Good Questions

• Shame and empathy & 'cold' violence by Laurel Downey, 6/4/97
  
  

Laurel, thanks for your list of very interesting items for exploration. New to Affect Theory myself, I hesitate to comment on most of your items of inquiry except to say that I have wondered too about the same issue you raise about the empathic wall--e.g., what it's role is in facilitating or interfering with intimacy. Your question about cold violence is also a great one, and I look forward to seeing what any of the senior students may have to say about it.

Actually it was I who posting the idea that sympathy, not empathy, is lacking is compulsively abusive persons. I find it interesting that Rich and now you (persons working a lot with the problem of abuse) have found this idea so illuminating. Don Nathanson prefers the term "mature empathy" as a type of empathy that includes caring for another. Rich then cleverly adopted the term "s/me" (sympathy/mature empathy) to allow for the possibility of either term until, I guess, it could be decided whether we were just using different language for the same idea or actually had a basic conceptual disagreement. So far as I can tell that has not been decided, at least not by me.

It is interesting to also learn of how things happen in Australia. Thanks for contributing. Glad to learn of another Tomkins fan.

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