Are we becoming more Performative and less Empathic?

Performative - what does that mean? We might be in effect performing to seek approval , to get people to notice us more . When the camera phones went from being outward focusing to reversible , we became the star of the show . The Main Character . But this takes us away from our selves . In Person Centered Counselling Carl Rogers developed the concept of the Congruent self - minimising the gap between a presented self and a more authentic internal known self .

I sense big societal shifts towards a more self centered way of being . Most people know instinctively that connection and particularly attuning and being attuned to are special human to human qualities . But might this be diminishing . The MIT technologist /psychotherapist Sherry Turckle has been writing about this for years and her statement about expecting more from technology and less from each other is prescient. I think as most people get to middle age they realize the little interactions and attunements here and there are what makes the world go round. But as I sit in a cafe writing this (I’m also fixated on a screen) I notice people focused like me on a screen . There is no feeling of connection and certainly not much opportunity for attunement .

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As a therapist I am aiming to put on foot into my clients world whilst retaining a foot in my own . My day is spent trying to attune to the client presentations in front of me . I notice younger clients saying that it is the ONLY time someone really pays attention to them over a significant period of time . This of course harks back to theories of attachment and bonding where the caregiver’s ability to attend to an infant is essential to healthy emotional development . We need to be seen in the true sense of the word.

But we are inserting technology into the gap , the screen physically and metaphorically is now a liminal space. Is this why division is also being played out in politics and between groups . The inability to attune means we cannot anymore put a foot into an others world .

What will happen if this continues? Unfortunately I do not have an answer . Therapy has developed of late more groups and subdivisions to try and offer commentary on empathy in politics and societies , but it is not an easy sell and can be dismissed as soft science.

To develop the original theme - if we become more performative then interactions become less attuned or feel less attuned - we feel short changed somehow . Interactions may feel transactional but miss that wordless feel of real connection.

A colleague mentions that a hospital visit involves lots of “metrics driven” conversations - go to this waiting room at this time , don’t ask for help here as we don’t cover that bit of your body . The staff are metrics driven because they are overwhelmed and need to follow exactly the roles they are given . But are people now becoming metrics driven in every day interactions. A result of this may be reducing empathy and that is a high price to pay .

Many people recognize that empathy seems to be dropping . They may report increased anger and hostility on the roads , at train stations and many public facing businesses have acceptable behavior statements that are displayed prominently.

An idea is to now really focus in early education on how to develop empathy with examples , and as children age offer an explanation and example of how attunement can help them develop in life.

Therapy is changing - many practitioners can see the creep of more protocol and solution directed models as opposed to allowing depth empathy and yes, attunement, the space to allow the client to feel really heard . AI robots will be offering therapy directly or via portals. The responses will be machine learned from the huge catalogue of therapist responses , but will the responses feel empathic . Whilst I may think this really matters, younger generations won’t have that same visceral aversion to robot programmed responses due a normalization of low empathy/attunement environments all around them.