’s, describing BPs as ‘evil’ and having zero empathy it is a horrific example of Baron-Cohen’s own inability to empathise!
I say to Baron-Cohen – stick to what you know, Autism, you have done some outstanding work with this condition but you clearly don’t know BPD – maybe you should spend some time with Marsh Linehan if you want to know about BPD. But until you have done that stay the HELL away from borderlines, we don’t need unempathic, dangerous people like you in our lives!
Baron-Cohen is not alone though in his belief that Borderline’s lack empathy, there are many examples on the internet alone Shari Schreiber claims she can…
…save you years in therapy.
by reading articles on her website about Borderline Personality Disorder – yet all her work there is ignorant, ill-informed and damaging for those with BPD and anyone looking to support someone with BPD. at first glance even a BP will recognise some of the traits she describes but these glimpses of the truth are in murky waters, littered with scaremongering, misinformation and outright untruths! for example:
They are lacking in empathy and impulse control, which allows these violent acts to happen, and our prison system houses many Borderlines who’ve killed in a fit of rage.
Now let’s pick that apart…
lacking in empathy – untrue 100% misinformation
impulse control – true but not in this context, BP’s do have issues with impulsivity but this is 9as the DSM-IV criteria states) in “areas that are SELF - damaging”
Violent acts happen – Violent acts can happen with ANYONE BP or non BP, mental health issues or no mental health issues…
Prison system houses ‘many’ Borderline’s – Well to be fair I don’t have access to figures, but I am pretty certain they do not represent a higher proportion of the population than non-BP’s…
killed in a fit of rage – while not impossible (as for any other person) this is again misleading – proof please!?
This woman fails to provide sources for her ‘claims’ and if based on her own ‘professional’ experiences of BPD then she clearly has very little of this – meeting one very severely damaged person with BPD does not give you enough information to make sweeping generalizations about all people with BPD. Another example of someone that needs to spend some time with Marsha Linehan!
Empathy and BPD – The reality
In a response to the release of Baron-Cohen’s Zero degrees book one article by the Neurocritic provides the following evidence of how he got it wrong about Borderlines:
One study showed that individuals with BPD are actually better than controls on a test of empathy designed by Baron-Cohen himself (Fertuck et al., 2009). That would be the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), “a measure of the capacity to discriminate the mental state of others from expressions in the eye region of the face.” The study showed that:
The BPD group performed significantly better than the HC group on the RMET, particularly for the Total Score and Neutral emotional valences. Effect sizes were in the large range for the Total Score and for Neutral RMET performance. The results could not be accounted for by demographics, co-occurring Axis I or II conditions, medication status, abuse history, or emotional state. However, depression severity partially mediated the relationship between RMET and BPD status.
Marsha Linehan and other BPD experts have been quoted as saying things such as:
Some people with BPD may have an unusually high degree of interpersonal sensitivity, insight and empathy
A Borderline can often be empathic to a fault, taxing his or her strength and putting others before him or herself until it becomes health-threatening.
I’m going to finish with sharing my own experience, being a person who has BPD I have numerous examples of my own displays of EMPATHY that show I am far more demonstrative in this area than most people.
- I can tell if someone is upset even if they don’t say anything
- I get emotionally involved with things I see (films etc) or read (books etc) and will often cry or get angry at things happening in these
- I like to help and care for other people
- I am highly sensitive to the feelings of others and work hard to avoid upsetting people – no matter the cost to myself!
Okay, so I could go on forever with this list, a simpler demonstration may be to use Baron-Cohen’s own tests… Both of these tests were designed by Baron-Cohen to assess empathy skills.
The Empathy Quotient Test by Simon Baron-Cohen
A test with 60 statements where you state how strongly you agree or disagree with each. Your score indicates your ability to empathise:
0 – 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 – 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 – 63 is above average
64 – 80 is very high
80 is maximum
My score was 58, which means by Baron-Cohen’s own example I have ‘above average’ empathy skills
Reading the Mind in the Eyes – By Simon Baron-Cohen
“a measure of the capacity to discriminate the mental state of others from expressions in the eye region of the face.” In this test for each pair of eyes, choose which word best describes what the person in the picture is thinking or feeling.
A typical score is in the range 22-30.
If you scored over 30, you are very accurate at decoding a person’s facial expressions around their eyes.
A score under 22 indicates you find this quite difficult.
My score was 30, top end of the ‘normal’ range.
So by Baron-Cohen’s own assessment methods, me – a BPD has a high level of empathy, but I could have told you that without the tests…
Why not take the tests yourself and share your scores in the comments and whether you have BPD or not!?
Related articles
- Impulsivity and Borderline Personality Disorder (showard76.wordpress.com)
- Boredom and Borderline Personality Disorder (showard76.wordpress.com)
- Anger and Borderline Personality Disorder (showard76.wordpress.com)
- Help! I’ve just been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder… A reference list (showard76.wordpress.com)
- Splitting – Unstable Relationships in Borderline Personality Disorder (showard76.wordpress.com)
Eye contact my score was 14 and the empathy my score was average (44) and I have BPD. I am sick of seeing negative things about BPD so I try and avoid at all costs. Drives me mad seeing all this crap … My nephew has Aspergers and HE has no empathy or social skills or anything of that nature.
Baron-Cohen is an idiot as far as BPD is concerned. I won’t be reading his book. he is lucky I live in Australia.
I know how you feel! You would think someone like Baron-Cohen would know better than to unfairly label people in his line of work – just another element of proof of the fact that even the ‘professionals’ dislike those with BPD. My son ha Aspergers too and I can see how much he lacks empathy and social skills, but even there they are not completely missing as Baron-Cohen suggests, just very reduced!
I had hoped that we were moving away from the culture of kicking people who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I haven’t read this book, indeed I wasn’t aware of it until I read your post but your description doesn’t exactly inspire me to rush out and buy it.
Cheers,
Stuart
I don’t think we are any where near removing the stigma around BPD yet – the only people who don’t judge us are those who have no idea what it is in the first place!
I can relate to the capacity for empathy and emotional range, and with the problems with perceptions with in the realms of mental health. There is a misnomer for something among every group where common cultural understanding is disconnected from clinical realities. It’s something I have had to explain to people before about level of empathy. Mind you in my case there is an expectation of sensitivity but even in that people misread this. Some of it, and I am sure you’d agree, are just egregious stereotypes, and others are in my opinion thing which are “common sense” in the way they are coined, but are actually false unquestioned forms of intuition. Conditioned predispositions towards the way we interpret our intuitions.
It’s the same reason why dealing with people to who I have to ‘explain’ who and what I am too, also produces misunderstanding by disjointing stereotypes. Being me means people disjoint me both from their understanding of woman, and from the understanding of men. It’s part of the “Othering Concept” in which people automatically associate one difference with many. Example: I am normal and you have BPD. I am normal and have empathy, you are BPD and you do not have empathy. I am normal, have empathy, and am sociable, you are BPD and not empathic or sociable. It’s a false dilemma also known as a false dichotomy.
It’s a common problem in our culture were people attempt to draw clear lines of distinctions into two categories where there is shades of gray, moreover a multicolored canvas on which traits are painted. It’s intellectual laziness that leads to this inability; more so, the lack of desire to differentiate without painting people with a wide brush. It’s easier to stereotype, than it is to treat each person as an individual who varies in many degrees. It’s created in our culture, media, mentalities, and in our biases as a society. When people meet me, and learn about who I am, they automatically apply stereotypes that are largely untrue to who I am. This same principle can however, often effect science mainly psychology, because the principles and ideas are much more abstract, less concrete.
I have recently been noticing a trend of such divisive dichotomies through out our culture, something I call Binaryism – or the tendency to attempt to divide concepts, ideas, people, groups, or principles into dichotomies (meaning two groups, us verses them, black and white, man and woman, up and down). However, many things in reality are inadequately defined by such methods, (most things I’d argue), and the tendencies to do so are undermining to understanding, marginalizing, and over simplified. It’s a popular political tool, as well as a divisive one. This is how I rationalize and understand why, especially in psychology, that such false assertions exist. I scored 64 on the empathy test, and 28 on the eye test. Good tests, and great blog.
I am very much like you in terms of empathic behavior, and your very own descriptions of empathy in your experiences. All I hope is that one day the pathologizing tendencies of the Psychological Establishment start testing their own intuitions rather than making baseless and harmful assertions about people, specifically those who would be patients. In the end, we all know what they say about assumptions
haha so very true! how funny it is that the world seems to be making itself BPD with its ohh so black and white thinking, while trying to convince us (BP’s) that we must ‘see’ the grey!
Defined by those who issue the labels we must be either ‘this’ or ‘that’ in society, anything else and we are screwed! Maybe the wrong people are being labelled mentally ill – maybe we are the ones who actually have it right, it’s the rest of the world that don’t have a clue!?
You may be right. In a world so crazy perhaps those considered crazy are the sane ones. Talking about flipping it on it’s head. One day I hope we create a culture dedicated to culturing understanding, rather than one size fits all diagnostics. It really is about laziness and industrialization, because in a mechanized society no one has time to be an individual, much less individualize others. It certainly is a cultural issue that is far more widespread for sure. Funny thing about psychology is that guts and gore in movies and gasp at violence because it upset people, now entire generations of people laugh at violence even post it to YouTube. I’d say there is a high probability that many things coined “Mental Illness/Disordered” are completely resultant of our culture.
So perhaps it is our culture that should be evaluated instead of us, or at the very least an evaluation of both. I’d say the most problematic issue within this concept is mental disorder via non-conformity. There are many things that are codified as mental disorders because they don’t “Conform” to societal perceptions and norms. This mentality takes away from individualized care because it places emphasis on meeting social standards that are erratic, vary form place to place, and change dramatically with time. The function of getting and receiving therapy or psychological counseling should be for that person to function on a self-identified level, not on a social guideline or at least that is how I feel.
I think books about future dystopian societies have a much better chance of becoming reality than those that feature utopia – the world is just getting worse. As nice as it would be I think hopes for a future of understanding and consideration are the pipe dreams
Interesting read. Thanks for new info to me.
Thank you Shawn
Before I get into /rant mode/ let me congratulate you on the award from your ROW80 check-in (it fits, you ARE very versatile, Sharon). The goals thing? First week after the winter holidays… Life… You’re doing grand (actually you’re doing amazing!) >HUGS<
Now about the actual post here… WARNING this is a bit of a rant.
Aspie (high functioning) here (who married a man who probably is an Aspie, and who has a son who is also a HF Aspie), Sharon. I like Sacha Baran-Cohen's humor (in small doses), but his cousin clearly needs to pay better attention to his work and his "so called" specialty.
I never noticed a lack of "feeling" or empathy in people with BPD or AS disorders. I usually saw people who felt so much, people who noticed so much and were just frustrated by far that others not only seemed unable to see all the other things going on in the world around them, but seemed to not WANT to see.
small example:
talking with a person who does missionary work about American poverty…
- said person got upset because I was "trivializing the real poverty in the world" (places such as India and Africa) because "no one in the US *had* to go without food (some do, but I'm not debating it now).
- I tried to point out that just because there were people in worse straights didn't mean that the people here who were suffering *weren't* suffering; they *were*
- long and short of several times trying to explain this and provide examples ended up with others chiming in about how "insensitive" I was being
Anyway out of curiosity I followed the test links and received these results:
Empathy Quotient: 31 (granted, this as someone who has spent the last 20 plus years trying to relearn how to deal with people and had to attend counseling and therapy for social issues for even longer)
Mind in the Eyes: 21 (which didn't surprise me, given the pictures; a static image often confuses me…I have to work out a series of expressions to make such judgements)
The whole point here? These blanket definitions and little boxes "experts" try to squeeze people in are just those…
– blankets to cover up all the defining differences
– little boxes to pack away and not deal with correctly
At least that's what it seems to me.
Thank you for the congrats
I agree, Baron-Cohen’s study of empathy has not been fair to anyone! My son is a HF Aspie and I do notice that he is lacking in empathy, but it isn’t entirely missing as B-C suggests, just reduced. Overall I don’t think there are many people in the world that would actually fit in B-C’s ‘zero’ category for empathy. I was reading a blog post about a psychopath the other day who demonstrated a huge display of empathy when so called ‘normal’ people (including health care workers) ignored the plight of someone (a colleague of the health-workers) who needed help, the psychopath recognised and empathised with the situation the worker was in and helped – shocking the worker as the psychopath would not normally leave his chair for anything at all!
I have BPD and scored 55 on the empathy quotient and 25 in reading the mind in the eyes. I recently wrote down my own thoughts about empathy in my blog (but lacked motivation to look at the evidence other than noticing that studies tended to contradict each other.) I hate the negative perceptions that exist about BPD.
Good scores
Yeah the negative perceptions of BPD upset me too
I got 65 on the empathy quotient and 28 in the reading the mind in the eyes.
Great scores
May I suggest a further resource to learn more about empathy and compassion.
The Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
The Culture of Empathy website is the largest internet portal for resources and information about the values of empathy and compassion. It contains articles, conferences, definitions, experts, history, interviews, videos, science and much more about empathy and compassion.
http://CultureOfEmpathy.com
Thank you Edwin
I believe BPD have empathy for other people, mostly ones with whom do not have emotional ties with, but lack of it when it comes to the people they have strong emotional ties with, i.e. spouses, partners, family….
Thank you for sharing that Enrique
I actually believe the opposite of Enrique. I scored 69 on the empathy quotient and 29 in the reading the mind in the eyes. I have very strong empathy towards the people closest to me, and less towards strangers and aquaintances. It is because I see how much some of the things I do upset them that I get upset at myself. I understand that I am the one being irrational, I see that I am hurting them, and then wind up hurting myself because I can’t stand how much I am hurting them.
I think I probably fall somewhere in the middle. I have a lot of empathy for people I am close too, but also empathise with things very distant from myself, including things that aren’t real, like characters in books and films (I can not watch ‘chick’ flicks because I get too emotionally involved with the characters! lol)
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31 (very accurate) on the reading the mind in the eyes.
47 (average) on the empathy quotient
Diagnosed with BPD 9 years ago, but hardly affected by it now.
I don’t think I would meet all the diagnostic criteria if I was assessed now.
So a lot of ‘experts’ are wrong on two counts. 1 that people with BPD have no empathy and 2 that they are untreatable.
I think a lot of ‘experts’ are wrong on even more than that! lol Glad to hear you are ‘recovered’ I hope to reach that point on day too
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