As a child I clearly remember wondering if a strawberry tastes the same to me as it does to you? Can red really express the same hue as perceived by me as it would perceived by you? And how could I really ever know. Not to say that I have successfully abandoned the robustly simple philosophy of my youth, but perhaps it has evolved slightly.
Some decade of years later I find myself pursuing a career whose unspoken motto is “Therapy lacking empathy is futile.” Yet I have to admit that I find the relentless push towards a phenomenological understanding somewhat elusive.
Call me doubtful, psychotic and perhaps even a science-hater, but I still cling to the idea that each and every being on this earth is completely unique. If this is not true, then it’s safe to assume that God runs out of ideas. I can see the culturally-saturated Christians raising their eyebrows at my assumption that God is tremendously unlimited regarding the creation of each life and the creation of the cosmos. I simply cannot bring myself to place my confidence in a Devine being whose creativity expires.
This said, I continue to struggle with the concept that one soul can completely understand another. To give voice to the devil’s advocate inside me, I tend to agree with my profession that therapy void of empathy leaves you with nothing save cold psychoanalytical structure; a far cry from what most individuals actually need.
For years of my life I wept and mourned over the realization that that I was eternally misunderstood. My comfort, and healing no doubt, came solely from the passage “The man who loves God, is known by God.” Known by God; leaving me to believe that the full access to the comprehension of a human soul is restricted to Divine ability.
Yet perhaps, that Divine ability is imparted on some occasion. Yet regardless, my perspective will never look the same as yours. My failures, successes, experiences, struggles, abuses and beliefs equate to a constellation that has yet to be matched and mirrors none other.
Perhaps it’s the effort; the age old idea that “it’s the thought that matters.” Perhaps our world is so deficient of souls exerting the effort towards another to understand them that the most powerful psychological healing we know of to date is simply empathy.
As I slowly progress towards the seemly intangible goal of my education, I have struggled often to develop then substitute my concept for that of a globally accepted one; often with the simple inclusion of the Creator. So perhaps my personal motto should also differ slightly from that of my generational colleagues. Therapy without the effort of empathy is futile.
And for that matter, human relationship without the effort of empathy is futile.
