The double-edged sword: The role of empathy in military veterans’ partners distress.

Dekel, Rachel; Siegel, Alana; Fridkin, Shimon; Svetlitzky, Vlad

doi:10.1037/tra0000265

Cited by 16 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Similarly, much as empathy buffers caregivers of older adults from worse relationship functioning (Lee, Brennan, & Daly, 2001), partners’ empathy may enable them to sustain higher levels of relationship satisfaction in spite of stress caused by PTSD symptoms. On the other hand, partners high in empathy may experience greater psychological distress when survivors are highly distressed, which could lead to worsened relationship functioning (e.g., Dekel, Siegel, Fridkin, & Svetlitzky, 2018). Also, partners’ prior experiences with mental illness (e.g., in family members) may make partners more understanding, or may contribute to greater stigmatization of mental illness.…”

Section: Contextual Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Posttraumatic stress disorder and relationship functioning: A comprehensive review and organizational framework

Campbell

Renshaw

2018

Clinical Psychology Review

100

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with impairments in relationship functioning. Beyond the abundance of research that has demonstrated this basic link, more recent research has begun to explore possible mediators and moderators of this association. The present paper reviews and synthesizes existing literature in the context of an overarching organizational framework of potential ways in which PTSD impacts relationship functioning. The framework organizes findings in terms of specific elements of PTSD and comorbid conditions, mediators (factors that are posited to explain or account for the association), and moderators (factors that are posited to alter the strength of the association). Specific symptoms of PTSD, comorbid symptoms, and many of the potential mediators explored have extensive overlap, raising questions of possible tautology and redundancy in findings. Some findings suggest that non-specific symptoms, such as depression or anger, account for more variance in relationship impairments than trauma-specific symptoms, such as re-experiencing. Moderators, which are characterized as individual, relational, or environmental in nature, have been the subject of far less research in comparison to other factors. Recommendations for future research and clinical implications of the findings reviewed are also presented.

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Section: Contextual Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Posttraumatic stress disorder and relationship functioning: A comprehensive review and organizational framework

Campbell

Renshaw

2018

Clinical Psychology Review

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Maloney () suggested that the process of secondary traumatization involves family members overempathizing with the primary trauma survivor and their experiences, so much so that they begin to internalize the individual's feelings, memories, and beliefs as their own (Nelson‐Goff & Smith, ; Dekel & Monson, ). The potential for affective empathy to act as a risk factor for increased psychological distress in female partners of veterans has been reported (Dekel, Siegel, Fridkin, & Svetlitzky, ). An alternative mechanism is that indirect exposure to the traumatic event, for example, by the veteran talking in detail about what happened, can result in the partner developing their own stress reaction.…”

Section: Communication and Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

“I'm Still Fighting for the Two of Us”: How Partners of UK Veterans Construct Their Experience of Living with Combat‐Related Trauma

Doncaster

Hiskey

McPherson

et al. 2018

J Marital Family Therapy

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There has been little qualitative research into the experiences of UK partners of veterans with PTSD. This study therefore aimed to explore how partners constructed their experiences of living with the condition. Fifteen female partners of male UK veterans were recruited and interviewed. Using a social constructionist thematic analysis, five themes were constructed: the women's need to subdue own emotional and behavioral responses; dilemmas about whether the veteran was unwell or 'bad'; attempts at negotiating multiple roles; challenging the narrative of veterans as heroes; and the relational struggle with the transition to nonmilitary life. This study highlighted the importance of considering the veteran as existing within a relational and cultural context, and the need to include partners in therapeutic interventions.

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“…An interesting transdiagnostic phenomenon that arises from our analysis has to do with the duality of interpersonal closeness as a process that potentially entails both positive and negative outcomes. In the words of Dekel and colleagues [ 47 ], one’s attunement and empathy towards others may serve as a “double-edged sword”. On one hand, closeness and support have been shown to serve as resilience factors in a variety of psychopathologies [ 129 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to this view, there are several types of empathy, with each potentially leading to different psychological outcomes in the face of secondary exposure to trauma. For example, Dekel and colleagues [ 47 ] have differentiated between the cognitive, and possibly more positive aspects of empathy, and its more emotional aspects, which may be associated with secondary psychopathology.…”

Section: Symptom Contagion In Four Psychiatric Disordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contagion of Psychopathology across Different Psychiatric Disorders: A Comparative Theoretical Analysis

2021

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Psychopathology is often studied and treated from an individual-centered approach. However, studies have shown that psychological distress is often best understood from a contextual, environmental perspective. This paper explores the literature on emotional contagion and symptom transmission in psychopathology, i.e., the complex ways in which one person’s psychological distress may yield symptoms among others in his/her close environment. We argue that emotions, cognitions, and behaviors often do not stay within the borders of the individual, but rather represent intricate dynamic experiences that are shared by individuals, as well as transmitted between them. While this claim was comprehensively studied in the context of some disorders (e.g., secondary traumatization and the “mimicking” of symptoms among those close to a trauma survivor), it was very scarcely examined in the context of others. We aim to bridge this gap in knowledge by examining the literature on symptom transmission across four distinct psychiatric disorders: PTSD, major depression, OCD, and psychosis. We first review the literature on emotional contagion in each disorder separately, and then we subsequently conduct a comparative analysis highlighting the shared and differential mechanisms underlying these processes in all four disorders. In this era of transdiagnostic conceptualizations of psychopathology, such an examination is timely, and it may carry important clinical implications.

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The double-edged sword: The role of empathy in military veterans’ partners distress.

Abstract: Findings support the theory that although higher empathy can play a positive role in military couples in which the male partner displays symptoms of PTSS symptoms, it can also contribute negatively to her distress. (PsycINFO Database Record

Cited by 16 publications

References 59 publications

Posttraumatic stress disorder and relationship functioning: A comprehensive review and organizational framework

Posttraumatic stress disorder and relationship functioning: A comprehensive review and organizational framework

“I'm Still Fighting for the Two of Us”: How Partners of UK Veterans Construct Their Experience of Living with Combat‐Related Trauma

The Contagion of Psychopathology across Different Psychiatric Disorders: A Comparative Theoretical Analysis

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