Empathy and symptoms dimensions of patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

Two systems for empathy in obsessive-compulsive disorder: mentalizing and experience sharing

“…53,54 Regarding experiencesharing measures, OCD subjects did not differ from controls in the experience-sharing dimension (affective empathy) when other people expressed emotions with positive valence. Fontenelle et al 13 note that their OCD sample displayed greater levels of affective empathy. With the exception of the disgust emotion, in our study, the difficulty of these patients to empathize with the emotional experience of others was linked to sharing of emotions with negative valence.…”

“…9 The latter capacity allows one to understand and share the emotional states of others in reference to oneself and plays a critical role in social interaction, from bonding between mother and child to understanding others' feelings and subjective psychological states. [12][13][14][15] Empathy is a fundamental component of human nature across cultures. 14 The ability to empathize reflects an innate ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of other people.…”

“…Experience sharing is the tendency to take on, resonate with, or ''share'' the emotions of others, and it is often tied to a mechanism known as ''neural resonance.'' 10 Several neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, 13,20,21 autism spectrum disorders, 11,[22][23][24][25] psychopathy, 26 brain injury, 27 and frontotemporal lobe degeneration, 28 feature different subprocesses of empathy deficits. 13 Accordingly, assessment of the recognition and processing of emotion in individuals with OCD would provide a more comprehensive evaluation of these subjects and could explain many social and interpersonal aspects of their disease.…”

“…29 Only two studies have researched the relationship between OCD and empathy. 13,30 In these studies, 13,30 the authors found that patients with OCD exhibited significantly higher levels of affective empathy (i.e., empathic concern and personal discomfort), as evaluated with the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI) as a measure of empathic ability. Jolliffe & Farrington 31,32 highlighted at least two serious limitations of the IRI: the first is that empathy is confused with sympathy, a distinct, albeit closely linked construct.…”

Empathie: neurowissenschaftliche Grundlagen, klinische Implikationen und offene Fragestellungen

“…Folglich überschneiden sich im ACC die bei Zwang und Empathie involvierten neuronalen Netzwerke. Eine erste Studie, die Zwangspatienten mit gesunden Kontrollen verglich, fand eine signifikant höhere Ausprägung der emotionalen Empathiekomponente und des persönlichen Stresserlebens bei Menschen mit Zwangsstörungen [Fontenelle et al, 2009].…”