Empathy vs People-Pleasing: How to Tell the Difference
Episode 22: Are You Empathetic or Just People-Pleasing? with Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli
Empathy vs people-pleasing: how do you know which one you are actually doing?
You say yes when you want to say no. You feel bad for someone who is clearly taking advantage of you. You tell yourself that is just what caring people do.
But is that empathy, or is it your nervous system working overtime to keep the peace?
In Episode 22 of The Truth About Healing Podcast, Dana Carretta-Stein welcomes Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli, a clinical psychologist with more than 45 years of experience and the author of 17 books, including The Power of Empathy, Soul Fire, and Soul Doctor.
Together they unpack the difference between empathy and sympathy, why “I just felt bad for him” often is not empathy at all, and how people-pleasing patterns can begin in childhood, when pleasing is the only way to stay safe.
They also explore how empathic listening changes brain chemistry, why group therapy can be so powerful for healing trauma, and how to start editing the inner voice you inherited from other people.
And it raises an important question:
Are you listening with empathy, or are you rushing in to please?
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Episode Highlights
In this episode, Dana and Dr. Ciaramicoli talk about:
Why sympathy rushes in to identify, while empathy slows down
How empathic listening produces oxytocin and helps the nervous system feel safe enough to be vulnerable
Why “I felt bad for him” is not the same as empathy, and how people-pleasing can start in childhood
Why empathy is an assessment skill that tells you who to get close to and who to keep at a distance
How group therapy creates an empathic witness, and why “fine” and “nothing” are not allowed answers
How the stories we absorb early in life become the inner voice we carry as adults
Whether empathy can be taught, and what is possible when it has been suppressed
Why you can understand someone without agreeing with them
How to work with resistance by following what happens in the body
Where to start with Dr. Ciaramicoli's books, including Soul Doctor
Memorable Quote
“Sympathy is to identify, and empathy is to slow down.” - Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli
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Further Learning & Resources
Discover journals, workbooks, consultation resources, and recommended tools designed to support both personal healing and professional growth.
EMDR Therapy Progress Journal
The EMDR Therapy Progress Journal helps clients track healing progress, identify
patterns, document insights, and stay connected to their therapeutic journey between sessions.
Perfect for:
EMDR clients
Trauma recovery work
Reflection between sessions
Tracking healing milestones
EMDR Coach Treatment Planning Workbook
Designed specifically for EMDR therapists, this workbook helps simplify case
conceptualization, target sequencing, and treatment planning.
Ideal for:
EMDR-trained clinicians
EMDR consultation groups
Organizing complex cases
Strengthening treatment planning skills
Meet Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli
Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli is a clinical psychologist with more than 45 years of experience and the author of 17 books. His work centers on empathy and the profound effect it can have on individuals, especially in group therapy.
He is the co-author of The Power of Empathy and the author of Soul Fire and Soul Doctor: Rewiring the Mind to Reveal What Suffering Has Concealed, which he describes as a collection of all his work. He also leads therapy groups that have been meeting for 40 years.
The loss of his brother at a young age shaped his desire to understand depression and the healing power of being truly listened to.
Explore his work:
Website: empathysolution.com
Books: Soul Fire and Soul Doctor are both available on Amazon
Connect with Dr. Ciaramicoli on Instagram and Facebook
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Meet Our Host Dana Carretta-Stein, LMHC
Dana Carretta-Stein is an LMHC, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, founder of The EMDR Coach, and founder of Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling (PLMHC).
Her work focuses on trauma-informed therapy, nervous system healing, EMDR therapy, attachment patterns, and helping people understand the deeper roots behind emotional and behavioral patterns.
Dana blends neuroscience, trauma-informed education, and direct honesty in a way that helps listeners feel both validated and challenged to think differently about healing.
Her core belief: Symptoms make sense when you understand the nervous system underneath them.
Trauma-Informed Therapy Through PLMHC
Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling provides trauma-informed therapy for children, teens, and adults.
Services include support for:
Overthinking
Burnout
Trauma
Emotional overwhelm
Nervous system dysregulation
PLMHC offers in-person therapy in Scarsdale and virtual therapy throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida.
If you’ve been searching for trauma-informed therapy in Westchester or EMDR therapy in Scarsdale, support is available.
Full Episode Transcript: Empathy vs People-Pleasing with Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli
Welcome to another episode of The Truth About Healing, the podcast that's here to challenge everything you think you knew about therapy. I'm Dana Carretta Stein, EMDR and neuro-informed therapist, and I'm on a mission to help 10 million people change their patterns, relationships, and future generations by teaching them how to gain control of their nervous system. Let's go with it. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of The Truth About Healing podcast. I'm your host, Dana Carretta Stein, and today I am here with Dr.
Arthur Ciaramicoli. Let me get that right again. Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli. Got it? Did I say it right? Yeah, you said it right. All right, good. So you'd think as a, an Italian I'd be better at pronouncing this, right? So Dr. Ciaramicoli is a clinical psychologist with over 45 years of experience, and he's authored 17 books. His work is all about empathy, and he's studied and taught how the power of empathy has, uh, a profound effect on individuals, especially in group therapy sessions. He lost his brother David at age 23, where his brother took his own life, which had a profound effect on his life and his desire to understand the depths of depression, as he was the last one to talk to him.
So he's got some personal experience here that can really help others to heal as well. Arthur, welcome to The Truth About Healing podcast. Oh, thank you, Dana. I've been excited to meet you. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks for being here too, and thanks for being patient as we navigate all the techy things that come along with recording. Happens all the time. Happens all the time, right?
How Dr. Ciaramicoli Found His Calling
So tell us a little bit about you and just about your work in general. Um, I have, like, some good feedback with the, uh, information I've already gotten from you. But just tell us, you know, how you got started in your work. Well, you being, uh, growing up in an Italian family, you, you probably understand that people were always coming into our home. And, uh, uh Very well, yes. We, we, uh, we, we were famous for inviting immigrants from all over the world into our home. But so my father and mother I think were therapists before I even knew what the word meant.
So we always had people sitting at the kitchen table, and my brother and I would always say, "Oh, no, more another person." You know, "They gotta stay over?" So y you know, they knew what it was to be immigrants. They weren't themselves, but their parents were, so they knew Mm the, about the struggle. So they had a, a, a very soft, compassionate heart for people that were suffering or didn't have a place to live. And my father Mm who was a very good person but a very terrible businessman, my parents owned a small furniture store.
They would give furniture and, you know, "You pay me when you can." Yeah. Of course, you know what that turned out to be. I have a very similar dad. Um, some of Perhaps he would give the shirt off his back. Yeah, so my mother and father would always argue about, uh, "Did you ask for some money?" "Well, they'll pay. They'll pay. They'll pay." Right. Well Right some of them did. A lot of them didn't. And so, you know, that's the way it was. But I saw, I saw the way, particularly my mother was a very good listener. My father was a motivational speaker.
You know, not, not pro not professionally, but he was a World War II veteran, uh, a hero. Um, when I was a little kid, we were watching Walter Cronkite on Sunday night, and there comes a picture of my father because he was in the OSS Oh, wow which was the forerunner to the CIA. He had 14 jumps in e uh, paratroop jumps Oh, wow in enemy territory. So Oh my goodness. Yeah Right he, he, he understood other cultures. He understood suffering. He understood the effects of war. Um, and, uh, so they had a wide range of friends, and they were s particularly sensitive to diversity, people who looked different Mm uh, people who spoke different languages, and we, we were taught to be open.
And so I think I was groomed from an early age. Uh Mm there was no question, uh, I, I didn't know what a psychologist was at that point Mm when I was eight and nine, but, you know, as time went on, I realized that I was naturally drawn to listening to people, to Right trying to tease out the potential in people that they didn't know they had. I mean, it's, a lot of it's just being a human, right? And now we've, like, have Yeah have a career for it. But yeah, but at the end of the day, we all, I always say that, um, if we all, like, learned how to tap into that natural ability that's there, maybe we wouldn't have jobs, and I'd be okay with that.
Losing His Brother and Discovering the Power of Empathy
So you came from, like, Italian family, a lot of people coming in and out of the home, so a lot of experience I'm hearing, a lot of experience of your parents, you just interacting with people, and then your brother passed away, and you were how old when that happened? I was 28, he was 23. And you said you didn't talk about it for a long time. A, a very long time. I didn't really talk to anyone about it. My parents didn't talk about it. Um, but it became a very depressing household. I was living in New Haven and teaching there in a college.
Uh, and eventually, I would call him every night, and it Mm-hmm it was so depressing that I actually came home and left my job. Because, uh, I just knew they needed me to be there. Um, but I was the last one to talk to him, and he got into drugs and heroin and alcohol and so forth. And what happened was, when I was the last one to talk to him, and this, it really describes how I got interested in empathy. My dad was always a, a, you know, "You can do anything." Po he gave me The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale when I was in the sixth grade.
And he told me There was a big oak tree in our, our football field, and he said, "You can run through that if you want." "If you, if you believe in yourself." And I always I used to go up to the tree and touch it and start to You're like, "I don't know. I'm gonna get hurt if I run right into that thing." How exactly do you do that without killing yourself? You know? Um, so when my brother called me, and he was in Amsterdam, uh, because when he, he was involved in a robbery, he was drunk and high, and Oh, wow someone asked him to drive the car while they went into this store and robbed this Mm particular store man.
And anyway, we wanted him to come home. And when I talked to him on the phone, I gave him that pep talk. And I was not really listening to him. And I realized in retrospect that I was missing things that he was saying, like, "If I have to come home and go to jail, I'll, I'll kill myself." Oh, wow. He said that. Now, instead of, you know, you and I would know how we would respond to that today, and I've been in that situation 1,000 times since. I know how to respond to it now. I did not know how to respond to it. I said, "You don't really mean that.
You " And that's exactly Mm what my dad would do. And what did it do? It went right over his head. So later, um, I was writing a book with Cathy Ketchum, and it was called The Power of Empathy in 2000. And she called me up one night and she said, "You're not telling me the truth." Hmm. And I said, "What do you mean?" "The way you think is so different " And I've written books, I've been the writer for many psychologists. You know, she was a, a, a bestselling author. She said, "But the way you think is so different that I, I know it doesn't come from graduate school.
I just know it." Yeah. "And, and you're not telling me the truth. Will you just tell me the truth?" Yeah. And I said, "I told you the truth." She goes, "Go home and write anything you w just write down what really where this is coming from." Yeah. "Don't worry about-" I think that she called BS on you. So I wrote about my brother, and that was the first time. And that was the first story in The Power of Empathy Okay is what did he create in me? I was then very influenced by the work of Heinz Kohut, who was the founder of self psychology, who talked about empathy being th that way of entering into another person's soul, and it was the way to create trust.
And you know from your work with, with trauma Yeah that if you don't create trust, I mean, what happens? You can't go anywhere. Nothing. Nothing. If you just give people theory, nothing. But when they trust you, and we know now what I didn't know then, that empathy produces oxytocin. You know, when I emp empathize with you and you with me, we produce that near miracle hormone. What does that do? It relaxes people, it makes them feel calm. It produces The bonding hormone, right? calming neurochemical. And now I can be vulnerable.
So I know Now I feel safe to be vulnerable realize with people Yep, yeah. The people w who traumatized, that's the first step. That empathic listening had incredible power. So we wrote that book, The Power of Empathy, and then, you know, many books after that still incorporating what empathy can do. It is, it's so powerful. And in today's society, we're missing that. I think that people have a You know, the loudest voices outweigh the wisest.
Empathy vs Sympathy: Why Empathy Slows Down
I think people sometimes have the wrong definition of empathy. Do you see that, too? Yeah, I think a lot of people think empathy is sympathy. And sympathy is identifying with you. You say, "Oh, you know, um, I was in a traumatic car accident." I say, "Oh, I, I was too. I know exactly how you feel." Right. Well, I don't know exactly how you're feeling. Because you're a different human being than I am, and that's where empathy comes in. Sympathy rushes in to identify. Empathy slows down. That's the phrase that always Ooh, I like that goes with empathy.
I like that. Slows down. Slows down. 'Cause when I slow down, you slow down. So sympathy And then you start to relax I'm gonna repeat, sympathy is to identify Yeah and empathy is to slow down. And then we, and then we change brain chemistry. And, and you know with the, in, you know, as I said with your work with people who are traumatized Yeah that calming feeling doesn't exist in them. But they borrow it from us when we're listening with empathy. So we're, we're lending. I'm lending you my empathy. I always, like, pull from Deb Dana with polyvagal, um, theory Yes where we always say, you know Yes, yes borrow my nervous system.
Yeah, borrow my Right? Borrow my nervous system Yeah, that, yeah, that's, yeah, perfect borrow my mirror neurons, and that's why it's so important for the therapist to be a regulated and regulating presence for their clients. Yeah, so empathy definitely is, I think, I agree with what you said, is what's missing in this world. And, um,
Why Is Empathy Missing in Our Society?
where do you think people get stuck? What makes it so hard for them to tap into empathy? Well, right now in our society, w we're being led by a lot of ego-driven, wealthy, wealth-driven individuals who are in extremely powerful positions. And unfortunately, and th this bothers me to no end Hmm. Yeah, let it rip. I pray on my knees every night for this to change, that young men particularly follow these people because they think this is the way to be successful, and that a lot of these people are so ego-driven that money is their god.
There's no spiritual development. Money is the god. That's kinda like So how, what you said about your dad, right? How he really didn't care if anybody paid him or not, because he was really just, he had empathy. He was understanding their situation and their experience, but money wasn't the driving force. Yeah, money wasn't the driving force. But it is in our society today. And you see leaders lack empathy. I mean, they're loud, they're boisterous, they're ar there's an arrogance Yep to the leaders now in our political world, and people are profoundly affected by it.
It gives a false Profoundly affected by it perception of what it means to, what it means to actually be a leader. And, and, and those type of leaders focus on division. That's how they Yes there's a good and bad. Rather than leaders who focus on bringing people together. You know, I w I was a history major when I first went to college, so we had to read Mein Kampf, Hitler's book. If you read that book, in the English translation obviously, if you read that book, it's the same steps that ego-driven leaders take today. First suck people in and you tell them, "I'm for you and we're against them.
We've got a good and bad." Right. "They're bad, we're good. You follow me, I'll take care of you." Mm-hmm. And, and over time, slowly but surely, especially with, i with the media today, Instagram and Twitter and so forth Yeah You create a following, you create a cult, and you appeal Yes either to the very rich or the very poor and the disenfranchised. But I'm gonna save you, so you believe in me and I'll take care of you. And we'll fight against those people. That black-and-white thinking that creates division over and over and over.
Soul Fire and Moving Out of Helplessness
This is why I wrote the book Soul Fire, because I was so disturbed by people, patients and friends c telling me constantly they feel helpless. And I say, "Well, we're not helpless. There's something inside you, inside your soul. There, there's a depth of goodness there that if you touch it, if y if you get in touch with it and you express it, it's not passive." Right. And empathy's not passive either. You know? It, it's You know, being neutral isn't, is not a virtue. It's hoarding. It's not sharing what we have Right to give to the world.
So I wrote that book to try to motivate people that would discover what's in, in the depth of your being. That's your essence. You know, some people call it, spiritualists call it the breath of God. Or, or divine, the divine breath. But it, it's where the purest part of us is. The problem is, is if you have a lot of conflict and trauma in your life, you can't touch that place. So we have to have people sort of do those, do those exercises, listen to people Yeah get feedback from other people.
The Power of Group Therapy and the Empathic Witness
It's why, you know, I have three groups that have been ongoing for 40 years. It's why they're so effective. Because you start to learn how to be present, and that in a, in a group like this, nobody cares about your resume. They don't care what school you went to. They don't care how m much money you have. They care about how you listen Yeah do you have compassion, do you have empathy, and do you understand me? Do I feel known in your presence? Sounds like intimacy, right? It's like cultivating Yeah. Yes intimacy Yes to be able to, um, be seen and heard.
And Yes the beauty of, of group sessions is that especially with trauma, is trauma's not just what happens to us, but it's, um, what happens in the absence of an empathic witness, right? And so when we go Mm-hmm into a group session, we're creating that experience of having an empathic witness to our pain in an accepting Yes vulnerable environment. And being able for people who are traumatized, being able to talk about it beyond what they ever have. Just like me with my brother. You know, answer, "How are you doing?" "Fine." But we, in the group we don't allow And even my family, fine was not allowed.
And, and, and if you say, "What's bothering you?" "Nothing." W fine and nothing are not allowed. Those are words we don't use. They're bad words. They're bad words. They're off the table. So you teach people to find more labeling. You know? Well Language well, tell me what it was like. Language. I always say like adjectives And language shapes I tell my son, "Give me adjective words. Let's describing words." Yes, exactly. And language changes brain chemistry. Because now I've really I've brought you back to the scene, and of course you can't do this right away with people.
I Yeah I see people in individual therapy for at least six months before I transfer them to group. And so I make sure they trust me. We've had that That's important empathic connection. So I just don't add them to a group of strangers. By that time, and they're all very anxious to join Yeah but they trust me that I wouldn't be doing this for them or with them Right to put them in a hurtful position. And also it can be very, um almost re-traumatizing to be thrown into a group setting without that transition in to slowly Yes build trust with you, and then that has, they're more likely to be comfortable being vulnerable enough in a group setting 'cause there's someone they know there.
For all the therapists out there, this is why people who start groups don't, it doesn't work. You, you keep, you, you start, they don't have a relationship with you. You're taking very vulnerable traumatized people and say, "Oh, let's go talk and open up to these 10 strangers." Is that good? You good with that? I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. It's a I can just imagine everyone sitting there like this. Like frozen Right of like, and like, no Yeah oh, who wants to start this week? And no one raises their hand because they're all like, "Well, screw this." Right.
Like, "I don't feel Yes comfortable enough." Yeah. You d you haven't established the empathic connection. And when you establish the empathic connection, then you can transfer and start the rewriting of the story. You know,
Rewriting the Story You Wrote About Yourself
I believe that most people go to their grave, Dana, having this story they wrote early in life about themselves from feedback they got from other people with distortions in their own minds Yes and they believe it's true. That's who I am. You know? So we teach people to identify the voices in their head. Who said that? Where'd you learn that? You know, I Right? Who's, what, when You know, I, I have a client who I've known for some time, and when I first met her, um, she was an avid tennis fan and loved tennis. I said, "Did you ever play?" "No.
No, I never played." "Why'd you never play?" "Well, you know, I had three older brothers who were very athletic, and me, the youngest, my father said, 'Girls don't play sports.' "So I was a cheerleader." I said, "So you've never played tennis?" "Yeah." And then she goes, "Well, I'm not athletic." "How do you know you're not?" How do you know that? "Well, my, my dad said I'm not athletic like my brothers." "So you've never swung a tennis racket, and you know you're not athletic 'cause your dad said so?" Right. "And your brother just teased you." Right.
'Cause she was a little overweight. She couldn't be a Well, anyway. Six years later, she's now the coach of a high school tennis team I love that because she's a, she is an excellent tennis player. I mean, it's a small example, but you see, there's a belief system. And And when we're that young We're so impressionable boom, it just gets encoded. We're so impressionable. Like, especially Yeah when, when we're really, really small, like, and as a mom of young children right now, it's something I'm so aware of because, you know, the words that we use to, the language that we use to speak to our children becomes their inner voice growing up.
And that's why, like, you know, I, as a mom, I'm so conscious of that, of the words I use that, what I say to my children, letting them have their own opinion, letting them have their own, you know, thought and feeling about something. I'm still the one in control keeping them safe because that's my job, right? Just because they have a feeling, like, "I feel like playing my iPad," doesn't mean that they can, right? But they're allowed to have their own, you know, exploration of things to figure out what it is that they like.
Even if I don't understand it Well, you're trying to understand it. And that, that i that interest conveys self-worth Right to your children. Because I'm interested in you. I may, I may not even have the answers, but I'm still interested in Right learning what you're struggling with, and maybe we can figure this out together. I always tell my son, and 'cause he's just turned seven and he's at that age where, you know, seven I've seen is, like, almost the magic number where there's so much more awareness socially and things like that.
Um, and I always say to him, "I can't fix things that come up. I can't fix your feelings, but I can make sure you're never alone with them." Oh, that's a great s boy. That's just so imp Every parent in the world ought to hear that one. It's just so much of, like, what I know I wish I probably heard more growing up, and through no fault of my parents at home. But, like, you know, they always say, like, parenting doesn't come with a handbook. W maybe it should. Maybe there should just be, like, a little booklet of, like, here's some, you know, foundational things that we should all know when we start having children.
So empathy, you see, is something that is, like, crucial and really important. Where do you think So, like, um,
Can Empathy Be Taught?
there's some individuals we'll say with, um, you know, these personality disorder diagnoses. I mean, I know I'm not a big fan of diagnoses in general as a trauma clinician. But things like, um, sociopathy, narcissism, where empathy is usually lacking. Do you think that empathy is something you're born with? Because some people will say, like, "Oh, you know, you can't teach empathy." But what do you think about that? Well, I totally disagree that you can't teach it. I do believe we're all born with empathy neurons. And in my groups over the years, almost every man that I've added, somebody told me m m m most often their wives, "He doesn't have the empathy gene." Mm-hmm.
Well, he doesn't have the empathy gene because it's been suppressed Right because nobody has developed it. And when they come into a group where they have a male leader who they see as y y you know, not passive and athletic and sort of part of their image, but also who can be vulnerable and, you know, if I have tears in my eyes and somebody's telling a story, I'm not embarrassed. It's just about how I react, how anyone could or should react. So over time, they develop empathy. But I've had to learn one thing the hard way.
When I worked in a hospital, I, I had a department in a hospital for 25 years, and I used to get referred the psychopaths all the time because I was most curious about where is the empathy. And I always thought, you know, and maybe a little ego-driven, that I'm gonna find it in you. Hopeful. But there was I call that hopeful. But there was some, Dana, that I didn't. And I had to learn that, guess what? Whatever happened to it, it's not there now. And this man's 50. And he's ruining people's lives. And he likes it. You know, that's the part I had the hardest trouble with, sadistic behavior.
Like, this man enjoys hurting other people. And I, I think that, uh, particularly with politicians, most Americans don't know what that is because they don't recognize it at first. Because they can be bright and charming, and not abusive in the beginning, because they, you know The charming is a big one, right? Yeah, that. Yeah, yeah, charming and Lure them in, yep know, know where to compliment you. K know where the fragility is to, to address it Mm-hmm and make a person feel like they're loved and special because they probably never were.
And then you get abused. We know that with Of course we know that with women.
Empathy vs People-Pleasing: Why Feeling Bad Isn't Empathy
And, you know, years ago, I was very fortunate to be driving in a car listening to NPR. And I'll never forget, this journalist was doing an interview with a pimp in New York City Oh, wow who al always went to high-level bars and restaurants, and she wanted to know how it happens. And he said, "I'll show you how. You wanna come with me?" And she said, "Yeah." So th w I'm listening to this, okay? They go into a bar, and he sits down, and everyone is dressed flawlessly. You know, obviously this is people who are very wealthy.
And he says to one woman, "Buy me a drink." And she looks at him, gets up, and walks away. He said, "Oh, watch this. Hey, buy me a drink." "Well, um, what drink do you want?" And he looks at the interviewer, and he goes, "I got her." Hmm. Can you imagine someone saying to you, "Buy me a drink," and you say, "W what do you want?" Yeah. He touched on the fragility immediately. The first woman had self-worth and probably no trauma background, or she had worked through it Right and said, "Really? Bye." Yeah, "Go take a walk." Like The other woman you don't tell me what to do.
Yeah acts confu yeah, the other woman acts confused, and she bought him a drink. And we'll usually And he looked at her and he said label that as, "Oh, I felt bad for him." Right? Yeah, felt Yeah, yeah, I felt bad for him. That's usually what we always say. How many times have you heard that one? And we confuse that with empathy, right? That's the thing I see especially with, with women, um, they, that I feel bad, and they think Yes it's empathy, and it's n no. That's, yeah. That's not what empathy is. Empathy is the capacity to understand the unique experiences of another.
Not us projecting on our past onto another person. I understand uni uniquely. And empathy is an assessment skill. It's everyday mind reading. It tells me who to get close to and who to remain distant from. That first woman said, "You're a guy I want nothing to do with." The other woman was confused. Because he's giving her something. What? Attention. Negative attention, but it's attention. So she buys him the damn drink. It's like I love that saying, like, "Children who weren't, um, fed love on a silver spoon learn to lick it off knives." Yeah.
And it's like a Oh, that's a good one right? I love that one Yeah 'cause it's so I'm, I love good analogies, and it's Yeah but it's so telling too, where if even negative attention, it's still attention. So it's something. And it's, and it's familiar attention. 'Cause it's the kind of attention that person most likely has gotten early on. You know? And we will always be attracted That kind of to what's familiar That kind of dad not what's healthy. Angry, kind of dismissing. Demanding. And then she becomes a people pleaser. Because pleasing is the only way to keep him quiet.
So what would you say to any individual, male or female, of, you know, when that, that, uh, response comes, "Oh, well I feel bad," what would you Like what kind of like truth bomb would you throw at them as, you know, what's really coming up for them? I think just starting to try to uncover it. Okay, so you feel bad because of what? Well, he asked me for something. O okay. So what you're saying is if somebody asks you for something, no matter who it is, and even if it's unreasonable, you should give it to them? Is that, is that what you're saying?
Just by the fact of hearing somebody else say it. You know, 'cause people often say, "Oh, that sounds silly." W well, yeah, but you just told me you would do that. You just told me you did do that. Well, now you're making fun No, I'm not making fun of you, I'm trying to understand you. Let's try to understand What's driving it where this comes from. So wh when did you, when do you, how do you think you learned that? To be that way, that a man asks you for something and you're not really assessing who it is that's asking you.
You just, you have to comply. "Oh, well, I grew up that way." What do you mean you grew up that way? "Well, my dad was that way. He would ask for stupid things and get mad, and then the next day not get mad at that thing at all, and I never knew what the hell was right or wrong." Right. Oh, so y you're kind of seeing your dad in this situation. Well, let's talk about your dad. What about your dad? And, you know, you go deeper and deeper Yeah and deeper, but what's supplying the root? Empathy. Because people generally can't resist empathic listening.
They can't. Human beings wanna be known. Yeah, we all wanna be And when you develop understood and seen yes. And when you develop that neurochemical change Now you're in a position of both parties listening. So tell me again, so-and-so asks you, and you feel Yeah, yeah. Well, do you think you could, in the middle of that, catch yourself? And assess him? Who's asking? What's the source? And is it reasonable to ask somebody th that? Like a stranger in a bar, "Buy me a drink." Right. I mean Right. So you're uncovering it, but in group, you're uncovering it in front of all these other people.
So Mary says to Jane, "I've done that all my life." And Jane says, "Well, how'd you stop doing it?" "Well " And then Frank said, "Well, my dad was like that." And then Joe says, "I hate to admit this, but I've been like that." Mm. So now Mary's gonna react to Joe, who's been like that, and now you have a real depth of understanding. Because where did he come from? And now she's afraid because if I understand him, that means I agree, right? Let's stop and Slow it down, yeah let's stop the, the movie and look at that one.
What do, what do you mean you have to agree? You can understand and not agree. Do you really agree? You think the way he used to act was okay? Well, he's trying. That's true. Is he, is he out of the woods? That's a big one. Joe, are you out of the woods? No. That's a, that's a huge point to make, that understanding doesn't mean agreeing, right? And that's something like, you know, I find myself repeating all the time, is that you don't have to agree with somebody to try to understand them, to try to like, you know, just, you know, have that empathy and kind of see how they got to that place where they are.
Working With Resistance and Dissociation
Now, what would you do if, um, because s with complex trauma that I deal a lot with, there's a lot of, um, dissociation that I see a lot in session, and those protective ego states. So when you try to be curious and you try to, um, you know, use empathy to connect with someone and they resist it What do you do there? Well, y you follow their affect. So I'm the person and I'm resisting it, and maybe you wanna know what's that about. "You don't have to tell me anything. You don't have to tell me a single thing, but what just happened?" Mm-hmm.
"What do you mean?" "Like in your body, what just happened?" Yeah. "Well, I feel tense." "Okay. Let's talk about that. Again, we're not gonna talk about the trauma or the situation. We're not gonna say a word about that." Right. "But what happened in your body?" Right. "Well, you were gonna make I was gonna make you?" Mm-hmm, but that narrative But we quickly came up, right? Where, where's that coming from? "Well, I think you were g um, based on what?" That quick assumption. "Have I in any session made you do anything you wanted, didn't wanna do?" Yeah, yeah.
Well, people always do, "This is because you're a therapist," so what you're thinking is most people would make you do things. See, now we're off on a whole different Yep w we're not, we're not talking about the trauma directly Right but we are indirectly because this is what I always call it like going in sideways like a crab, right? You're going from the Yeah you come in in the back door. Like we say Yeah like in EMDR, we say, "Well, you join the resistance. You steer into the skid." So if there's that resistance that you're met with, I usually welcome it of like, "Oh, wow," like, like, "Tell me what just happened in your body," like because the, the body has all the answers.
Well, you know, van der Kolk discovered that. I, you know, I, I I'm old enough that I, when he was younger, w we had him as a speaker and I met him several times and Yeah and, and I remember us walking away saying, "Well, w w-" Yeah, he's in Boston too, right? That's He's in your area. Pardon me? He's in your area too, right? He was in the area, yeah, and, and we'd walk away saying, "What does he mean it's in the body? It's in the body?" And of course, over time you realize it's in my body. I don't know about you. It's all, it's our nervous system.
Well, how do you get it out of your body? Well, you know. Steer into the skid. You embrace it first. That's the way.
Where to Start With Dr. Ciaramicoli's Books
So you've written a lot of books over the years. So if someone Yep is really starting their own, um, healing journey, which one of your books, I almost like I picture in my head like the Marvel movies, right, of like which one to start with, like where should they start? I think this last book called Soul Doctor Mm Rewiring the Mind to Reveal What Suffering Has Concealed, is a collection of all my work. And, and one of my very close friends, who's also a clinical psychologist, said, you know, the, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm not complimenting myself.
This is what he said. It's okay to be He said, "I think this is You know the best book written on psychotherapy because you take it really all through these steps." Mm. And, and I, and I'm, I'm reviewing my work every chapter. So Oh, I like that it I talk a lot about empathy, but I also talk about neurochemistry because we didn't have neurochemistry when I published The Power of Empathy back in 2000. I knew, Dana, that something happened between people. But I couldn't describe it, uh, but I knew it 'cause I felt it. Now we know oxytocin.
Now we have the science behind it. Now we have the science behind it. Something changes. And it creates And that's very cool 'cause it gives us the words Yeah to go with that feeling. We know we feel it, and now we're like Yes "Oh, that's what this is? Cool." Like And people get fascinated by it because they re oh, I can change brain chemistry? Uh, you start screaming at me, you're gonna s change my brain chemistry. Even though I'm, I'm not generally an anxious person, I'm s I'm gonna start releasing cortisol. You're yelling at me Right you know, and you're calling me names.
I mean Right and what's the opposite of that? Calmness Right kindness, openness Right and changing that mood, changing the environment, 'cause the original environment created this. Now we're providing another environment with a different, new experience Right. Right to change that. But Soul Doctor, I think I would If you're gonna buy any, uh, read any of my books, I would recommend that because it, it's a conglomeration of all these years. So it's like that, yeah Of really understanding the everything come together the self.
And mainly this, it's, it's about the self voice Mm-hmm the way we talk to ourselves. How we learn to talk to ourselves. Now, I said earlier, as I said earlier, I think people go to their graves believing that the way they talk to themselves is created by them. But you weren't the author. And you didn't know how to edit it. But now is the time. I'm gonna help you edit it. Yeah, it's about finding your own true voice, not, you know, the voice that, like, it, it's not you. Like, I always love to ask clients, like, "Where did you learn that?" Right?
"Is that what you really believe, your true, authentic self?" And disconnecting that and unblending that, right, from these other, uh, experiences that have created these belief systems in us. I,
Editing the Voice in Your Head
I'll give you a quick example. I had a puppy years and years ago when I was in graduate school, a Siberian husky. There's the cutest puppies. So the husky A and I was terrible at training the dog, terrible. Okay, so I get up in the middle of the night. He had pooped on the floor, and I stepped in it. And I said, "Oh, why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing this to me?" And my roommate got up and he goes, "What the hell's wrong with you? It's a puppy." Yeah. Where was, "Why are you doing this to me?" coming from? That's exactly what my mother would say.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Why, why would a son wanna hurt his mother? Why, why, why would a son wanna do that? So you're a bad son, right? That's, that's the narrative I was using her words we tell ourselves about a dog to a dog. And then you're just like, "Whoa, this is much more than the poop I just stepped in." Yeah. And thank God I had a dog before I had children, you know? It's just you get to ha work through some of those things. But it is so true. Once you have children as well, it, it does bring up so much of our own stuff.
Like, I remember I was pregnant with my son, and my therapist said to me, "I think some of your family of origin stuff is getting kicked up. I think maybe we need to up the sessions a little bit." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I feel that, too. Let's do it," so we don't repeat the pattern. You know, Freud was asked once, um, there was a, there was a, a psychiatrist who took notes with all what F uh, what Freud would say in a session, and he was an American. And Freud was asked once by him, "If you're not in analysis, 'cause I'm not gonna stay here forever, if you're not in psychotherapy, how do you work through these painful negative conditioning that you have?" And Freud said, "Oh, there's one other way other than therapy.
Have a child." And he And the gent said, "What do you mean have a child?" He goes, "That child is gonna bring you back every year of that child's life Yep to that year of your life." Yep. "And then you'll have a chance to either repeat it or undo it Yep and make it better." Yep. "It's up to y it will be up to you. But it will be there whether you like it or not." Absolutely. Yeah, whether you like it or not, and you will not be able to ignore it.
Where to Find Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli
Tell everyone where they can find your book and where if they wanted to connect with you, where they can, um, how they can do so. Um, the book Soul Fire or, or Soul Doctor, they're both on Amazon. And my website is, uh, empathysolution.com. And, um, I'm on Instagram and Facebook. You can find me there. Um, so pretty easy to get in touch with me. We'll include that in the show notes as well. Uh, Arthur, thank you so much for being on our show today. I think everything that you shared, I mean, I just found myself listening, like, so intently of like, yes, like, this is so good.
Um, so thank you for sharing all of it. I think everyone needs to hear it more. I would definitely love to have you on again to chat more about this stuff, 'cause I think it's so needed in this world. Well, you've been wonderful to interact with. You're, you're a good listener. I think we had mutual empathy, and, and you, you really waste, raised some insightful points, uh, that I will remember. So I'd love to be on again. You just let me know. Thank you so much for being with us. And You're welcome
Podcast Outro
Dana: Thank you, everyone, for listening to another episode of The Truth About Healing podcast. I'm your host, Dana Carretta-Stein, reminding you that we repeat what we don't repair. See you on the next one.
Dana: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Truth About Healing podcast. If you know someone who's still stuck, share this episode with them, because as you know, the truth can set them free. And if you're ready to get started and see what you need to repair, contact us at peacefullivingmentalhealthcounseling.com and we will get you started.
Dana: Until next time, I'm Dana Carretta-Stein, reminding you: we repeat what we don't repair.
Podcast Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health or medical advice. Listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support, contact a licensed professional or your local emergency services.
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Transcript lightly edited for readability while preserving the meaning and conversational tone of the original recording
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