Compassion, being a grandparent etc

Back from staying with psychoanalytic friends in London for New Year.  Interesting discussion stimulated by the review of a new book by a mutual friend Karen Armstrong about compassion.  Compassion doesn’t feature much in the psychoanalytic literature, especially as compared with ’third wave’ CBT – Paul Gilbert and others write a lot about compassion – towards self and others, and I suspect Armstrong has drawn on their work.  Compassion is implicit rather than explicit in psychoanalytic thinking perhaps – the idea of the modified superego – less harsh, more accepting of one’s faults and vulnerabilities – would be an outcome objective for many psychoanalysts, dating back to Strachey and beyond.  But compassion implies a moral stance which most analysts,  wanting to preserve neutrality,  would eschew.

Where do compassion, empathy and kindness stand in relation to each other?  Compassion could be seen as a rather distancing, patronizing , hands-off emotion.  Dickens’ Mrs Jellaby was compassionate – towards starving Africans, but utterly unempathic in relation to her own children, ignored and suffering under her nose.  Is the distinction between empathy – feeling ‘in/into’ another different from compassion – feeling ‘with’ but not necessarily accurately trying to understand what they are going through?  Empathy is a continuous process,   relevant only to suffering in the sense that all emotions are ‘suffered’, while compassion relates specifically to pain (mental or physical) and unhappiness. 

I am not sure that I want my analyst to be compassionate,  which smacks to some extent of control – but I know I want him/her to be empathic – to want to know and explore how I might be feeling.  Where does kindness fit in?  Kindness seems to relate to generosity of spirit, and also a propensity not to judge,  always to think in a forgiving way.  But I don’t want my analyst to be too kind – she/he needs to be able to be tough,  to challenge,  and not let me get away with self-and other-deceptions.  My kind analyst will pick me up on these things but won’t make me feel bad about them.  Perhaps it is a bit like the current coalition campaign based on ‘nudging’ rather than proscription and prescription, on banning and banishing.  That’s certainly what my wife says to me when I criticize her – if I don’t do it affectionately it simply makes her feel bad and want to defend herself and counter-attack.

Another interesting discussion was about the role of grandparents – which we all were.  My friend Robert described this as a ‘secondary role’ – and I think he’s right.  But still an important one – evolution has ensured that grandparents, post their reproductive role, have an extended adulthood paralleling their grandchildrens’  prolonged (by other species standards) childhood.  We grandparents are there as backups when things go wrong – one thinks of Aids orphans in Arica (back to Mrs Jellaby!) being looked after by their grandparents.  Another aspect is as a secondary resource source – whether this be grubbing for roots in near-starvation conditions, or helping pay for University fees, as no doubt we will increasingly be asked to do as the era of free tertiary education comes to an end in the UK.  The same might apply too of psychotherapy fees!