Empathy is a good thing? Oxytocin, too? Beware because each has a dark side (Stephanie West Allen)

A recent blog by Stephanie West Allen (quoting Dr. Jeff Schwartz) looked at whether empathy is always a good thing.

http://westallen.typepad.com/brains_on_purpose/2010/07/empathy-is-a-good...

Well, what’s the problem with that you might ask? Just this: there need be no particular emotion involved in that discernment. Empathy can be practiced very effectively in an entirely cold-blooded almost reptilian like way.

Think of the classic example of the highly skilled but unscrupulous used car salesman. As he assesses his “mark,” the poor sap standing in front of him needing a car but perhaps short on cash and sophistication, the shark like aspects of homo empathicus kick in: the salesman, using skills honed with thousands of previous suckers, starts assessing the emotional, educational, cognitive strengths and weaknesses of his potential patsy. He, in some very real sense gets to “know” him. If he’s really talented at his craft actually gets “inside” his mind. We all know the game, for we have all been on both sides of it in various ways all our lives. It’s a deep intrinsic part of the human experience.