The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - Brené and Adam Grant on Empathy vs. Enmeshment

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

In the fourth episode of a special “Dare to Lead” series with Adam Grant, Brené and Adam explore the attack on empathy, the difference between cognitive empathy and affective empathy, and what separates empathy from enmeshment. Brené shares a personal story that led to a breakthrough around how to stay aligned with empathy and perspective taking instead of over-identifying and finding yourself in enmeshment — the feeling of not knowing where you end and someone else begins. They also discuss how living in an image-heavy world can affect the way we engage with empathy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I'm Brne Brown, and this is Darede Lead, and I am back with my good friend, Adam Grant, and we are digging into strong ground lessons on daring leadership, the tenacity of paradox, and the wisdom of the human spirit. Welcome back, Adam. Thanks, Bray. I've been thinking a ton about our last conversation, and the difficulty that so many people have finding empathy for others, which seems to have gotten worse in the last few years. What do you make of that? I mean, are we just really just going to go right here right now?

Like, we're just going to start right there. I love it. The attack on empathy is so interesting to me, especially, you know, there are kind of like far-right conservative churches that are saying actually practicing empathy as a sin. I read an article about it. What? Yeah.

And then I think Elon Musk said, that it was going to be the end of Western civilization, that empathy was the primary driver of the end of our civilization. Now, on the surface of things, you could make a very easy argument that folks who are using power over to lead, including occasional bouts of cruelty to make sure people really understand there's someone to be feared would not be a fan of empathy, right?

You would not want, you would not want us to turn on the television and empathize with immigrant families or LGBTQ community. You could understand that at a very primal level. But I think it's actually deeper than that. And this is a good conversation for us to have because it's not just, there are criticisms of empathy from, I guess you could say, both sides. of the aisle in some way. And for me, at one level, I think you've got people saying, and this is so, like, this is such smart McAvely in politics to me to say, you don't, you shouldn't feel bad. How dare people make you feel uncomfortable when you witness something? Like, that's not, that you shouldn't have to go through that. And then on the other,

other hand, you've got a school of people saying, no, wait, wait, wait, I'm not saying that. I think you should not only be moved by people's suffering, but you should move to help. And that's compassion. That's different than empathy. So what I, yeah, so what I'd like to say is for the people who want to get away with shit, by making sure that we don't feel and observe and have reactions to other people's suffering, I think my academic response would be fuck you. But for people who really want to engage in a serious debate about this,

I think we need to make the distinction between cognitive empathy and effective empathy. And that's where I think people don't understand what empathy is and what empathy isn't. And so I do believe that understanding the different types of things, empathy makes the argument much fuller. I think that's really important. I've been very persuaded by Paul Bloom's research on empathy versus compassion, which I think it really speaks to the cognitive affective difference. I think the affective part of empathy, the I feel your feelings, can be weaponized and misused. We know that it tends to be biased, right? That it's much easier to empathize with people who come from our own group and look like us. We know that a lot of people

suffer from empathic overload, that, and actually ironically then end up less kind and generous to others because they feel so much of other people suffering, they just have to escape or withdraw. And I think that that's obviously not healthy or sustainable. I think the cognitive part of empathy and I guess the behavioral part too, the action involved in compassion. I would love to see more of that in the world. I do not need to feel your feelings or know exactly what it's like to be in your shoes in order to care about your feelings

and want to alleviate your suffering. So this is so interesting. I will start here. Disagree with Paul Bloom. Ooh. Yeah. Interesting. Tell me more. I think empathy and compassion in my research, I think,

are very different things. And I think we actually need both. What I think we need, though, is I think we need cognitive empathy and compassion, not effective empathy. So I think this is the problem when we spend more time scrolling and less time reading, more time judging, less time learning. And so affective empathy is very related to burnout. It is also related to just kind of a numbing that I can, I've desensitized. myself. From really, without any of my cognitive awareness, I've desensitized myself to, I don't give a shit with intention. Like, it's just to feel what people feel is not a good idea. But it is not, it is a very specific type of empathy. There's another type of empathy, which is cognitive empathy, which I think is important and as important as compassion. which is, I'm thinking of Teresa Wiseman's scholarship on this. She's a UK scholar, comes out of nursing, studied empathy across every profession where people rely on connecting compassionately and with

empathy to patients, dentistry, medicine, psychiatry. And so cognitive empathy is the ability to listen and believe someone's experience, to listen, understand, and believe someone's experience even when it's different than your own. And I think that without it, I think compassion is almost bankrupt, to be honest with you, because I think compassion means to witness suffering and take action. But I don't think, I think the problem with empathy,

is when I see your struggle or you tell me your story, and it doesn't match my lived experience without cognitive empathy and some perspective-taking skills and some skills of staying out of judgment, I have a hard time believing that was your experience. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think cognitive empathy is critically important.

And for wholesale dismissal of empathy, I think you don't know what you're talking about. I think you've taken one strain of it and vilified it because it fits your compelling, provocative title of a book or an article that empathy is bad. That's what I think. Yeah. Yeah, you're throwing out the baby with bathwater there. Yeah. What's interesting about that, though, is what you outlined, I actually think it's, as I understand it,

Paul Bloom's argument, which is that affective empathy is where we get the double-edged sword. But that we need the cognitive understanding of, you know, I may not agree with you, but I get where you're coming from, and I think it's an understandable or reasonable position to hold. And the compassion of, yeah, I've seen your suffering and I want to do what I can to support you if I can't make it go away and I can't make you feel better, I can at least help you feel seen. that I would have loved some work from him that said cognitive empathy plus compassion is the way to go. Yeah. But we're not going to do that because we're going to underestimate the public's ability to understand, and it doesn't make for a great headline.

That's exactly the challenge here. Cognitive empathy and affective empathy already are more, they're a bit of a mouthful. I think, I don't know, I've wondered if we need a rebranding here of saying, let's just call the affective part empathy. Let's rename the cognitive part perspective taking and talk about how we need perspective taking and compassion. Hold on. Let me think through it. Pausing. I'm here, but I'm thinking. I need a wheels turning sound machine. Say it one more time. Tell me what your rebrand is. Yeah, I'm wondering if empathy is the affective part and we agree has some problems associated. with it. Do we stop trying to rescue cognitive empathy and just call it perspective-taking and say,

you don't need the empathy of feeling other people's feelings. What you do need is the perspective taking of understanding other people's feelings and the compassion of responding to them. I hear your argument, Honorable Adam Grant, and I... You don't want to lose the word empathy, do you? And I disagree. Let's call this. Let's call affective empathy in meshment. Oh, that's really good, and it's much better than my proposal. Let's call that enmeshment, meaning I don't know, if I take on your feelings, then I, you know, let me just, let me tell you this, let me share a story with you, if you don't mind. Like, when we teach empathy, I have two people stand in the front of the room far away from each other with an

outstretched hand. And I have them grab that hand and say, I ask the two people, where do you end and this other person begins? And they're clutching each other's hands. And there's like, well, it's kind of hard to say. Then I say, if you do not know where you end and someone else begins, you are not practicing empathy. You're in a meshment. If you're clear where you end and someone else begins. because here's the thing. If you, the way I describe empathy when we're teaching it is you've got this kind of hole in the ground. And I'll link to a video on the podcast where we have someone drew a little cartoon of this, but that's really kind of think helpful. And I come up to you and I see you're in this hole, Adam, and I'm like, hey, you okay?

What's going on? You see, I'm really, I'm in this really hard place. If I just jump in that dark hole with you, that just means you've got two people in deep shit. It's not helpful at all. That's effective, that's affective empathy. I know, oh, I'm going to feel what, now we're both in the dark hole. I get it. It's shitty down here. My job is to remain whole while being curious about your situation and listening to your situation and letting you know that I see you. I'm glad you shared with me and you're not alone. It's not about jumping in the hole with you.

Does that make sense? Makes sense. That's profound. That is such a beautiful encapsulation of what's wrong with affective empathy. And I think you crushed it. I mean, teaching it for 20 years, but I do think, like, especially imagine in a situation where you've been teaching, you know, I teach, interesting, I teach an MBA program now and not in a social work program, but we still teach empathy as part of Dare to Lead.

And so many people think that the kind thing to do is to jump in the hole. And it almost goes back to one of our earlier podcast conversations about generosity as other-focused. When you're not taking care of yourself and your emotional sovereignty. When you're not doing that, you're not being other-focused. And that is a very difficult paradox going back to yet another podcast. Yeah, it is. Do you understand what I'm saying, though? I think that's brilliant.

I think we want empathy and compassion. We don't want enmeshment. We do not want enmeshment. Emmishment is like, I don't know where I begin and you end. And if you feel good, I feel good. And if you're sad, I'm sad. and it's over identification and it's secondary trauma. And it's, I'll tell a really personal story.

I'm trying to, I've been debating whether I should tell it or not, because it's really hard. When I wrote my first curriculum on shame, I collected research by going into, with clinicians, with therapists, I am not one. I have one, I am not one, but going in and co-facilitating the work with clinicians who were trained to do that. And it was a really hard experience because we were running one set of groups at the Houston Area Women's Center, which is domestic violence and sexual abuse and a lot of women living in shelters. During this period of time, I don't know if you remember this news story, Andrea Yates drowned her. four or five kids in Houston. Do you remember this story? Yeah, it was, it was like really devastating. And I couldn't get out from underneath that story. I think I was, I think Ellen was young. I don't think Charlie was born yet. I don't know what year it was, but, and I actually almost stopped

functioning. And I was doing this like very serious visualization of what that process must have looked like and how it worked and like just really crazy stuff. And I think I was a relatively new mom. So it must have been, you know, Ellen's 26 now. So I went to go see my therapist. And her name's Diana. And she asked me this really weird question that I felt like was out of the blue. She said, I bet when you're kind of co-facilitating these groups,

piloting this curriculum at the women's shelter, I bet you're hearing horrific stories. And I said, I am. And she said, are you reliving those in your mind and putting yourself in those images and putting your daughter in that situation? I said, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

And she said, why? And I said, because, I don't know, I have a job to do in there. And she said, what's your job in there? You're not the clinician. And I said, well, at the very least, my job is to be empathic. And she said, let's stop right here. You cannot work from a place of empathy when you take on the suffering of other people.

What you're doing with this news story is you're not being overly empathetic. You came in here telling me that your empathy has gotten you in trouble. Your empathy has not gotten you in trouble. Your over-identification and secondary trauma. has got you in trouble. And I was like, what? Right. And I was like, I don't understand. She said, yes, you do. Say it back to me. And I said, I'm over identifying. I'm taking on the feelings. I'm doing this really dangerous visualization. And I'm becoming traumatized by something that didn't happen to me. Therefore, I'm of no use. And she said, yes. And so that not,

night when I got home, it was really interesting. I was telling Steve about my therapy session, and my husband's a pediatrician. And he sees a disproportionate number of really hard cases because he doesn't use a hospitalist to follow his patients. He does all the, his own following. And so I said, what do you make of what Diana said today about this, I'm subjecting myself to secondary trauma and enmeshment versus boundaries and distance and empathy? And he said, when I have to tell a parent something heart-wrenching about a test result with their child or something, I have a rule. And it is I walk up to the fence. I lean over the fence. I embrace. I hug. I often cry with. But I have a job in that room. And I never walk through the gate. Because when I become that parent, I can no longer help that parent. Do you think that's what we're talking about here? So powerful.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're talking about here. And it speaks to a couple of things. One is, you alluded earlier to the problem of people just kind of scrolling and watching reels and short videos as opposed to reading. And I've never realized it before, but this is one of the reasons that I don't watch the news. ever. I only read the news. In part, I want to carry it my own feed as opposed to letting other people show me what to watch. But I think just as much of it as I listen to you is not wanting to be enmeshed in the melodrama of other people's suffering, but wanting to think about it and think critically about it, which is much easier to do when reading than watching. Because I don't

get emotionally overloaded, and I can ask myself, is there something I can do here to be helpful? I mean, it's so weird. I didn't know that about you. I only read the news as well. And I read the BBC and I read Al Jazeera. I read across news. And I absolutely have a curated reading list that I read every morning. Multiple perspectives, but I read it. And one of the reasons I read it is exactly, I didn't even know why I did that, because the whole idea, if it bleeds, it leads and an emotional manipulation through visuals, when I read, this is weird, this is counterintuitive, when I read, I am much more likely to understand how my daily decisions are impacting other people in ways that are not okay with me, ethically and morally,

when I watch my nervous system becomes so overwhelmed, I just shut it down and I go straight to fuck it. I can't do this. And I don't change my behaviors. This is also why I will never watch Chandler's List. But I've read a ton of Holocaust literature. And I feel like my worldview has been shaped heavily by reading and Frank and Victor Frankel and Pre-Frank

and Primo Levy. But I do not want the images in my brain that I can't unsee and especially can't unfeel. I wonder what happens in a world where I actually think compassionate numbing, like kind of compassion fatigue. I think we just shut down. I think just too much is too much,

and we can't do it. You know, we have to wrap that pretty soon, but one of the things I think is interesting to bring in here that, I got it, maybe you'll know the scholar's name, I can't forget, and you're so good at this, just world theory? Melvin Lerner. Okay.

That whole idea that I remember when I was writing, I don't know, I don't remember which book it was, I was writing on, I think it might have been the book on Women in Shame. This idea that using mock juries as research, and they would tell the graphics, story of, you know, this was a 80-year-old woman who was killed in this incredibly violent way. And the jury would say death penalty or most severe consequence. And then they'd say, let me add a variable. She was a sex worker when she was younger. Well, I don't know. Maybe that punishment's too much. Like how, the only way we get up in the morning and make it through the day is if we have this really kind of theory in our minds that it's a just world,

that if I use my car seat and I don't drink and drive, that my car will never be the image on the 10 o'clock news turned upside down with a car seat 30 feet away from it. Like, I'll never be that person and that we live in this just world. And that bad things only happen to bad people. And I actually believe when we oversaturate with images, it drives the thinking because our nervous system can't handle it. And we start thinking, how did you get yourself into the situation? You know, as opposed to taking an information where we can stay emotionally moved but cognitively engaged to interrogate our own behaviors. Yes. And that's where instead of feeling concerned and trying to help, we blame and shame the victim.

Because in a just world, it must have been their fault. They must have deserved it. I mean, yeah, can you imagine these mock juries saying, oh, I think it was some kind of like brutal situation, like stabbed in the head or something. And, you know, they're like full sentence, whatever it is, life without parole, death penalty, whatever the harshest sentence was, until they got one variable that when she was. was younger, she was a sex worker. Well, maybe we let them off the hook. Like, it goes back to dehumanization. And I think we, you know, when you, I did a deep dive into dehumanization and the practice of dehumanization as, and the use of language in dehumanizing tactics and moving people out of kind of a moral arena where the rules of humanity apply to them. When we, yes, you can use dehumanizing language.

Yes, you can dehumanize people in graphic representation. We've seen history books full of that. I think we're seeing it now with immigrants. Choice words like infestation. You know, like, but the thing that no one talks about is you can also leverage imagery and oversaturate imagery and frame news stories. in ways that also more subtly and possibly more dangerously lead to dehumanization.

I think the moral of the story is, for me, for this podcast, is nuance matters. There's different types of empathy and measurement, not good. And maybe invitation to people listening to read and not watch and take your own inventory of how that shows up in your life. what's your takeaway? It was a hard conversation today.

You captured it much better than I would have. My big light bulb from this conversation is definitely in meshment. And linking that, which I never thought to do, even though I've been doing it in my daily habits, to these very vivid visceral images that are great at commanding our attention, both on the news and on social media and saying, I don't want to get enmeshed. I want to maintain empathy and compassion.

And therefore, I need to process in a way that gives me a healthy distance from these events, but also gives me balanced information about what's going on. Yeah, and I think for me, the light bulb moment is when I don't know where I end and you begin, not only does that drive compassion fatigue and empathy fatigue, the good kind of empathy fatigue, emmeshment gives me an exit ramp from accountability. Because if I know where I end and you begin, then I can more accurately assess how my decisions are affecting your suffering.

And I think we just, for me, the caution of this conversation is when people attack a construct that for you or for me or for anyone has meaning, dig in. You know, dig in because there's probably a fair amount of nuance to understand. Darede Lead is produced by Brunay Brown, Education and Research Group. Music is by the Sufferers. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Dear to Lead on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcasts.boxmedia.com.