Both sympathy and empathy are scripts

• Both sympathy and empathy are scripts by Don Nathanson, 3/23/97
  
  

Hi, Don. I was a little puzzled by what you said, so I did re-read and re-read and then again, re-read your scipt theory article. I loved your example about "new theory"---my brain simply balks at taking in new things by not understanding it, getting tired of it, or just wandering off somewhere. Quite paradoxical, I think, since I am so proud of my "open-mindedness!" Anyway, I think I got it.

I guess after getting THAT, perhaps the next step is to recognize that trying to make one "better than" the other is simply evidence of a larger script that might be called simply "good-bad," or maybe a subscript of the "good" pole called "better-worse."

In your final paragraph, you said,"Effective therapy must involve dense affect in a therapeutic context that guarantees safety to both participants, in scenes that may be repeated often enough or with enough intensity that the affect so triggered causes reorganization of the pre-existing affect management script." I knew that. But I must have read it twenty times before I knew that I knew it. That is what I do with clients---I call it, "going for the feelings." But it has been very difficult for me to explain to others (and to hold my own in conversations with strict cognitive-behaviorists) what I am doing or why. You have given me words for it. Thanks very much.

I like your article on the "Philadelphia System," and intend to spend a lot more time with it.

An aside on intimacy--an interesting thing happened in a couples session last week. They had been angrily blaming each other for all their problems for about 15 minutes when I stopped them and began talking about mutualizing and increasing positive affect and mutualizing and decreasing negative affect. They seemed mesmerized and when I stopped and asked if they could pinpoint a time when they had done either, they both paused for several minutes and almost simultaneously, both began to cry and hold hands. Twenty minutes from alienation to intimacy. Sounds like the title for Vick's book!!!

• Quick, Write that down! by Vick Kelly, 3/29/97
  • Write this down! by Margaret, 3/29/97