Response to Chris Williamson's "toxic compassion" and the role of emotions in compassionate action.

I have been trying out other podcasts lately, just to get a range of inputs into my thinking, and recently listened to Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast, Episode #723 - 15 Lessons from 2023.
In that episode, he described how pleased he was to have come up with the concept “toxic compassion”. According to Williamson, “Toxic compassion is the prioritisation of short term emotional comfort over everything else, over truth, reality, actual long term outcomes, flourishing, everything. It optimises for looking good, rather than doing good.”
Today, we're going to delve into the role emotions play in compassion and their profound impact on compassionate decision making and action. There is an intricate and delicate dance between our feelings and the choices we make. And sometimes, believe it or not, our apparent compassion can do more harm than good. But there’s a lot of nuance to this, so, let’s get started!
TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK:
Compassion in a T-Shirt
LINKS:
Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast
Episode #723 - 15 Lessons from 2023.
• 15 Lessons From 2023 -...
Seligman et al. (2017). Dental anxiety: An understudied problem in youth.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.04...
Penney and Kirk (2015). The Health at Every Size Paradigm and Obesity: Missing Empirical Evidence May Help Push the Reframing Obesity Debate Forward.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Professor Jonathan Haidt’s website
jonathanhaidt.com/
Twenge et al. (2022). Specification curve analysis shows that social media use is linked to poor mental health, especially among girls
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
If you would like to learn more about compassion focused therapy, you can find Dr Stan Steindl's book The Gifts of Compassion here: www.amazon.com.au/Gifts-Compa...
Say hi on social:
Facebook: / drstansteindl
Twitter: / stansteindl
Instagram: / dr_stan_steindl
LinkedIn: / stan-steindl-150a5264
Website: www.stansteindl.com/
KZbin Video URL:
• Response to Chris Will...
*Affiliate Disclaimer:
Note this description contains affiliate links that allow you to find the items mentioned in this video and support the channel at no cost to you. While this channel may earn minimal sums when the viewer uses the links, the viewer is in no way obligated to use these links. Thank you for your support!
Video hashtags
Chris Williamson, toxic compassion, jordan peterson, compassion, wisdom, strength, courage, commitment, empathy, sympathy, emotions

[@Odinarius]

Greetings, good doctor! This was a very nice video. Clicking on it, I was expecting some "toxic" takedown (thumbnails and titles are very important on KZbin), but as you said in the other comment, you really managed to give some depth and nuance to the topic without ever being adversarial. It is refreshing to listen to videos such as this, with positive content and concrete advice. Keep it up :)

[@drstansteindl]

Thank you! Yes, the thumbnails and titles are so important and I am not sure I have yet nailed that part of the KZbin process. But I appreciate your feedback and encouragement. :)

[@tonyburton419]

The caveat - is (perhaps off the top of my head is) --- "where you are is not your fault - but the task is to accept yourself, be courageous, but accept that finding your way to manage your inner world more helpful;ly". This was deep Stan, - and I will need to listen a number of times ! Great links.

[@drstansteindl]

Yes! That is very CFT - "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility." And wisdom, strength, courage and helpfulness are the way!

[@finophile]

I think you're taking his comments in a specific way. I don't think what you are arguing is what Chris was talking about. He is discussing the signaling world. Speaking of my own experience I can say that few people are actually able (including psychologists) at actually helping people who need it. Your own response indicated a typical clouding of the issues. Chris is not saying "don't be compassionate" ... so you've just clouded his issues to promote your own. Best Wishes

[@drstansteindl]

Hi mate. Thanks for your reply! I agree with you that Chris was talking about a kind of virtue signaling, although I felt like he was also conflating a couple of things at once. The examples he gave that I quoted weren't so much about signaling, as they were examples of how people directly approach certain situations, under the guise of being helpful, but he felt were short term emotional relief and long term actually toxic. He then went onto to talk about online virtue signaling, which I completely get, but I don't actually feel that "compassion", toxic or otherwise, is even really the right word there, so I wasn't commenting on that piece. But you've given me an idea for another video...is virtue signaling compassion? So thanks for that! Stay tuned!! I'm sorry that you felt I clouded things, as my intention was to clarify some of the nuance around the role emotions can play in compassion, sometimes negative and sometimes positive. And that the examples Chris gave highlighted some ideas that were worthy of consideration. As you will have noticed, I didn't even really disagree with Chris, just dug down into the nuance. Actually, do you think nuance is perhaps too cloudy in the modern world? People prefer more black and white categories? That's an interesting thought to ponder too. Btw, I am sorry that your experience of people helping has been negative and ineffective. Thanks again for watching the video and engaging in the discussion!

[@emperorOfMustard]

This response doesn't seem warranted. Chris gave specific examples and this video talks about those specific examples. What is clouded here? I think the insight here was quite valuable. Like the point that if your child is afraid to go to the dentist they still need to go, but you as a parent should use compassion to guide the child through the experience, instead of just telling them to toughen up. The same goes for the other points. We know that shaming and "tough love" doesn't work in general. They usually just make things worse when it comes to body image and mental health issues.

[@drstansteindl]

Thanks so much. And yes, that's really the point I was trying to make. Appreciate your comment!