Mirroring emotions not a mental illness

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People often say, “I know how you feel,” or “I feel your pain”. But do we really experience or internalise the emotion or pain? And even if we did tune into someone else’s happiness or pain, do we suffer the aftermath of an incident? In all possibility it’s a no, unless you are suffering from mirror-touch synesthesia.

It’s a condition which makes people not just empathise with others’ emotions but also feel the sensation of touch and pain; thereby the name: mirror-pain or mirror-touch. Explaining this further, psychologist Dr Surbhee Soni says, “It’s a very new finding or concept that has come into the consideration of researchers in USA. It’s still in its pre-emptive state of maturing as a full-blown disorder. It is something to do with hyper empathy where a person feels and experiences the pain of another when he or she narrates the incident that he or she has experienced. It generally leads to an emotionally distressing episode and may sometimes result in a prolonged state of sadness, which may lead to days or months of grieving.”
Dr Chandran Gnanamuthu, senior consultant neurologist at Fortis Hospital says, “It is a common human experience to actually ‘feel’ the joy or sadness of others. This is the basis of empathy. But less than 5-10 per cent can actually feel the touch of another person. These are based on ‘mirror neurons’ that can mirror behaviour and sensation amongst a group of people. These experiences have been found in literature written over 3,000 years ago. However, Giacomo Rizzolatti and others discovered mirror neuronal systems in monkeys in the 1980s. We still have a long way to go before we can clearly understand these experiences from a scientific perspective.”
Dr Prithika Chary, a leading neurosurgeon at Apollo Hos-pitals, says, “When pain is emulated by one individual to another it is called ‘mirror’ and when it involves being felt, it is called ‘mirror touch’.” She adds, “When an individual is touched on the left cheek, the mirror touch synthete feels it on the right cheek if standing in front and on the left cheek when standing alongside. It can be present in more than one member of the family and may have some unknown genetic mechanism.”
People observing those who have contracted this condition pass it off as ‘frayed nerves’ or being ‘super sensitive’. Such medical conditions that have a stigma attached to them, says Dr Chary, must not be considered mental illnesses. Instead one must look at them positively. “The advantage I can see is that these people will be more empathetic and hence hopefully nicer, kinder people. The disadvantage is obvious, each of us feels enough unpleasantness and pain without being forced to feel the pain of others,” she says.
When someone suffers this condition, there is a chance that uninformed family and friends could resort to calming rituals and prayers. Says Dr Soni, “Organically if there is a neural deficit, prayers can’t help much. If that was the case, a lot of simple prayers would have helped our ADHD kids. The condition needs well-researched and systemic treatment.”
Instead of looking at it as a disadvantage, Dr Gnanamuthu says, “Humans are social beings. We are naturally made to connect with each other. Feeling another’s pain, touch or sadness is a non-verbal communication. In a group dance every person in the dance is in sync with the others. We are endowed with mirror neurons and their circuits make this possible. The behaviour of a mob is an example of mirror neurons in action.”
But do people who suffer this condition experience physical pleasure or pain much later or is it instant? Says Dr Gnanamuthu, “Time is a relational concept. Our primary sensory experiences are instantaneous, in real time. But these higher sensory experiences are not time-bound. An experience in the past can bring up the same pain.”
However, if in a relationship or when having an argument will such a person have independent emotions? Says Dr Gnanamuthu, “If you’re a soldier on a battlefield, you will not feel the pain of an enemy soldier dying, in fact you may feel the opposite, pleasure. But if it is your close friend who has been wounded, you are likely to feel his pain — physically and emotionally — and even cry helplessly. In this case, however, you will mirror the same emotion, so you’d cry or laugh with the other person.”